What Is a .VCF File?

vCard Contact File (.vcf)

Overview

vCard is the standard file format for contact information: name, phone numbers, email addresses, postal addresses, organisation, photo, birthday and more, in a plain-text structure every address book understands. A .vcf file may hold one contact or thousands, which is why it is the format for exporting an entire phone book and for the single-contact attachments people share by email and message.

The format is text, so a .vcf opens in Notepad and reads like a labelled list. Applications use the labels to import the fields into their own contact records.

Technical Specifications

• MIME Type: text/vcard (also text/x-vcard)
• File Extensions: .vcf, .vcard
• Category: Data
• Specification: RFC 6350 (vCard 4.0, 2011); RFC 2426 (vCard 3.0, 1998); vCard 2.1 (1996)
• Encoding: UTF-8 in 3.0 and 4.0; 2.1 allowed quoted-printable and other charsets
• Related: jCard (RFC 7095, the JSON form), xCard (RFC 6351, XML), iCalendar (the sibling format for events)

Identification

No binary signature. A vCard file begins with BEGIN:VCARD and a VERSION line, and every contact ends with END:VCARD:

BEGIN:VCARD
VERSION:3.0
N:Lovelace;Ada;;;
FN:Ada Lovelace
ORG:Analytical Engine Ltd
TITLE:Mathematician
TEL;TYPE=CELL:+44 20 7946 0000
EMAIL;TYPE=INTERNET:ada@example.com
ADR;TYPE=HOME:;;12 St James's Square;London;;SW1Y 4JH;UK
BDAY:1815-12-10
PHOTO;ENCODING=b;TYPE=JPEG:/9j/4AAQSkZJRgABAQ...
END:VCARD

File Structure

Each line is a property: a name, optional parameters after semicolons, a colon, then the value. Key properties:

Property	Meaning
FN	Formatted name, as displayed (required)
N	Structured name: family; given; additional; prefix; suffix
TEL	Telephone, with TYPE= cell, home, work, fax
EMAIL	Email address
ADR	Postal address: PO box; extended; street; city; region; postcode; country
ORG and TITLE	Organisation and job title
PHOTO	Embedded (base64) or linked image
BDAY	Birthday
NOTE, URL, UID, REV	Free text, website, unique id, last-modified

Lines longer than 75 characters are folded onto continuation lines that begin with a space. Multiple contacts are simply concatenated.

Versions

• 2.1: the oldest, still produced by some phones and Outlook; uses CHARSET= and quoted-printable for non-ASCII.
• 3.0: the most widely supported; what most exports produce and what every importer reads.
• 4.0: cleaner, UTF-8 only, better for multiple languages and genders; less universally imported, so exporters often still choose 3.0.

History and Development

vCard was created by the Versit Consortium (Apple, AT&T, IBM and Siemens) in 1995 as an electronic business card, alongside vCalendar. The Internet Mail Consortium took it over, and the IETF standardised 3.0 in 1998 and 4.0 in 2011. It remains the interchange format for every address book: Google Contacts, iCloud, Outlook, Android, Thunderbird and CardDAV servers all import and export it.

Common Use Cases

• Moving contacts between phones, especially iPhone to Android or the reverse
• Backing up an address book as a single file
• Sharing a contact from a phone (the attachment is a one-entry .vcf)
• Email signatures and websites offering a downloadable business card
• CRM and directory imports, usually after a CSV conversion
• CardDAV synchronisation between devices and servers

How to Open a VCF File

Import into an address book

• iPhone and iPad: tap the .vcf in Mail, Messages or Files and choose Add All Contacts (or Create New Contact for a single entry).
• Android: open the file; Contacts offers to import. Or Contacts, menu, Settings, Import, .vcf file.
• Google Contacts (web): Import, choose the .vcf. This is the easiest route for a large file, and it then syncs to Android.
• iCloud (web): Contacts, gear icon, Import vCard.
• Outlook (Windows): File, Open & Export, Import/Export, Import a VCARD file. Note that classic Outlook imports only the first contact from a multi-contact file; split it first or import through Outlook.com or Google.
• macOS Contacts: drag the file onto the Contacts window, or File, Import.
• Windows Contacts / People app: double-click the file.
• Thunderbird: Address Book, Tools, Import, vCard.

Just to read it

Any text editor. The fields are human-readable; only embedded photos (long base64 blocks) are not.

How to Convert a VCF File

To CSV (for spreadsheets and CRMs)

• Google Contacts: import the .vcf, then Export as Google CSV or Outlook CSV.
• Command line: vcf2csv tools exist; a short Python script with the vobject library gives full control over columns:

import csv, vobject

with open("contacts.vcf", encoding="utf-8") as f, open("contacts.csv", "w", newline="", encoding="utf-8") as out:
    w = csv.writer(out)
    w.writerow(["Name", "Phone", "Email"])
    for card in vobject.readComponents(f):
        name = card.fn.value
        tel = card.tel.value if hasattr(card, "tel") else ""
        email = card.email.value if hasattr(card, "email") else ""
        w.writerow([name, tel, email])

From CSV to vCard

Google Contacts and Outlook.com import CSV and export vCard, which is the least painful two-step conversion. Dedicated converters and the same Python library handle it directly.

Splitting and merging

Because contacts are concatenated text, csplit or a few lines of script split a file on BEGIN:VCARD, and cat *.vcf > all.vcf merges. Outlook's one-contact-per-import limit is the usual reason to split.

Between versions

Most importers accept 2.1, 3.0 and 4.0. If one refuses a file, re-exporting it from Google Contacts (which writes 3.0) normalises it.

Common Problems

• Garbled accents: a 2.1 file with CHARSET= or a 3.0 file saved in the wrong encoding. Re-save as UTF-8 or re-export from the source.
• Only one contact imported: classic Outlook's limit; use the web clients or split the file.
• Missing photos: some apps drop PHOTO on import or export; iCloud and Google keep them.
• Duplicate contacts after import: most address books offer a merge-duplicates tool; run it after rather than before.

Advantages

• Universal: every contact application imports it.
• Human-readable and editable by hand.
• Complete: photos, multiple numbers and addresses, notes, custom fields.
• One file for any number of contacts.

Limitations

• Version quirks between 2.1, 3.0 and 4.0 cause occasional import failures.
• Custom fields (X- properties) are app-specific and often dropped.
• No standard for groups or relationships across applications.
• Large photo blobs make files bulky and slow to parse.

Related Formats

• ICS: the iCalendar sibling for events and calendars.
• CSV: the tabular form most CRMs want.
• JSON: the basis of jCard, the JSON representation.
• EML: the email message format vCards most often travel inside.