What is a VCF file?

A VCF file holds contact details (names, phone numbers, email addresses, postal addresses, birthdays and notes) in a standard format called vCard. The .vcf ending is often read as “virtual contact file”. One file can hold a single contact or a whole address book. Almost every phone, email app and contacts app can read and write it, which is why it is the usual way to move contacts between them.

Where do VCF files come from?

You usually get a VCF file in one of these ways:

• Exporting from a phone. On iPhone, the Contacts app exports a list from Lists: touch and hold a list, then tap Export. On Android, the Google Contacts app has Fix & manage, then Export to file.
• Exporting from an online account. Google Contacts and iCloud.com Contacts both have an Export option that saves vCards. Outlook exports contacts only as CSV.
• Receiving a contact card. When someone shares a contact in a chat or an email, it usually arrives as a small .vcf attachment.
• Downloading from a website or CRM. Many business tools offer “Save contact” or “Export as vCard” buttons.

The file looks the same in every case. Only the version and the details it contains change.

What is inside a VCF file?

A VCF file is plain text. You can open it in any text editor. Each contact starts with BEGIN:VCARD and ends with END:VCARD, with one detail per line in between:

BEGIN:VCARD
VERSION:3.0
N:Rivera;Sam;;;
FN:Sam Rivera
TEL;TYPE=CELL:+1 555 0100
EMAIL;TYPE=HOME:sam@example.com
ORG:Example Widgets
BDAY:1985-04-12
END:VCARD

The most common lines are:

Line	What it holds	Example
FN	The full name as shown in your contacts	FN:Sam Rivera
N	The name in parts: last; first; middle; prefix; suffix	N:Rivera;Sam;;;
TEL	A phone number, with a type such as mobile or work	TEL;TYPE=CELL:+1 555 0100
EMAIL	An email address, with a type	EMAIL;TYPE=HOME:sam@example.com
ADR	A postal address in parts: PO box; extra; street; city; region; postal code; country	ADR;TYPE=HOME:;;12 Example St;Springfield;IL;62701;USA
ORG, TITLE	Company and job title	ORG:Example Widgets
BDAY	Birthday	BDAY:1985-04-12
NOTE	Free-text notes	NOTE:Met at the conference
PHOTO	The contact photo, stored as text	(a long block of letters and numbers)

A contact can have many TEL, EMAIL and ADR lines, one for each number or address. Long lines are often “folded”: they continue on the next line, which starts with a space.

Which vCard versions are there?

There are three versions in everyday use. Each file says which one it uses in its VERSION line.

Version	Where you see it	What to know
2.1	Older phones, some Android exports	Accented and non-Latin names are often encoded as “quoted-printable”, such as =C3=A9 for é.
3.0	iPhone, iCloud, Google Contacts	The most common version today.
4.0	Newer apps	UTF-8 by default, so all languages work without special encoding.

Most apps read all three. Problems usually come from version 2.1 files saved by old phones, which may use an unusual text encoding. The VCF to CSV Converter reads all three versions and repairs common encoding problems.

How do I open a VCF file?

It depends on what you want to do with it.

You want to…	Do this
Add the contacts to your phone	On iPhone, tap the file and choose to add the contacts. On Android, use Fix & manage, then Import from file in the Contacts app.
Add the contacts to an online account	Use the account’s import option, for example Import in Google Contacts or iCloud.com Contacts.
See every contact as a list or spreadsheet	Use the VCF to CSV Converter.
Read the raw details	Open the file in any text editor.

To turn a VCF file into a spreadsheet:

1. 1

   Open the converter

   Open the free VCF to CSV Converter on ToolkitHere in any modern browser.

2. 2

   Add the VCF file

   Drop the .vcf file onto the upload box, or tap Choose files. Several files are combined into one table.

3. 3

   Check the preview

   Each contact is one row, and each detail (name, phone, email, address) has its own column.

4. 4

   Download

   Tap Download Excel for an .xlsx file, or Download CSV for other apps.

The converter runs in your browser. Nothing is uploaded: your contacts stay on your device.

What is the difference between VCF and CSV?

Both are plain text, but they are built for different jobs.

	VCF (vCard)	CSV
Shape	One block of lines per contact	One row per contact, one column per detail
Several numbers per contact	Yes, each with its own label	Only as extra columns such as Phone 2
Photos	Can be stored inside the file	Not possible
Opens in	Contacts apps and phones	Spreadsheets and import tools
Best for	Moving contacts between phones and apps	Reading, sorting, mail merges and CRM imports

Keep the VCF file as your master copy, and make a CSV when you need a spreadsheet.

Can I open a VCF file in Excel?

Not directly. Excel expects rows and columns, and a VCF file stores each contact as a block of lines. Convert it to Excel or CSV first. Our guide How to open a VCF contacts file in Excel walks through it, including how to keep phone numbers from turning into scientific notation.

Why is my VCF file so large?

Contact photos are the usual reason. A vCard stores each photo as text, using an encoding called base64. Base64 makes a photo about a third larger than the original image. An address book with a few hundred photos can easily reach tens of megabytes.

Without photos, a VCF file is small. A thousand contacts with names, numbers and emails usually take well under a megabyte.

Spreadsheets can’t hold photos, so the converter leaves them out and tells you how many it skipped.

Why do names look garbled?

Garbled names usually come from text encoding, not damaged data. You may see one of two patterns:

What you see	Cause	Example
=C3=A9 and similar codes	Quoted-printable encoding in a vCard 2.1 file. The text is fine; it just needs decoding.	J=C3=B6rg is Jörg
é, ü and similar	The file was decoded with the wrong character set at some point, then saved again.	José is José

A good converter decodes the first pattern automatically and can usually repair the second. If names still look wrong, export the contacts again from the original phone or account.

Is it one file per contact, or one for all?

Both happen. Some apps export every contact into one large file. Others create one small file per contact.

If you have many small files, you don’t need to combine them first. Add them all to the converter at once, and it puts every contact into one table. Watch out the other way round too: some apps, such as classic Outlook for Windows, open only the first contact in a file that holds many.

Is a VCF file safe to open?

A VCF file is plain text, not a program. Opening it in a text editor or a converter only reads it.

Treat it as personal data, though. A VCF file can contain names, phone numbers, home addresses, birthdays and notes about people. Before adding it to a website, check whether the site uploads it. Our tools don’t: How it works explains how to check this yourself.

Key takeaways

• A VCF file is a plain-text contacts file in the vCard format.
• Each contact sits between BEGIN:VCARD and END:VCARD, one detail per line.
• Versions 2.1, 3.0 and 4.0 are all common; 2.1 files can show encoded names.
• Photos make VCF files large; spreadsheets leave them out.
• Excel can’t open VCF files directly: convert them with the VCF to CSV Converter first.