What's inside a .vcf file
The name stands for “virtual contact file”. Open one in any text editor and you see lines like these, one detail per line:
BEGIN:VCARD
VERSION:3.0
N:Rivera;Sam;;;
FN:Sam Rivera
ORG:Northfield Tools
TITLE:Sales Director
TEL;TYPE=CELL:+1 555 555 0142
EMAIL;TYPE=WORK:[email protected]
URL:https://example.com
END:VCARD
BEGIN:VCARD and END:VCARD mark where one contact starts and stops. VERSION says which edition of the format wrote it. N holds the name in parts, last name first; FN is the name as it should be shown. ORG is the company, TITLE the job title, and TEL and EMAIL carry a type, so a phone knows which number is the mobile. A photo, when there is one, sits inside the file as a long block of encoded text.
The three versions in use (2.1, 3.0 and 4.0) and every property are laid out on the vCard format page.
Where .vcf files come from
- iPhone. In Contacts, open a person and tap Share Contact. On iOS 17 and later you can share a whole list or a selection as one file.
- iCloud.com. In Contacts, select all and export them as a vCard.
- Google Contacts. Export, then choose vCard (for iOS Contacts).
- Outlook. Classic Outlook on Windows saves a single contact as a .vcf.
- Email and websites. A signature or a “Save contact” button often attaches or downloads one.
- QR codes. A QR code on a business card can hold the same vCard text; the phone camera reads it and offers to save the contact.
One file, many contacts
A .vcf with many people in it is the same block repeated: one BEGIN:VCARD … END:VCARD after another. To count the contacts, search the file for BEGIN:VCARD.
This is why the file confuses some programs. Contacts apps on the iPhone, the Mac and Google read every block. Others stop after the first contact, and a spreadsheet that opens the file as text puts each line in its own row, so one person spreads over ten rows.
How to open a VCF file
| Device | How to open it | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| iPhone or iPad | Tap the file in Mail, Messages or Files, then Add to Contacts or Create New Contact | The contact, or all of them, in Contacts |
| Mac | Double-click the file | Contacts opens and asks to import every card in it |
| Windows | Double-click, or import it in Outlook | Outlook imports one contact per file; for a file with many, use Google Contacts or convert it to CSV |
| Android | Open the file and pick the Contacts app | The contacts saved to the phone’s account |
| Google Contacts on the web | Import, then choose the file | Every contact added to your Google account |
| Excel or a text editor | Open the file | The raw lines; Excel puts each line in a row of its own |
Turning a .vcf into a spreadsheet
The VCF to CSV converter gives you one row per contact. Drop the file on the page, pick a column set (Excel / Google Sheets, Google Contacts, Outlook, HubSpot, Salesforce or Krane), check the preview and download the CSV. The file is UTF-8 with a byte-order mark, so Excel shows accents and names in other scripts correctly when you double-click it.
The page reads vCard 2.1, 3.0 and 4.0, and files with thousands of contacts. It runs in your browser: nothing is uploaded and there is no account. It also goes the other way, from a CSV back to one .vcf.
Krane for iPhone
With Krane: paper cards into contacts
The cards you’re handed at a show arrive on paper, not as a .vcf. Krane on iPhone, iPhone Duo and iPad reads each printed card into a contact: name, title, company, phones, emails, website and address. From there it saves the contact to Apple Contacts or shares it as a vCard, and with Krane Pro it exports a CSV or sends it to HubSpot, Salesforce or Pipedrive. The business card scanner is free for 10 scans a week. Krane can’t import a .vcf file.