Exporting Contact information to a CSV file (TuskTools ContactExporter)

[phils 220]

In response to expressed demand, I wrote a Windows utility that exports data from Evernote Contact notes to a CSV file.

 

TuskTools ContactExporter is currently available in an initial beta version; you can download the installer from here.  It hasn't had very extensive testing yet, so please download it and let me know via emailing support@moreproductivenow.com how it works for you.

 

It was a little tricky to implement because CSV files call for a consistent field list in every row (record), whereas Evernote's Contact card format allows for a variable number of elements for certain fields (namely, for email, phone, Twitter, LinkedIn, and addresses).  So I implemented the following field structure in the CSV file:

 

 

In other words, it implements the following rules:

For Email - it outputs the first two email address fields it finds in the note.

For Phone - it outputs the first two phone number fields it finds that are not labeled as Cell or Fax.

For Twitter, LinkedIn, and addresses - it outputs the first two values it finds for each of these field types.

As mentioned above, this is currently an initial beta.  Once it's been sufficiently tested, I will most likely put it on the market for a nominal amount.

Also as mentioned, it's currently a Windows utility.  It's possible I might expand it to other platforms; we'll see how the response goes.

[phils 220]

FYI I've posted an updated version of the program - it fixes a few reported bugs in extracting some of the fields, and it also adds a note's Date Created and Date Updated as two new exported columns.

[Francescos 0]

Great work,thanks a lot for sharing this, if it works will save a lot of time to many users, have been looking for something similar for a long time, great job!

[pmbanas 16]

Hope it's a success and you do one for Mac. The lack of an export feature should be a bigger issue for Evernote, but maybe we aren't a big market for them.

[Wordsgood 526]

Quick question for you, Phils. Do you ever plans to expand into the Android market.

FYI I've posted an updated version of the program - it fixes a few reported bugs in extracting some of the fields, and it also adds a note's Date Created and Date Updated as two new exported columns.

[phils 220]

 

Do you ever plans to expand into the Android market.

 

I'll never say never, but no plans at the moment.

[Cenes de la Vega 0]

Seems to work pretty well! Didn't export the LinkedIn field is my only complaint. Keep up the good work! This is a huge help.

 

Roger

[Francescos 0]

Have used it for about 200 business cards and saved me a lot of time, thanks a lot for this!
it is not malware and worked fine for me in a virtual machine on a Mac

[phils 220]

@Francescos,

Glad it's proving useful for you!

 

 

@Cenes,

If you would be willing, could you export (to an ENEX file format) the business card note containing the LinkedIn field that didn't export, and email it to support@moreproductivenow.com?  That way I can see why it missed the LinkedIn field - it should be including those.

[MitchellCrowley 0]

First of all great software, I use it frequently at work and it is very helpful. I have found one issue, that is likely easily fixable, I just don't have the coding expertise to make the changes myself. 

 

I use scannable to scan my business cards, and most of the time it titles the business cards "Business Cards" but sometimes they go in as "Scannable Document" and ContactExporter doesn't grab the data from them. You cannot change the titles of notes created by 3rd party software within evernote, but exterally I have changed the named of some notes to  "Business Cards" and then run ContactExporter on these documents and it grabs the data then, so the only difference in these documents is the title. 

 

Would it be possible to extend the search parameters to notes titled  "Scannable Document" as well as "Business Cards"?

 

Thanks!

[phils 220]

Thanks, glad you find it useful.

 

It actually doesn't filter based on note title, it works based on the "content class" property and grabs all notes with a content class of "evernote.contact.1".  I'm not sure how you're changing the title externally but whatever the process, it must also be updating the content class.

 

The real issue is that before you do that process, if it doesn't have the correct content class, then chances are it also doesn't have the data properly formatted internally as contact fields that ContactExporter can parse.  But we can easily find out if that's true or not - if you can take a note that got scanned as a "Scannable Document" and, without altering anything, export it to an ENEX file and email that file to me at support at moreproductivenow.com, I can see what the internal format is.

[Ashish Rajguru 1]

Hello Phils,

 

We are having requirement of syncing all business cards(contacts) note into our sharepoint contacts list. we are having business account with evernote as well. we created two contacts in different notebook using this functionality from our android phone. now we would like to sync those contact notes in our sharepoint contacts list. i downloaded your tool and while installing it i gave my personal email id instead of business email id. after that i tried to login with my business email id but it is taking only first one. so i am not able to export actual notebook in csv file.

Can you help me in achieving our functionality? how can i export all business card(contacts) note into our sharepoint Contacts list? does evernote provide such API to identify these contacts note and extract? we are already using evernote API to sync their notes(business/personal) into our system. now we need business cards need to be sync using .Net C# API.

Same as you developed this TuskTools ContactExporter, we need same API to export Business cards contacts notes directly into our sharepoint site using platform C#.net.

 

 

Thanks & Regards

Ashish Rajguru

 

[phils 220]

Hi Ashish,

 

If you go to your Evernote My Account page and revoke access to ContactExporter, then you should get prompted to connect again and can use your business username.

 

In terms of the API, there is no specific functionality to handle contact card notes; you would need to identify those notes based on a content class of "evernote.contact.1", and then parse the note content to extract the contact field data.  I'm afraid I can't supply the specific source code for the parser I wrote as it's part of a code base for a custom client Evernote/Salesforce integration we created.

[Ashish Rajguru 1]

Hello Phils,

 

Thanks for the reply. i can understand your concern but it's our critical requirement and we need your technical inputs as well. so we would appreciate your technical inputs. can you help me little bit in parsing note conten?. in my code if i use

string noteContent = noteStore.getNoteContent(bAuthToken, note.Guid);

then i get following business card content in string which is different content then any normal note content. As you said it consists of "x-evernote:contact" class. Please find the attachment which is note content of one of my business card note.

 

Do i need to iterate through all the elements exist in that class? or we can insert whole contact in our sharepoint contacts list at one go? if you can give me example of parsing only one element like email or company name then i will parse rest of others at my end. 

 

Thanks & Regards

Ashish Rajguru

BusinessCard_NoteContent.txt

[phils 220]

Hi Ashish,

 

We should move your particular question to the Evernote for Developers forum - I'll reply to your existing post there on this topic.

[Tylor Firouzi 0]

Phils,

 

First off, thank you so much for creating this.  I wish I would've known about CVS as I've never done that before so I had to search this in layers and it took hours.  I ended up googling "Evernote to CVS" and BAM!  That was after like 4 hours of trying to desperately find a way to do exactly this.  I think my original search field was "Evernote to Outlook" but I found nothing within the first 2 pages of my search engine.

 

Lastly, you deserve to get paid for this!  Paypal information please.  You have no idea how many different sources I've seen people saying "I wish you can transfer business cards over to Evernote." yeah, so do I after two days of non-stop searching.

 

My only suggestion for the program I could think of while analyzing the program was, it would be nice to transfer the front business card image as a picture since pretty much most peoples faces won't be there.  I noticed I had a few business cards with linked in, but they don't appear in outlook.  I think outlook doesn't have a category for Linked-in or maybe I missed it.  If you can't do that, or don't want to do that, no big deal.  I think at least I got the most important thing needed more than anything else.  The picture thing would basically be a BIG BONUS if you think about it (not to mention this is already a BIG BONUS since it works well).

 

and again, Thank you very much!

[GaryShell 0]

Nicely done!!! 

 

I know other folks have asked for additional field and I'd like to chime in.

1. Tags
2. Photo of front of the card
3. The photo of the person that Evernote found on LinkedIn.
4. The notes field.  (On the iPad this field is displayed with a "notes:" label.  On windows the data shows up in the Evernote contact, but has no label.)
5. LinkedIn profile url

[phils 220]

Hi all,

 

I've just posted an updated version of ContactsExporter.  Get it from the same installer link in the top post of this thread.

 

Changes:

• It now exports a note's Tags - it puts them in a comma-separated list at the end of the row.
• It now properly handles the case where the LinkedIn field is shown as "View Profile" instead of the actual URL.
• The previous beta version has an expiration date of Nov. 1 - it will stop working after that date.  This version removes any expiration dates.

[AndyZ__ 0]

Phil,

Thanks so much for this life-saver. Just tried it today and it works great. The only minor issue I note is that I get a lot of concatenation with the address text - it may be the way EN stores that field with returns? I really need to get the scans into Outlook and your utility enables that. Thanks again!

Andy

[phils 220]

Andy,

 

If you can do an ENEX-format export of a note that exhibits the concatenation and send it to me at support at moreproductivenow dot com, I can take a look at that.

[zello 1]

Hi Phils and ContactExport users,

I installed it on Windows8 and when I try to reinstall it confirms it is there. However, no new program shows up anywhere (search through the latest apps on the desk or control panel latest, of course in Evernote PC or online neither).

Any tip?

[maymayer 0]

It really looks very great. How about integrating business card recognition SDK into it. It can scan the business cards and retrieve information from them and save the contact information into mobile address. 

[phils 220]

@zello,

 If you start typing "TuskTools", do you see it?  Also I think it will be in a group called "More Productive Now". You might also check your Programs and Features uninstall list in Control Panel just to verify that it did get installed.

 

@maymayer,

Not quite sure I understand. Sounds like you're suggesting to create a complete business-card-scanning app, which wouldn't have anything to do with Evernote?  (And which there already exist out there.) (FYI Evernote's card scanning API is not available for 3rd parties.)

[jinumm 0]

thank you so much, i searched alote for this

[Pegasys 13]

You are a God! I have searched for ages and was doing all sorts of work-arounds but this is perfect!!! Thank you so much for this tool!!

[phils 220]

@jinumm and @Pegasys,

 

You're welcome - I'm happy that you find it valuable!

[Werfkjl 0]

I'm Android users, I use Android Mobile Manager to export contacts from Android to computer, saved as CSV file.

[crazednut 0]

Hi Phils,

The project on which I'm working involves converting data from paper business cards into a CRM.  Your app is the crucial link to make this work with the EN Business Card Camera.  If you're still looking for input regarding functionality, if possible, it would be helpful to break apart the single name field into three: a first, middle and last.  And similarly, if the address data could be parsed into four fields, address, city, state and zip, that would be swell.  This is a very worthwhile tool.  Wish you the best of luck with it. 

[jenniferlbrowder@gmail.com 0]

what do i do after I install the installer for the contact exporter? it says its installed when i click on the installer icon. is it a setting in Evernote?

thanks!

[jenniferlbrowder@gmail.com 0]

Hi users!

im not sure how to run the contacts exporter. It says I've installed it, but not sure how to run it?  Please help!

 

thanks

 

jennifer

[phils 220]

Jennifer,

On your Windows Start Menu, go to All Programs > More Productive Now > TuskTools ContactExporter.

 

[zello 1]

On 5/3/2016 at 4:55 AM, jenniferlbrowder@gmail.com said:

what do i do after I install the installer for the contact exporter? it says its installed when i click on the installer icon. is it a setting in Evernote?

 

3

 

24 minutes ago, phils said:

Jennifer,

On your Windows Start Menu, go to All Programs > More Productive Now > TuskTools ContactExporter.

 

Sorry but I just have the same problem as Jennifer and  I posted here already ,

 it said it is installed (I have Windows 8), yet I can't spot it in any way... If installed, then I cannot then uninstall it either! Not able to run it (which matters in first place), not able to get rid of it if there. 

Users, any advice or comment?

[Rod W 2]

Thanks for making this.

My contacts include Japanese, and unfortunately the Japanese parts are garbled. Would it be possible to fix it so that Japanese is recognized properly?

[phils 220]

@Rod W Can you export one of your Japanese Contact notes in ENEX format and email the .ENEX file to phil at moreproductivenow dot com?

 

[phils 220]

Hi all,

I had a request to add export of the Notes field from Evernote business cards, so I've added that to TuskTools ContactExporter.  I haven't had a chance to test it with very many notes, but figured I would make it available as a separate beta for now, so here is the download link for it. (No need to uninstall an existing installed version, this version will overwrite it.)

If anyone is using the Notes field and would like to try this version out, that would be great.  If you encounter any issues, please let me know via a support email.

 

[BryanR 0]

@philsJust found this thread and wanted to send my thanks! You saved me hours of work.

[phils 220]

@BryanR Thanks, glad to hear that!

[Aio 0]

You just made my life so much easier - was trying to find a reliable way to import contacts/ business cards into our CRM - but all the "readers" were just not creating usable fields or csv files. Amazing!

[phils 220]

Hi all,

I've just posted an update to ContactExporter. The latest version exports the Notes field of a contact card note, along with the other new fields added since the initial release.

The fields exported now look like this:

You can download the latest version 0.7.2 of ContactExporter from here.  Existing users can update from within the app when you run it.

[JMichaelTX 4,118]

1 hour ago, phils said:

I've just posted an update to ContactExporter. The latest version exports the Notes field of a contact card note, along with the other new fields added since the initial release.

Hey Phil, looks like you have a great tool there.  Do you have any plans to provide a Mac version?

[phils 220]

Hi @JMichaelTX, no sorry, it's built on Windows technology so will be Windows-only.

[Craig123 0]

Phils, great tool.  Worked perfectly for me.  I needed to create a *.csv file for import of scanned business cards into Infusionsoft CRM from Evernote.  Considerable editing of the *.csv was needed for import into Infusionsoft, but that is due both to imcomplete or erroneous records in Evernote as well as import requirements for Infusionsoft.  This literally saved me many hours.  Thank You!

[hb3 0]

Thank you so much for creating such a neat software, really saving me hours and hours of a headache! I was able to download, but received this error message when I tried to select a notebook: evernote.edam.error.edamuserexception. Would love to know what I'm doing wrong!

[phils 220]

@hb3 Is there any more information in the error message beyond that?   (Can you provide the exact contents of the message you're seeing?)

[hb3 0]

Sure it says:

Unhandled exception has occurred in your application. If you click Continue, the application will ignore this error and attempt to continue. If you click Quit, the application will close immediately. 

Exception of type 'Evernote.EDAM.Error.EDAMUserException' was thrown.

 

I'm not very tech savvy so any help is much appreciated! Thank you!

[hb3 0]

On 11/27/2017 at 11:18 PM, phils said:

@hb3 Is there any more information in the error message beyond that?   (Can you provide the exact contents of the message you're seeing?)

Hi, I just wanted to check in and see if there were any updates to this issue that I'm having. This is the error message:

Unhandled exception has occurred in your application. If you click Continue, the application will ignore this error and attempt to continue. If you click Quit, the application will close immediately. 

Exception of type 'Evernote.EDAM.Error.EDAMUserException' was thrown.

 

Thank you

[phils 220]

I'd like to see if I can determine exactly where the error is occurring.  When you say "tried to select a notebook": are you able to see a list of your notebooks, you can check one of them and then the error occurs after you check it and click "Next"; or do you never even see a list of your notebooks?

[hb3 0]

No, I can't even see my notebooks.

[phils 220]

@hb3 Hmmm, I'll check this out...

[NRobinson 0]

Phils,

Thank you for making a much needed app! I cant believe this feature isnt integrated into Evernote yet.

Anyway, I am using it and when I export my business cards, the CSV file only has 24 entries when I have over 800 scanned business cards. Please advise. 

[phils 220]

@NRobinson Could you export into an ENEX format file a few of the notes that are not getting written to the CSV, and send that file to support@moreproductivenow.com?

 

[DaveH24 0]

Phils,

As mentioned by many, thanks much for creating this much-needed utility.  I've downloaded the latest version in your thread successfully, but for some reason, when I attempt to export my notes into a .csv, the csv file that is created has the headers only (in row 1) and no other data.  Assuming I'm missing a simple step somewhere?

Thanks in advance for your help with this -

Dave

[phils 220]

@NRobinson Thanks for sending the ENEX file.  I've located the issue and am working on a fix - stay tuned.

@DaveH24  I'm not sure what your specific issue is but it may well be the same root cause as with @NRobinson - so the best thing is probably to try the new version once I get the fix made and posted, and see if that fixes it for you, too.  If not, we can explore further.

[DaveH24 0]

Perfect - thanks Phils - I'll wait for the new version.  Appreciate your help!

[phils 220]

@NRobinson and @DaveH24 - I've posted an update to ContactExporter; please give it a go and see if your issues are fixed.  You should get notified to download and install the update when you launch the program.  It's also available for download here.

[DaveH24 0]

Hi Phils,

Tried the updated download and got the same results - just a csv file with a header row and no data below it.

[phils 220]

@DaveH24 The first thing to check is to make sure the notes you're working with are really what Evernote considers as official "contact cards".  To do that, go to the notebook in question and put this in the search box at the top of the view:  

contentClass:evernote.contact.1

When you do that, do you get the notes you're expecting to see as contacts?

[DaveH24 0]

Ah, that's probably the issue.  That search didn't come up with anything - what I'm trying to export into csv are more Notes than Contact Cards.  So for each, I have a Title and then text in the body of the note.  Can this be exported into a csv somehow?

[phils 220]

Sorry, my utility is specifically for contact information.  I'm not aware of a general-purpose CSV exporter.

[DaveH24 0]

Understand - thank you for your help.

[NRobinson 0]

Phils,

It works! Thank you so much for all your help. This tool is a game changer for my office. 

[Akie 1]

I'm facing an issue here where I let my assistant scan over 350 business cards and we can not export this data. I would like to import this data into our CRM and also in Hubspot. 

I believe this could be a great feature if we can export the data. I like the fact that once it scans the business card it almost automatically adds this person to LinkedIn if Evernote can find it but exporting all data would be amazing.

[phils 220]

If you're on Windows, you can export this contact data using my free TuskTools ContactExporter utility.  See this forum thread for more details on it.

[BrightHomesRE 31]

On 9/16/2018 at 7:10 PM, phils said:

If you're on Windows, you can export this contact data using my free TuskTools ContactExporter utility.  See this forum thread for more details on it.

@phils thanks for posting this solution for windows users.  I am a heavy business card user and use an online platform called Cloze as my CRM.  It has an Evernote integration that allows my scanned business cards to sync with My database.  

[BrendaG 0]

@SVHOODS and @phils,
Thank you both for the GREAT info and Phil for creating a valuable tool.
I have a question for each of you that I'd love your solution idea on, a general question, and an idea that can be helpful to you:
I'm super appreciative for your input and extra appreciative if you may have time to reply today (or tomorrow).
@phils- Do you have or can you very much PLEASE include the following 4 items in the export/conversion process: card image, image file name, a custom field that the user creates, and back of card?
@SVHOODS- Do you get (or can you get) the: (1) card images exported from Evernote (into a desktop file and/or moves directly into your CRM), and (2) the file names in some format that shows which contact each card is associated with? 
ALL- General question- How do you convert a .ENEX to .XML or CSV ? I exported to XML but it gave me a ENEX file and my XML uploader cannot read it. So, looking to open or convert the ENEX to XML (or CSV ideally). And, can you export to XML/ENEX o the web version? Strangely, my Evernote desktop application is not opening today, so I'm using web version. If that happens to you sometimes too, I'm also curious how you solve?
Fyi, I found this tool for converting file types very helpful (my use case was XML from another non-Evernote tool to CSV, to then upload the CSV elsewhere). Check it out, it may be helpful for you too. http://www.convertcsv.com/xml-to-csv.htm is the direct link and for other file type conversions it is http://www.convertcsv.com.

On 9/23/2018 at 1:23 AM, SVHOODS said:

@phils thanks for posting this solution for windows users.  I am a heavy business card user and use an online platform called Cloze as my CRM.  It has an Evernote integration that allows my scanned business cards to sync with My database.  

On 9/16/2018 at 7:10 PM, phils said:

If you're on Windows, you can export this contact data using my free TuskTools ContactExporter utility.  See this forum thread for more details on it.

[BrendaG 0]

@phils and @SVHOODS, Ultimately shortly this week I am also aiming to integrate it with Intergromat to have it automatically add a new row to my contacts DB when a new card is scanned in Evernote. Feel free to share if ideas, and if you are interested in this further I can share more too.

[BrightHomesRE 31]

 @BrendaG, thanks for the tag and conversation about business cards.  I no longer use the CRM I previously mentioned.  I save my contacts when I scan the business cards.  In my current crm I add an EN link to the notes section that is pinned to the side.  I realize my database is truly the key to my business success.  Hope that helps a little.

[ry@custom-cal.com 0]

Your contact exporter worked like a champ exporting 200 + records in seconds flat, TY

Randy Yousey

[RFF 0]

On 5/20/2015 at 5:43 AM, pmbanas said:

Hope it's a success and you do one for Mac. The lack of an export feature should be a bigger issue for Evernote, but maybe we aren't a big market for them.

Any word on this, folks – either Evernote having an export function or @phils writing a mac version?

[phils 220]

On 3/30/2020 at 9:12 PM, RFF said:

@phils writing a mac version?

No, sorry, no Mac version coming from me.

[phils 220]

Hi all,

 

I had a request for the ContactExporter to be able to handle Turkish characters. I can't guarantee it will do that perfectly, but here is a new beta version that should handle at least most of the Turkish character set correctly.