Aug 2, 2011

From Your Apple Address Book to MailChimp with Chimport

Occasionally, we receive requests for instructions on how to export a group of contacts from your email address book to MailChimp. If you take the time to clean up your address book and avoid a full address book dump, you can import your list safely. We’ve already got a few KB articles that explain how to export contacts from Outlook, Apple’s Address Book and Entourage. But if your list lives in Apple’s Address Book, Chimport might be for you and it’s available on the Mac App Store for free.
Chimport Diagram
Chimport is a utility app that allows you to selectively export contacts from your Apple Address Book, directly to a MailChimp list.

Chimport Does the “Heavy Lifting”

Chimport Screenshot

Chimport Export Window

After you’ve downloaded Chimport from the App Store, log in with your MailChimp API Key. Chimport displays your Address Book groups and contacts. Select the contacts you would like to export, choose a list and click “Export to MailChimp.”

The status bar in the app will tell you how many contacts you’ve exported, how many errors occurred and how many members have been updated. Clicking on the status message will give you a more detailed report if there were errors.

Chimport uploads email, first name and last name from your contact entries to your list. First name and last name will only be uploaded if the FNAME and LNAME merge fields exist on your list, so be sure that they do. If an Address Book contact already exists on your MailChimp list, Chimport will try to update the first and last name fields.

Now that your list has been imported, you might want to take a look at all of MailChimp’s template options. There’s even a way to continue using Apple Mail and Mail’s Stationery to send your campaigns.

Download Chimport on the Mac App Store.

Update: There has been a few changes with the release of Mountain Lion that may require an extra step to make Chimport function properly. If you’re on Mountain Lion you’ll want to go to System Preferences —-> Security and Privacy and then select the Privacy Button. Once there you’ll want to select Contacts on the left hand side and make sure the box next to Chimport on the right hand side has a checkmark. I’ve attached a screen shot of how it should look when setup correctly. Happy Chimporting!

 

Posted By

Stephen

Discussion

  • akzasgroup

    I am getting (null) Error message when I try to Export all Apple mail contacts from from Address Book via Chimport to Mailchimp. I tried exporting just one contact and still to no avail. Help!

    08.22.2011

    reply

    • Kim

      same issue… did you figure anything out? There is no explanation with my error message… can’t even export 1.

      11.21.2011

      reply

      • Stephen

        Hi Kim, We’ve submitted a fix to the Mac App Store and it should be available shortly.

        11.22.2011

  • iraqired

    It works great!!

    But it only ads one email from each contact! Is there something that helps chose which email or something? Thanks

    06.13.2012

    reply

  • kelly

    I keep getting an error message : MMERGE3 must be provided – Please enter a value
    * Chimport only supports First Name, Last Name and Email fields. Please remove the requirement on this field and upload again. Can anyone tell me what this means?

    10.29.2012

    reply

    • John

      Hi Kelly, The Chimport system will only import the First Name, Last Name, and Email of the contacts. In this particular case it looks like you might have MMERGE3 defined in your list as a required field which is why the import isn’t able to complete. If you look here: http://eepurl.com/rbaN5 you’ll see that when setting up your forms you can set a field to be required. If you temporarily remove that check box from required fields, run Chimport and then re-enable it for future subscribers you be all set.

      10.30.2012

      reply

  • katie

    I can’t find Chimport in the App store. Please help!!

    11.20.2012

    reply

      • katie

        When I click on the link to View in Mac App store, it says I need to open it with an application. I choose itunes or firefox and then can not find it. Still confused. Thanks!

        11.27.2012

      • John

        Hi Katie, No problem. You should be able to just choose iTunes and once it loads up you’ll see Chimport on the screen. In the upper left hand side you’ll see a little blue button that should say “Free” and you can click on it and then click “Install” and you should be set. If you’re still having issues our support chimps will be happy to talk you through the process via chat at http://mailchimp.com/support

        11.27.2012

      • katie

        Chimport does not appear in itunes when I load it through there, and it does not show up when I search for it. :( Thanks for your help!

        11.27.2012

      • John

        Hi Katie, Hrmmm, the link I provided earlier is still working for me on this end. Would you mind contacting support to see if they can help you through this? http://mailchimp.com/support

        11.27.2012

  • Khalid

    Hello. I just used this amazing tool to export a list from my Mac’s Contacts to Mailchimp. And because I use Mac’s Mail.app, I’m wondering if there’s a tool to be able to send my newsletters to the subscribers away from Mac’s Contacts, a tool or client for MailChimp…? can someone help? I’d appreciate it a lot. Thank you.

    11.27.2012

    reply

    • John

      Hi Khalid, I’m not entirely sure I understand. Are you asking if there is a client app to send MailChimp campaigns rather than through the web interface?

      11.27.2012

      reply

  • vicky

    I installed the app. But nothing is happening. I have Lion, so I went to System Preferences—Security — Privacy, but did not see the Chimport App to check the box. Don’t know what’s going on??? Can’t get it to work.

    12.18.2012

    reply

    • John

      Hi Vicky, The little security piece referenced above for Lion may not affect all users as I understand it from the Devs. That being said, if you’ve gone ahead and installed Chimport you should be able to head right over to LaunchPad and start it up from there. Once you’re in, you’ll have to click the little gear to “login” with an API key for your account. The following link will show you where to find an API key. http://eepurl.com/im9k

      12.20.2012

      reply

  • Fiona Edelstein

    In privacy on my mac there is no location services, contacts, diagnostics and usage ….doesn’t come up! So can’t take the steps you outline. i am having problems downloading my address book using chimport. It says it has downloaded but i can not locate or use the list.

    01.15.2013

    reply

    • John

      Hi Fiona, What version of Mac OS are you using? The update at the bottom of the post is only relevant to Mountain Lion, so it might be possible you’re seeing differences because of a different OS version.

      01.15.2013

      reply

  • Allison

    Hi, I’m in love with both MailChimp and Chimport. The integration is so seamless.

    However, recently I had a client use it to update her MailChimp lists directly from her computer. It seems that some of the email addresses she had changed in her Address Book did not get updated in MailChimp. She’s using both FNAME and LNAME on these contacts… so should MailChimp recognize that and update new addresses? Thanks so much!

    02.14.2013

    reply

    • John

      Hi Allison, I may not be reading this right, but it sounds like you’re saying they ran Chimport and then made some changes to their contacts in the address book and were expecting them to reflect in MailChimp? If so, this is because Chimport doesn’t hold a persistent connection between your address book and MailChimp. You should however be able to run Chimport again in the future to pick up those new and changed addresses. If I’ve missed the mark entirely and they’ve actually run it again and not picked up changes then it sounds like something is a bit off. Let me know so we can get to the bottom of this for you. Thanks.

      02.18.2013

      reply

  • alex

    I’m using Mac OS X 10.7.5 and Firefox. I put the key into the Chimport log in and it just stares at me. nothing is clickable. nothing happens. what am I missing? I have 885 cards; is that too many?

    03.07.2013

    reply

    • John

      Hi Alex, I was able to just test with the same version of Mac OS and wasn’t able to replicate the problem. The quantity of cards shouldn’t be a problem at all. It may go without saying, but just in case, you’ll need to make sure you have at least 1 list setup on the MailChimp side that you can select to import your cards into. If you’d be willing and able to grab a screen shot of what it looks like for you and touch base with our support chimps: http://mailchimp.com/chat they’d be able to take a closer look and help you troubleshoot it a bit further.

      03.11.2013

      reply

    • John

      Hi Karen, When the Chimport window is open you can simply press Command (⌘) + Q to quit the application and you should be all set.

      04.02.2013

      reply

  • Key APPS for trade-shows | EVENTagist - Innovative solutions for meetings & events

    [...] Export your Apple address book directly to your Mailchimp list. A utility app for MAC that allows you to selectively export contacts from your Apple address book directly to a Mailchimp list. Chimport uploads email, first name and last name from your contact entries to your list. If an Address Book contact already exists on your MailChimp list, Chimport will try to update the first and last name fields. For more information: http://blog.mailchimp.com/apple-address-book-utility/ [...]

    04.25.2013

    reply

  • Meg

    When I update addresses in Mail Address Book, then use Chimport to import to a list in Mail Chimp, Mail Chimp does not erase the old address, but keeps both of them. How do I click the “update this list” while using Chimport at the same time? Thanks.

    05.15.2013

    reply

    • John

      Hi Meg, Chimport was built for people who had permission based contacts and needed to easily import them to MailChimp. That being said, there’s not a real good way to tie new email addresses to old email addresses and use Chimport for multiple imports to update the MailChimp records. It’s really more of a one and done tool to give you a simple head start.

      05.15.2013

      reply

  • Brenda Sutherland

    Hi I am trying to export a Smart group from address book to mailchimp and it seems that the Chimport does not pick it up. Any pointers?

    06.04.2013

    reply

    • John

      Hi Brenda, I checked with the developer on this and it turns out that Apple hasn’t exposed the Smart Groups for use by third party apps yet. He seems to think that might come at some point, but for now I think the only way, would be to identify who might be in the smart group and try to select them manually at the time of import or add them to a regular group and import that group.

      06.05.2013

      reply

  • Nuria

    Hey, is there any way where i can import the “Notes” field into Mailchimp? We have some tags in that field that we like to use to segment and it seems its not possible! Thanks in advance.

    06.07.2013

    reply

    • John

      No, there’s not a way to include that extra data in the import. Right now it’s limited to just the email, first, and last name.

      06.07.2013

      reply

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