How to export Salesforce contacts to Excel

To export Salesforce contacts to Excel, you build a report of the contacts you want and export the report. Salesforce gives you a spreadsheet of its rows, as .xlsx for Excel or as a CSV. This guide covers the report, the two kinds of export, the row limits, the backup export of everything, and the permission you need if the Export option isn’t there.

First, the report. If you already have one that lists the contacts you want, skip to the export.

1. From the App Launcher, find and select Reports, then click New Report.
2. Choose a contacts report type. If you don’t see one right away, type "contacts" to filter the list, then click Start Report.
3. Add the columns you want in the file, such as name, email, phone and account, and filters for the contacts you want. Save the report and run it.

Then export it. On the report’s page, or next to it on the Reports tab, open the menu with the arrow and select Export. Choose an export view (below), click Export, and save the file. A report shows you at most 2,000 rows on screen; the export is how you get the rest.

The report holds the contacts your account can view: Salesforce shows what your organization’s sharing model lets you see, so two people running the same report may get different lists.

• Formatted Report exports the report as it looks in Salesforce, with its header, groupings and filter details, as an .xlsx file only. Good for sending a finished report. A date and time field comes out as the date alone.
• Details Only exports each row without formatting, which is what you want for sorting, filtering or formulas in Excel. Pick .xlsx for Excel, or .csv for another tool, and for a .csv choose the encoding that suits your language.

For a contact list, Details Only is almost always the one. A grouped report exported as Formatted puts headings and subtotals between the rows, and you’d have to delete them before you could sort.

With no limit from Salesforce, the spreadsheet’s own limit is the one that counts: Salesforce notes 1,048,576 rows by 16,384 columns as a common one. An export that takes longer than 10 minutes times out, and you can run up to five exports at once.

One CSV catch: your locale in Salesforce decides the separator between fields. English (United States) gives a comma, French (France) a semicolon. If a CSV opens in Excel as one long column, Salesforce’s advice is to set your locale in Salesforce to match the Regional Options setting in Windows, and export again.

For a copy of all your organization’s data rather than one list, Salesforce has a backup export in Setup. It’s an admin’s tool: it needs the Weekly Data Export permission, which only the System Administrator profile has by default.

1. From Setup, type Data Export in the Quick Find box, and select Data Export.
2. Choose Export Now, or Schedule Export to run it weekly or monthly, and pick the encoding.
3. Salesforce emails you when a zip of CSV files is ready. It’s deleted 48 hours after that email, not counting weekends.

Weekly exports are in Enterprise, Performance and Unlimited Editions; monthly exports in every edition but Database.com. You can export by hand once every 7 days on a weekly plan, or every 29 days on a monthly one. Formula and roll-up summary fields are never included.

Exporting a report needs the Export Reports permission, and Salesforce’s own advice if you don’t have the option is to ask your Salesforce admin. Organizations often keep it for some roles on purpose, because a contact list is the company’s data. Your admin can tell you whether it’s yours to have, or export the report for you.

You may also be asked to verify your identity again when you export. Salesforce’s help, in an article published 14 October 2026, says your organization can require an extra step-up check when you export a report, once a set time has passed since your last one. That’s expected, so complete it as you would a sign-in.

• Keep the account beside each contact. Add the account name as a column in the report, not afterwards, so every row says which company the person is at.
• Remove duplicates. In Excel, select the data, then Data, then Remove Duplicates, and tick the email column. Check the rows it would remove first: two people can share a team address.
• Delete what the recipient shouldn’t see. Internal notes, owner names, phone numbers someone gave you in confidence. A contact list leaves Salesforce’s sharing rules behind the moment it’s a file, so share only what the person needs.

Pulling contacts from somewhere else too? Our guides to exporting Outlook contacts to Excel and exporting LinkedIn contacts cover those.

Tabless is a browser extension that builds what you ask for from the sites you allow; nothing is typed or submitted without your OK. It isn't open yet. An export you ask for is one of the jobs we're building it for: asking in plain words for "my contacts at these accounts, with their email and last activity", and downloading it as a CSV or XLSX file, from the session you're signed in to.

It's designed to read through the session your browser already has, so there are no API keys or passwords to hand over, and to ask before it reads each site. It's for lists you're entitled to see, for your own work, and the site's own rules still apply: what your organization lets your account export is its decision. You sign in to Tabless with a Wix account.

No. Salesforce requires the Export Reports permission to export a report. Ask your admin.

No. Salesforce lists Export among the report features that aren’t available in its mobile app, so export from a browser on a computer.

Not yet. Tabless isn't open, and a Salesforce report, as above, is the way to get your contacts out today. Join the waitlist, and we'll let you know when you can try Tabless.