WYS -

How you add contacts usually depends on what PROGRAM you use to handle your email, and doesn't depend on where your email comes and goes from - i.e. what SERVICE you use.

We were using Outlook Express the last time we studied the problem, and went to the newer MAIL when they renamed what was called Mail before Win98 changed it to Outlook Express and then changed it back to Mail for Vista. It now says Live Mail when we open the program, although we've never created a "Live" account. Just another one of those things Mickey will explain when we meet Mrs Pope.

In Mail - or Live Mail (the PROGRAM) as it's now called, at the bottom left there is a "contacts" you can click to get the option to "add to contacts" to put the addy for whoever sent the email you're looking at, or open your contacts list to do more general editing. YOU MAY NEED TO SCROLL DOWN in that left "bar" to get to it, depending on your screen size, but the "Window" that lists emails, the "Window" that displays the current selected email (if you allow previewing), can have stuff run off the screen so you have to select one to scroll in it.

Again, in the Live Mail program the top left tab (that doesn't have a name but has a little "pieceofmail" icon, you should get a dropdown list that includes "Export" where you can export any or all mail. I haven't looked recently but the options included export as .eml or .csv the last time I got into it.

If you're using another PROGRAM to read your mail you'll need to tell us what it is for someone to offer anything useful.

With recent Windows Programs, Microsoft has claimed that all your "contacts" will be kept in a single folder and all Microsoft programs will be able to use any of the data from that folder. You should be able to put an address in a document or create mailing lists in Word using the address for anyone who's sent you an email = if you completed all of the data entries when you added their email address to your contacts.

The "advertising claim" has been that you can go to the folder at username\contacts and double click on any record to edit it for addy changes or to add more info. Depending on how you view stuff in Windows Explorer, you should be able to right-click in the right panel and get "New|contact," or click File|New|contact at the top, if you want to add something "from scratch." When you create a new contact there, the entry of data should be the same as if you did it in an email program that uses that set of contacts

I can't say that all email viewing programs can use that same contacts list, but you might be able to figure out where to find something similar somewhere else if you have a program that makes its own lists.

John