How to use the csv to vcard converter
- Paste your contacts as CSV text, with a header line, or choose a .csv file. Press Use an example to see a sample.
- Check the list What each column is. The tool guesses from the column names, such as First name, Mobile, Email and Company. Change any column, and choose Skip this column for the ones you do not need.
- Read the counts and the preview of the first contact. Rows with no name and no company are skipped, and any other problems are listed.
- Press Download .vcf, then open the file on your phone or computer to import the contacts. Copy all vCards puts the text on your clipboard.
Two contacts
A CSV with the columns First name, Last name, Mobile, Email, Company, Job title and City, and the rows Ada Lovelace and Grace Hopper, makes two contacts. The first card has the name line N:Lovelace;Ada;;; and the display name FN:Ada Lovelace, then her company, job title, TEL;TYPE=CELL phone, EMAIL and an address with the city.
If a note contains a comma, a semicolon or a line break, the characters are escaped as the format requires, so a note of "Wrote, compiled; remembered" is stored as Wrote\, compiled\; remembered and read back unchanged. Long lines are folded at 75 bytes. A name that has accents or emoji is stored as UTF-8 and never split in the middle of a character.
What a vCard file is
A vCard, with the extension .vcf, is the standard format for sharing contacts. Phones, address books and email programs import it. One file can hold many contacts, one after another. This tool writes version 3.0 of the format, which the common address books read, with a name, a display name, optional company and job title, phones marked as mobile, work or home, up to two emails, a home address, a website, a birthday and a note.
Each contact needs a name or a company. If a row has only a company, the card is named for the company. If only a full name is given, the family name is taken as the last word, which suits most Western names. Choose First name and Last name columns when you need a different split.
Cleaning your spreadsheet first
The conversion keeps your values as they are. Phone numbers are not reformatted, because the right format depends on country codes, so check that they have the codes your phone needs. A birthday must be written as year, month, day, such as 1906-12-09, or it is left out with a warning. An email without an @ sign is kept but flagged.
If your file is an Excel workbook, save a copy as CSV first, or use the Excel to CSV converter. To check the structure of a CSV before converting, use the CSV validator. For a printed list of contacts, see the emergency contact sheet.
Privacy
Your contacts stay on your device. The file is built in your browser and nothing is uploaded, which matters for a list of names and phone numbers. Up to 5,000 contacts and 5 MB fit in one file.
Assumptions and limits
- The output is vCard version 3.0 in UTF-8 with CRLF line ends.
- If two columns are given the same field, the first filled value in a row is used.
- Values are copied as written. Phone numbers, emails and websites are not corrected.
- Addresses are stored as a home address with the street, city, region, postal code and country you map.
Frequently asked questions
How do I import the .vcf file on my phone?
Open the file on the phone, or share it to the contacts app, and choose to import. On a computer, most address books have an Import option for vCard files. The steps differ by app.
Why was a row skipped?
It had no name and no company. A contact card needs a display name, so such rows are listed as skipped with their row numbers.
Will my accents and emoji survive?
Yes. The file is written as UTF-8, and long lines are folded without cutting a character in half.
Can I convert more than one phone number per person?
Yes. Map one column to Mobile phone, one to Work phone and one to Home phone. Each becomes its own phone entry on the card.