There isn't a special feature in Messenger Plus! because it is already possible in other ways.
But from within Messenger you can't do this directly anymore either, because the export feature has been removed. And that is because of the following reason:
Your real and complete contact list isn't just a list of Messenger contacts anymore, it now also includes contacts from Hotmail, as well as contacts from other social networks like Facebook, Twitter, etc. And because there is more to it than just what you'll see in Messenger, stuff like that is best managed using an online service (that is via your web browser) outside the restriction of the interface of a client program (which is Messenger) which only uses a part of that list.
As such, you manage your Messenger contacts on your online profile (
http://profile.live.com/). You either get there via Messenger (via the
view profile button or menu), or via
http://www.live.com/, etc. And from there you navigate to your contact list. Or you can go directly to
http://contacts.live.com/ if you prefer.
So, go to your contact list on live.com and you'll see a list of all your contacts for all the social network services you're connected to with your Windows Live Id. Now select
All Contacts (or the social network list or the category you want to export). Then, in the top menu of the contacts pane you'll see the menu
Manage. Click that and you'll have a menu item called
Export.
This will take you to a verification process using a
captcha. After that your contacts will be exported into a comma seperate list as a CSV file (WLMcontacts.csv) which you can store on your computer.
(a CSV file can be opened in Excel. Although, depending on your Excel version, it might be handy to first rename the extension of the file from 'csv' to 'txt' and open that in Excel to get the Text Import Wizard open up which will be able to nicely show you the exported list in columns)
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Note: if you want to export your contacts because you want to change your Windows Live Id, then please consider that changing your Windows Live Id manually is the last option you should think about.
First check if your current Windows Live Id has the possebility to be changed automatically:
'
CookieRevised's reply to: i have made a new email address'
This will save you, and your contacts, a great deal of trouble and all your settings, contacts, connected services, etc will be migrated automatically.