VCF to CSV Converter
Move contacts out of a phone or address book and into a system that imports CSV. Upload one .vcf holding hundreds of contacts, or many single-contact files, and get one CSV with a row per person.
Data Converter
or drop CSV, TSV, TXT … files here ·
Max 95 MB per file· Up to 20 files· Deleted after 30 minutes
Files are processed on our servers and deleted after 30 minutes.
Character that separates columns in CSV and text files, for both reading and writing. Auto detects it from the input and writes commas.
UTF-8 works for every language. Choose UTF-8 with BOM if Excel on Windows shows garbled accents or Asian characters when opening the CSV.
Excel, ODS and Numbers input: convert the first sheet only, or every sheet (one CSV per sheet in a ZIP, or one JSON key per sheet).
Name of the sheet tab in the new spreadsheet, up to 31 characters.
Array of objects uses column names as keys for every row; array of arrays is more compact and keeps the header as the first array.
Name of the outer element that wraps all rows; each row becomes a <row> inside it.
Used in CREATE TABLE and INSERT statements. Letters, digits and underscores only.
Quoting and column types differ slightly between databases; pick the one you will import into.
Rewrite date cells in one format. ISO (2026-10-18) is safest for databases and code; keep leaves them as they appear in the source.
How to use this tool
- 1
Export the contacts as .vcf
Use your phone's or address book's export option (steps below). One file with all contacts and many small files both work; add up to 20 files of 95 MB each.
- 2
Keep plain UTF-8 for imports
Most import screens expect UTF-8 without a BOM, which is preselected. Under Advanced settings, choose UTF-8 with BOM only if you plan to open the CSV in Excel on Windows.
- 3
Convert and import
Press Convert to CSV, download, then upload the CSV in the target app's contact import screen and map the columns it asks about.
How do I convert a VCF file to CSV?
Export your contacts as a .vcf, upload it here and press Convert to CSV. Each vCard becomes one row with columns for name, phone numbers, emails, address, company and notes.
Why contacts need to go from vCard to CSV
vCard has been the address-book exchange format since the Versit Consortium published it in the mid-1990s, and it is what phones and mail apps export when you ask for your contacts. It is great for moving people from one address book to another. It is useless for a sales team loading leads into a CRM, an organizer sending invitations through a mailing tool, or anyone switching to an email account that imports only CSV.
Those systems want rows and columns they can map: first name here, email there. A VCF to CSV conversion produces exactly that. It is also the safest way to back up a phone's contacts in a form you can read without a phone. If you would rather review and clean the list with sorting and filters before importing it anywhere, VCF to Excel writes a workbook instead.
Export contacts as a VCF file first
iPhone
- 01Open Contacts and tap Lists (iOS 16 or later)
- 02Touch and hold All Contacts
- 03Tap Export and save the .vcf to Files
Android
- 01Open the Google Contacts app
- 02Go to Fix & manage, then Export to file
- 03Save the .vcf to your phone or Drive
Desktop
- 01On iCloud.com, select contacts and choose Export vCard
- 02In Google Contacts on the web, choose Export, then vCard
- 03On a Mac, select contacts in Contacts and use File, Export
Where the converted CSV can be imported
| Organisation | Requirement | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Google Contacts | Imports CSV or vCard; use CSV to map extra columns such as labels | Google Help |
| Outlook.com | Contact import takes a CSV file | Microsoft Support |
| Mailing tools such as Mailchimp | Audience import from a CSV file with an email column | — |
| CRMs such as HubSpot or Salesforce | Contact import wizards read CSV and map each column to a field | — |
| iCloud Contacts | Imports vCard only, so no CSV is needed there | — |
BEGIN:VCARD VERSION:3.0 N:Okafor;Ada;;; FN:Ada Okafor ORG:Northwind Supply TEL;TYPE=CELL:+1 512 555 0147 TEL;TYPE=WORK:+1 512 555 0100 EMAIL;TYPE=WORK:[email protected] END:VCARD
vCard and CSV compared
VCF
vCard contact file
VCF files store contact information using the vCard standard, created by the Versit Consortium in 1995 and now maintained by the IETF. A single file can hold one or many contacts with names, phone numbers, emails, addresses, photos and notes. Phones, Gmail, Outlook and Apple Contacts all import and export VCF. Different vCard versions (2.1, 3.0 and 4.0) handle special characters and fields differently, which can cause minor issues when moving contacts.
- Compression
- –
- Transparency
- –
- Animation
- –
- Introduced
- 1995 · Versit Consortium (now IETF)
CSV
Comma-separated values
CSV is a plain-text format for tables in which each line is a row and commas separate the columns. It has been used since the early days of computing and is described in RFC 4180, though many variants use semicolons or tabs and different text encodings. Nearly every spreadsheet, database and analytics tool can import and export it, which makes it the default format for moving data between systems. CSV stores only values, with no formulas, formatting, multiple sheets or data types.
- Compression
- –
- Transparency
- –
- Animation
- –
- Introduced
- –
People convert VCF to CSV to move an address book into a CRM, mailing tool or webmail account whose import screen only takes comma-separated rows.
VCF to CSV questions
Can one VCF file hold many contacts?
Yes. A .vcf is a text file of vCard records, each running from BEGIN:VCARD to END:VCARD, so a phone's full address book usually exports as one file. Every record becomes one row in the CSV; separate .vcf files uploaded together are combined the same way.
What happens to contacts with several phone numbers?
vCard tags each number with a type such as CELL, WORK or HOME. Those become separate columns in the CSV, so a contact with a mobile and an office number fills two phone columns rather than one cell with both.
Why do some names look like =C3=A9 in my vCard?
That is quoted-printable encoding, which vCard 2.1 uses for non-ASCII characters and which many Android phones still export. =C3=A9 is the UTF-8 byte pair for é. The converter decodes it, so the CSV shows the actual letters.
Do contact photos come across?
No. A vCard can embed a photo as a long Base64 block, but a CSV cell is the wrong place for an image and import tools ignore it. Names, numbers, emails, addresses, companies, birthdays and notes are kept.
Which vCard versions can I upload?
2.1, 3.0 and 4.0. Version 3.0 is defined in RFC 2426 from 1998 and 4.0 in RFC 6350 from 2011; iCloud and Google Contacts export 3.0, while some Android phones still write 2.1.
How do I get the CSV back into a phone later?
Phones import vCard, not CSV. After editing the list, turn it back with CSV to VCF and import the .vcf on the phone or through iCloud.com.
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