Once you start to have lots of contacts in Live Messenger you might want to organize them into groups, online status, or name. This guide shows you how to organize and import or export your contacts in Live Messenger.
Create a Contact
Please see Live Messenger Basics to learn how to create a new contact.
Edit a Contact
Some of your contacts might not know how to change their login names to look like “Jim R” instead of “jim@hotmail.com” in Live Messenger’s contact list. You can change the way they look in your Live Messenger contact list by editing their contact info. Editing their contact info does not change their original information on their account. You are only changing information that is visible under your Live Messenger account.
Let’s say Jim shows up in your contact list as jim@hotmail.com. You can change jim@hotmail.com to plain old Jim or whatever you call Jim by clicking the show menu button 
. Point to contacts then select edit a contact.
The next window gives you a list of all your contacts.
Click the contact you want to change and select OK.
In the next window you can change how the contact shows up in your contact list by editing the contacts nickname towards the bottom of the window.
While you’re in the edit contacts window you can change lots of other contact information by selecting one of the multiple tabs on the left of the window (under general) and editing its contents.
Delete a Contact
Deleting a contact is easy. Select the contact you want to delete in the Live Messenger main window and press delete on your keyboard.
A window will pop up that asks you if you want to also block that person from ever contacting you again and to remove them from your hotmail contacts. Once you decide that click delete contact and you’re done.
Create a Group
If you have a long list of contacts and you want to group them into groups like friends, family, coworkers, and so on, you can do so by clicking the show menu button. Point to contacts and click on create group.
Type the name of the group you want to create, check off the contacts you want in that group, and click save when you are done.
Edit a Group
You can always edit the name of a group or who is in that group by clicking the show menu button. Point to contacts and select edit a group.
Select the group you want to edit.
In the next window you can change the group name and add or remove any contacts that are in that group.
Delete a Group
Click the show menu button, point to contacts, and select delete a group.
Select the group you want to delete and click OK.
Sorting Contacts
There’s a quick way to sort contacts into various groups in Live Messenger. You can drag and drop a contact into a group by clicking the contact you want to move with your left mouse button. While holding down your left mouse button move the contact into the group you want to put it in. Let go of your left mouse button to drop the contact in the appropriate group.
Saving and Importing Your Contact List
You can save your contact list and import it to a new Live Messenger account by clicking the show menu button. Point to contacts and click save instant messaging contacts.
Pick a place to save your contact list, give it a name next to file name and click save.
Please note: You don’t have to save your contacts so that you can import them on another computer you want to use Live Messenger on. When you log on to any computer with Live Messenger you contacts follow you. You only export and import contacts if you want to move the contact to a new Live Messenger account.
To import contacts click the show menu button. Point to contacts and click import instant messaging contacts.
Find you contacts file, select it and click open. Your contacts will be imported in your new Live Messenger account.
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One Response to “Live Messenger Organizing Your Contacts”
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May 5th, 2008 at 9:45 am
Hello! Thanks for the great info on your website. I still have a Windows Live Messenger question, though. If I remove someone from my contacts list, can they still send IM to me? What notification, if any, do they receive once I remove them?
Thank you for any help you can give!
Shelly