Convert VCF to CSV

What is a VCF file?

A VCF file, also called a vCard, is the standard format phones and address books use to export contacts. Each card holds one person's name, email, phone and address.

Why convert VCF to CSV?

A CSV opens in Excel or Google Sheets. There you can review contacts, clean them up, remove duplicates or import them in bulk into a CRM or mailing list.

How to convert vCard to CSV

The tool reads each vCard, joins wrapped lines and puts name, organization, title, email, phone and address into columns. If a contact has several emails or phones, they are joined with a semicolon.

How vCard fields map to CSV columns

Every contact becomes one row with six columns, always in the same order. Files from different sources line up:

• Name: the formatted name (FN). If a card has no FN, the structured name (N) is used, with the given name before the family name.
• Organization: the company (ORG). A department listed after it is added with a space.
• Title: the job title (TITLE).
• Email: every EMAIL on the card, separated by "; ".
• Phone: every TEL on the card, separated by "; ".
• Address: one postal address (ADR). Its parts, street, city, region, postcode and country, are joined by commas. If a card has several addresses, the last one is used.

Multiple emails and phone numbers

vCards label each number or address with a type such as HOME, WORK or CELL. CSV has no standard way to show that. So the labels are dropped, and all values share one cell in the order they appear on the card. To give each value its own column, use Text to Columns on Excel's Data tab, or Split text to columns in Google Sheets, with a semicolon as the separator. Birthdays, notes, websites, photos and nicknames are not included. Apple apps write custom-labeled entries with a group prefix, such as item1.EMAIL. Those entries are not picked up yet.

Moving contacts between Google, Outlook and iCloud

You don't always need CSV. Google Contacts and iCloud both import .vcf files, so contacts can move between them as vCards. CSV is the right choice for spreadsheets, CRMs, mailing-list tools and Outlook:

• iCloud: iCloud can only export vCards. At icloud.com/contacts, or in the Contacts app on a Mac, select the contacts and choose Export vCard. Then convert that file here.
• Google Contacts: Export offers Google CSV, Outlook CSV and vCard. Choose vCard if you want this tool's simpler columns. Import accepts CSV and vCard files.
• Outlook: the desktop app opens .vcf files one contact at a time, so CSV is the practical way to import a whole address book. Use the field mapping in the import option to match the Name, Email and Phone columns to Outlook's fields.
• Any other service: export one contact from it as CSV to see the column headers it expects. Then rename or split the columns in this file to match before you import.

Before you start

Input: VCF. Output: CSV. The settings appear before anything runs, so you can check them first. Your original file is never changed.

A valid file can still hold the wrong data. Before you import the result, check the row count, field names, text encoding, dates, IDs and a few unusual rows.

Keep the original until you have opened and checked the result. The work happens in this browser tab, so the size you can handle depends on your device's memory, your browser and the file itself.

How to convert VCF to CSV

1. Drop a .vcf file into the box above.
2. Press Convert to read the contacts.
3. Download the CSV.