How to export address book to mailchimp or CSV file?

Question

I want to export specific address book groups to mailchimp from a clients Mac computer.

The client have version OS X Lion (10.7) and the Mac she has is faulty and will be scrapped soon. Therefore it is not feasible to upgrade it.

It would be perfect if I could use Chimport but it appears that I need OS X Mountain Lion to use Apple Mac Store to get it.

Alternative do you know any programs that can export to CSV?

Answer 1

The following AppleScript will export all the names and e-mail addresses from Contacts.app. It was written for OS X 10.9 but should work on older editions; you may need to change Contacts to Address Book to talk to the appropriate application:

To use this AppleScript:

1. Launch AppleScript Editor from Applications > Utilities
2. Copy and paste the code below into a new document
3. Run the script
4. On completion a contacts.csv will appear on your desktop

Export Contacts to CSV AppleScript

-- Save comma separated values (CSV) file to desktop
set exportPath to (path to desktop as string) & "contacts.csv"

set contactsCSV to "" -- variable to collect rows of addresses
set quoteString to "\"" -- constant to ease concatenation

tell application "Contacts"

    -- Repeat with every person in your Contacts
    repeat with x from 1 to the count of people
        set thePerson to person x
        set theirName to the name of thePerson

        -- A person may have multiple e-mails addresses, add one row for each
        repeat with anEmail in the email of thePerson
            set contactsCSV to contactsCSV & quoteString & theirName & quoteString & "," & quoteString & (value of anEmail) & quoteString & "
"
        end repeat
    end repeat

end tell

-- Write the CSV contents to a file
set exportFile to open for access file exportPath with write permission
set eof of exportFile to 0
write contactsCSV to exportFile starting at eof
close access exportFile

Answer 2

Export your contacts as a VCARD bundle from Contacts.app and then import them into a gmail account which supports the VCARD format. Once in Gmail, you can then export them as a csv file.