How to import contacts from PC outlook (2019) into bitwarden identities

I’m a bitwarden newbie here. Apologize in advance for my basic questions. I am not a developer; just an user looking for a more secure way to store contacts and notes.

I’ve looked through the “Import to your individual vault” faq and am somewhat disappointed to see “Import from PC Outlook (not outlook.com)” is not there. I am not a developer so I don’t know how to export my contact list from PC outlook and “manually condition (the export into) a Bitwarden .json format file” for import.

I am hoping I am not the first person trying to do this and that experts on this community forum can guide me along.

Thank you in advace.

@eq0718 Welcome to the forum!

Please start by going through the instructions on the website linked below, to determine more exactly which version of Outlook that you are using (e.g., Windows or Mac, New or Classic, and a specific version number):

Hello @grb,

I am using classic outlook (part of office 2019) on a windows 10 PC.

Thank you.

Thank you for the information.

Unfortunately, the only way to import Identity information into Bitwarden is to format the data into a structure that uses the JSON format. Basically, you would have to put your contact information data into a text file with a structure that looks something like this:

{
  "items": [
  {
    "type": 4,
    "name": "First Identity Item's Name (e.g., My Personal Info)",
      "identity": {
        "title": "Mr",
        "firstName": "John",
        "middleName": "Q",
        "lastName": "Public",
        "address1": "123 Main Street",
        "address2": null,
        "address3": null,
        "city": "Washington",
        "state": "DC",
        "postalCode": "20001",
        "country": "United States",
        "company": "My Employer",
        "email": "[email protected]",
        "phone": "123-123-1234",
        "ssn": "123-12-1234",
        "username": "eq0718",
        "passportNumber": "123456789",
        "licenseNumber": "123456789"
      }
  },
  {
    "type": 4,
    "name": "Second Identity Item's Name (e.g., a Contact)",
      "identity": {
        "title": "Mrs",
        "firstName": "Jane",
        "middleName": "A",
        "lastName": "Doe",
        "address1": "1 North Calle Cesar Chavez",
        "address2": null,
        "address3": null,
        "city": "Santa Barbara",
        "state": "CA",
        "postalCode": "93103",
        "country": "United States",
        "company": null,
        "email": "[email protected]",
        "phone": "123-123-1234",
        "ssn": "123-12-1234",
        "username": null,
        "passportNumber": null,
        "licenseNumber": null
      }
  }
  ]
}

 

It would not be easy to automate the process of converting whatever Outlook exports into the required import format.

How many identity items were you hoping to import into Bitwarden? If it is a large number, perhaps I can try to come up with some approach that would make the work easier. If it is a relatively small number, you may be better off just transferring the info manually.

Finally, I would like to warn you that Bitwarden is not really designed to be used for managing contact information. The “Identity” vault type is primarily for the purpose of helping you fill out web forms that ask for your personal information. For example, there is not even any easy way to copy contact information for pasting elsewhere, printing contact information, starting an email message addressed to one of your contacts, etc.

May I suggest that you start by manually transferring a handful of your most frequently used contacts, and see if you like using Bitwarden for the purpose of storing and managing contacts? No point in going through the trouble of converting the Outlook export into a Bitwarden-compatible JSON structure, if you’re going to switch to a different solution when Bitwarden’s limitations as a contacts manager become clear to you.

Thank you so much for your insights, @grb !
I have >1000 contacts that I was trying to import to bitwarden.
I am moving from a privately hosted exchange server to a “hopefully better” solution to keep my contact list (and associated notes on each contact) even more “secure”. If it works, I believe bitwarden could be more “secure” than uploading my contact list to one of the usual cloud providers (icloud, gmail, outlook 365).
I am open to suggestions on other secure solutions for my contact list use case (assuming there is an import function to “read” my outlook.pst file :-).
Thank you !

For just notes, there is StandardNotes. For contacts, Proton Mail (or Proton Calendar) has a built in contact manager that is partially encrypted (the contact’s name and email address are not encrypted). Perhaps something that could be asked in a forum like reddit.com/r/privacy. A quick Google search suggests that EssentialPIM and EteSync may be solutions worth investigating.

Thank you again, @grb, for your insights and suggestions !

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