This post is part of a series about how to sync your contacts across multiple address books. Visit ultimate guide to synchronizing address books for a full list of our how-to guides.
Read our step-by-step guide to learn about how to get your contacts in sync between the people you’re connected to on LinkedIn, and your Mac address book.
Unfortunately, there isn’t a clean way to continuously transfer contacts between LinkedIn and Mac Address Book, but it is possible to get your contacts from one to the other as a one-time sync. Here are the directions on how to do so.
How to transfer LinkedIn contacts to Mac Address Book
Step 1. Export your contacts from LinkedIn
Sign in to your LinkedIn account. Once you’re signed in, head to Export LinkedIn Connections. You can either click my link, or navigate to it directly by visiting Contacts > My Connections, and selecting Export Connections from the bottom right.
Make sure you change the default option from Microsoft Outlook CSV to Mac OSX Address Book VCF.
Type in the letters from their security image, and select Export. Save the resulting file to your harddrive.
Step 2. Import LinkedIn contacts to Mac Address Book
Launch the Address Book application on your Mac.
Select File > Import, and grab the file which was created by LinkedIn.
Mac Address Book will import those contacts created by LinkedIn into your address book, and you’re done!
How to transfer Mac Address Book contacts to LinkedIn
LinkedIn also gives you the option to transfer all of the contacts you have from Mac Address Book into LinkedIn, and sending invitations to those people to connect. Here’s how to accomplish this.
Step 1. Export your contacts from Mac Address Book
Launch the Address Book application on your Mac.
First, select all of the contacts in your address book. You can do this by selecting command-A after clicking on one of the contacts.
Then, select File > Export > vCards, and save the file to your desktop.
Step 2. Sign in to LinkedIn and head to Add Connections
Sign into your LinkedIn account. On the main navigation, select Contacts > Add Connections which will take you to a screen for importing new connections.
Alternatively, you can just click this link.
Step 3. Import your Mac Address book contacts
At the bottom of Add Connections, there’s a link called Import your desktop email contacts.
Click that and then upload the file which you created in Step 1. LinkedIn will give you directions on how to either request or invite the people in your contact list.
Enjoy this post?
Subscribe to Connected Life, follow @connectedhq on Twitter for more professional productivity tips like this, or learn how Connected can help you manage your contacts.
