Help Centre

Contacts & Addresses

Getting Started

• Creating contacts
• About the Contact Manager
• Editing contacts
• Searching for contacts

Learn More

• Importing contacts
• Importing CSV files
• Exporting Virgin Media Mail contacts
• Creating or editing CSV files
• Exporting contacts from other mail providers
• Creating contact groups
• Sending to multiple contacts
• Managing contact groups
• Sending to a contact group

Troubleshooting

• Contacts won't load
• Error while importing contacts

Your Contacts : Managing Contacts : Getting Started

Creating contacts

To create a contact:

1. Click Contacts along the left side of any page.
2. Click the New Contact button in the top-left corner of the Contact Manager.
3. Enter your contact's information in the appropriate fields.
4. Click Save to add your contact.

You can enter additional contact info by clicking More Information or by clicking the add link next to the appropriate field. Enter your contact's information in the appropriate fields and click Save.

Email addresses are automatically added to your Contacts list each time you use the Reply, Reply to all, or Forward functions to send messages to addresses not previously stored in your Contacts list. Also, each time you unmark a message as Spam, your Contacts list is automatically updated so that future messages from that sender are received in your inbox.

About the Contact Manager

Similar to an online address book, the Contact Manager gives you easy access to the people you want to reach. All your email contacts are stored here -- just click Contacts along the left side of any Virgin Media Mail page to access and edit your contacts' information.

Learn how to:

• Create, edit or delete contacts.
• Create, edit or delete a contact group.
• Search for a contact.
• Send to a contact group or send to multiple contacts at once.
• Import or export contacts.

Editing contacts

To edit or delete a contact, open your Contacts list by clicking Contacts on the left side of any page, and following the appropriate instructions below.

To edit a contact:

1. Select the contact in the Contacts list.
2. Click Edit at the top of the page.
3. Make your desired changes.
4. Click Save at the top of the page.

To add a contact to a contact group:

1. Select the contact in the Contacts list.
2. Open the Groups drop-down menu.
3. Under Add to..., select the group you'd like to add the contact to, or select New group to create a new group.

   or

1. Select the group you'd like to add to.
2. Enter the contact's name or email address in the Add this to group box at the bottom of the contact list.

To remove a contact from a contact group:

1. Select the contact in the Contacts list.
2. Open the Groups drop-down menu.
3. Under Remove from..., select the group you'd like to remove the contact from.

To permanently delete a contact:

1. Select the contact in the Contacts list.
2. Click Delete Contact at the top of the page.
3. Click OK.

Please note that you'll need to use a supported browser such as Internet Explorer 6 or 7 or Firefox 2 to take advantage of the Contacts manager or any of the other latest Virgin Media Mail features.

Searching for contacts

To search for a contact:

1. Log in to Virgin Media Mail.
2. Click Contacts along the left side of any Virgin Media Mail page.
3. Enter the name or address you're searching for in the contacts search box.

Keep these tips in mind when searching for contacts:

• You can use prefixes.
• You can search by a person's first and/or last name.
• You can search by domain or username. For example, searching for 'virginmedia.com' will return all contacts with a Virgin Media Mail address.

At the moment, contact search does not search fields other than name and email address. This is a known issue, and we appreciate your patience as our engineers work to resolve it.

Your Contacts : Managing Contacts : Learn More

Importing contacts

You can import address books from Outlook, Hotmail, Yahoo!, orkut, and other services into Virgin Media Mail. Importing your contacts isn't difficult, but it does take a few steps.

First, you'll need to format your contacts as a CSV file -- often times, address books exported from other mail providers are already formatted as CSV files. You can also create your own CSV file.

Once you have a CSV file with all your contacts' information, you can import the file and transfer your contacts to Virgin Media Mail. Note that you can only import up to 3000 contacts at a time. If you have more than 3000 contacts, you'll need to create multiple CSV files to upload.

Importing CSV files

To import contacts to Virgin Media Mail :

1. Create a custom CSV file, or export the address book from your other webmail provider or email client as a CSV file.
2. Log in to Virgin Media Mail.
3. Click Contacts on the left side of any Virgin Media Mail page.
4. Click Import in the bottom-left corner.
5. Click Browse... and locate the CSV file you'd like to upload.
6. Select the file and click Import.

Once you've successfully uploaded the document, Virgin Media Mail will display the number of contacts imported.

A few things to keep in mind:

• If some entries aren't included in your Contacts list, Virgin Media Mail tells you why these entries were left out.
• If you receive error messages when attempting to import your contacts, you may need to edit your CSV file.

Exporting Virgin Media Mail contacts

You can quickly export your Virgin Media Mail Contacts list into a CSV file. Here's how:

1. Log in to your Virgin Media Mail account.
2. Click Contacts along the left side of any Virgin Media Mail page.
3. Click Export in the lower-left corner of your Contacts list.
4. Choose whether to export all contacts or only one group.
5. Select the format in which you'd like to export your contacts' information.
6. Click Export.
7. Choose Save to Disk then click OK.
8. Select a location to save your file, and click 'OK.'

Depending on the requirements of the program to which you're importing your contacts, you can easily edit this CSV to fit your needs.

At the moment, contact exports will not include group information. This is a known issue, and we appreciate your patience as our engineers work to resolve it.

Creating or editing CSV files

Spreadsheet programs like Microsoft Excel make it easy to create and edit CSV files.

Your CSV file should be formatted as a table and must include a header, or first line, that defines the fields in your table. Virgin Media Mail accepts many common header fields (name, email address, birthday, etc.). If you're updating an existing file, you probably won't need to change your header field names; if you're creating a new file and need some guidance, you can use any of the field names used in the examples below.

Here are some additional things to keep in mind as you create your file:

• The file must include a field for the email address.
• The Name field can be a single column, like this:

  header > contact info. >

  name Richard Branson

  If you'd rather, you can also use separate fields for the first, middle, and last names, like this:

  header > contact info. >

  first name middle name last name Richard   Branson

• Fields can be listed in any order.

Here's an example of a sample file that can be created using Microsoft Excel:

header > contact info. >

First Name Last Name Email Address Street Address Phone Richard Branson richardbranson@virginmedia.com 160 Great Portland St, London W1 0845 840 7777

By saving this table as a .csv file, and importing it in to Virgin Media Mail, one entry – for Jane Doe – is added to your Contacts list.

Once you've entered all of your contacts into a table, save the document and select CSV (Comma delimited) (*.csv) as the type of file you'd like to save. If prompted to verify your selection, click Yes or OK.

For still more information about CSV files, open Help in Excel.

Once you've saved the file, you're ready to import your CSV file to Virgin Media Mail .

Exporting contacts from other mail providers

Learn how to export the address book from other webmail services -- choose your provider from the list below.

[ Yahoo! - Hotmail - Hotmail Live - Outlook and Outlook Express - orkut - AOL - Others ]

• Yahoo!: To import your Yahoo! Mail address book, save your file as a Yahoo! CSV. Instructions are available in the Yahoo! Address Book help section at: http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/ab/impexp/

• Hotmail: Here's one way to export your contacts from Hotmail to Virgin Media Mail :
  
  • Using Internet Explorer:
  • Sign in to your Hotmail account.
  • Click the 'Contacts' tab.
  • Click 'Print view.'
  • Align the cursor with the first letter of the 'Name' column.
  • Highlight your contacts by holding down the cursor and dragging it down the list.
  • Hold down the 'Control + c' keys to copy the list.
  • Open Microsoft Excel (or a similar spreadsheet program that supports comma separated values).
  • Select cell A1 in Excel (the top square on the left side).
  • Hold down the 'Control + v' keys to paste (don't use 'Paste Special').
  • Choose 'Save as' from the 'File' menu, and select the type 'CSV (Comma delimited).' Make a note of where you saved the file.
  
  
  • Using Mozilla or Firefox:
  • Sign in to your Hotmail account.
  • Click the 'Contacts' tab.
  • Click 'Print view.'
  • Align the cursor with the first letter of the 'Name' column.
  • Highlight your contacts by holding down the cursor and dragging it down the list.
  • Hold down the 'Control + c' keys to copy the list.
  • Open Microsoft Excel (or a similar spreadsheet program that supports comma separated values).
  • Select cell A1 in Excel (the top square on the left side).
  • Right click in cell A1 and select 'Paste Special.'
  • Select 'Text,' and click 'OK.'
  • Choose 'Save as' from the 'File' menu, and select the type 'CSV (Comma delimited).' Make a note of where you saved the file.
• Hotmail Live
• Sign in to your Hotmail Live account.
• Click Contacts in the left pane.
• On the toolbar, click Options.
• Click Export Contacts.
• Under Export Contacts, click Export Contacts.
• When prompted to open or save the file, click Save.
• Select a location to save the file, and click Save.

• Microsoft Outlook and Outlook Express: Here are some general directions to follow, though instructions may vary by version. For more detailed instructions, open 'Help' in Outlook or Outlook Express and type 'export' in the search box. Look for topics that include 'export wizard,' 'export information,' 'exporting contacts' or 'exporting address book contacts' in the title.

  From Outlook:
  • Select File > Import/Export > Export from the main menu
  • Choose Comma Separated Values (Windows) > Select "Contacts" > Save exported file
  From Outlook Express:
  • Select File > Export > Address Book from the main menu.
  • Select Text File (Comma Separated Values).
  • Click Export.

• orkut: Log in to orkut, then click 'Friends' along the top navigation. Next, click 'Download your contacts' on the bottom of the page to save your contacts as a CSV file.

• AOL: AOL doesn't have the functionality to export your address book, so you'll have to create a custom CSV file if you use this service.

• Others: Refer to your service or client help section for information on how to export your address book. If you have trouble uploading a file in to Virgin Media Mail, you may need to open the file in Excel, alter the columns and/or headers, and then save the file as .csv.

Learn how to export a CSV file from Virgin Media Mail.

Creating contact groups

To create a contact group:

1. Click Contacts along the left side of any page.
2. Click the New Group button in the top-left corner of the Contact Manager.
3. Enter the name of the group.
4. Click OK.

To add contacts to a contact group:

1. Select the contacts in the Contacts list.
2. Open the Groups drop-down menu.
3. Under Add to..., select the group you'd like to add the contact to, or select New group to create a new group.

or

1. Select the group you'd like to add to.
2. Enter the contact's name or email address in the Add this to group box at the bottom of the contact list.

Sending to multiple contacts

It's easy to send one message to many to people at once.

From the Contact Manager:

1. Log in to your account.
2. Click Contacts.
3. Select all the contacts you'd like to send to.
4. Click Email in the group details pane.

From the Compose window:

1. Log in to your account.
2. Click Compose.
3. In the To: field, separate individual addresses or auto-complete suggestions with commas.
4. Compose your mail.

Managing contact groups

To edit the contact group name:

1. Click Contacts on the left side of any page.
2. Select the group you'd like to edit.
3. Click Edit at the top of the page.
4. Make your desired changes.
5. Click Save at the top of the page.

To add contacts to a contact group:

1. Select the contacts in the Contacts list.
2. Open the Groups drop-down menu.
3. Under Add to..., select the group you'd like to add the contact to, or select New group to create a new group.

   or

1. Select the group you'd like to add to.
2. Enter the contact's name or email address in the Add this to group box at the bottom of the contact list.

To remove contacts from a contact group:

1. Select the contact in the Contacts list.
2. Open the Groups drop-down menu.
3. Under Remove from..., select the group you'd like to remove the contact from.

To delete a contact group:

1. Click Contacts on the left side of any page.
2. Select the contact group from the groups list.
3. Click Delete Group at the top of the page.
4. Click OK.

This will delete the group, but leave the contacts in your All Contacts list.

Sending to a contact group

It's easy to send to contact groups. There are two ways to address a message to a contact group you've created:

From the Contact Manager:

1. Log in to Virgin Media Mail.
2. Click Contacts.
3. Select the group you'd like to send to.
4. Click All at the bottom of the contact list or select the individuals you'd like to send to.
5. Click Email in the group details pane.

From the Compose window:

1. Log in to Virgin Media Mail.
2. Click Compose.
3. In the To: field, enter the first few letters of the name of the contact group to which you'd like to send the message.
4. Select your contact group from the list of addresses the auto-complete feature suggests.
5. Compose your mail.

Your Contacts : Managing Contacts : Troubleshooting

Contacts won't load

Symptoms:
After clicking Contacts, a blank white box appears. No error is shown.

Cause:
A conflict with software on your computer, browser cache that needs to be cleared, or a temporary problem on the Virgin Media Mail server.

Solution:
Follow the instructions below in the order provided. If they don't resolve your issue, you'll have a chance to report the problem to Virgin Media Mail.

Error while importing contacts

To fix this problem, you may need to reformat the columns and/or headers in your Excel spreadsheet, and then save it as a .csv file. If you still can't import your contacts after reformatting your spreadsheet, try creating a new .csv file. Click here to learn more about creating and editing .csv files.

After creating your .csv file, import your contacts.

Tips to remember when importing contacts:

• You can import 3,000 contacts at a time.
• All characters must be in English.
• Any information formatted as a group or distribution list won't transfer into your Virgin Media Mail Contacts list.
• Importing information that matches the email address of an existing entry will replace the information in your Contacts list with the most recently uploaded information.