CSV to vCard (VCF) converter
About CSV to vCard
The CSV to vCard converter turns a spreadsheet of contacts into one .vcf file that phones, address books and email clients can import. Each data row becomes a vCard 3.0 contact, and the header row decides which column fills which field. Use it to move a contact list from Excel, Google Sheets, a CRM export or a sign-up form into a contacts app.
The output is vCard 3.0 as defined in RFC 2426, because contact importers support that version most widely. Values are escaped as the spec requires. Lines end with CRLF and long lines are folded at 75 octets. Names with commas, notes with semicolons or line breaks, and non-ASCII characters all import correctly.
Contact lists are personal data, so the conversion runs in your browser. Nothing is uploaded. Check the cards in the output pane before you download the .vcf file.
How it works
Header mapping for common column names
Headers match without regard to case, spaces, hyphens or underscores. Name, Full name or Display name fill FN. First name, Last name, Middle name, Prefix and Suffix fill the structured N property. Email or E-mail, Phone, Mobile or Cell, Work phone and Home phone become EMAIL and TEL lines with the matching TYPE. Company, Organization and Department fill ORG. Job title or Title fills TITLE. If a file has both, as Outlook exports do, Title is read as the name prefix. Website or URL fills URL, and Notes fills NOTE. Numbered export columns such as "E-mail 1 - Value" and "Phone 1 - Value" are recognized too. Columns that match nothing are ignored.
Addresses from one column or several
A single Address column goes into the street part of ADR, so the whole address stays together. Separate Street, City, State or Region, ZIP or Postal code and Country columns fill the matching ADR parts instead. A Home or Work prefix, as in Home city or Business postal code, groups the parts into separate ADR lines typed HOME or WORK.
Escaping per the vCard 3.0 spec
In vCard text values, the backslash, comma and semicolon have special meaning. The converter writes them as \\, \, and \; and turns line breaks inside a cell into \n. A company such as "Analytical Engines, Ltd." stays one organization, and a multi-line note stays one NOTE property. URLs are written as-is apart from stray line breaks, because URL values are URIs, not escaped text.
CRLF line endings and 75-octet folding
RFC 2425, which vCard 3.0 builds on, separates lines with CRLF and says lines should not exceed 75 octets. Longer lines are folded with CRLF plus one space, and importers remove the fold when they read the card. Folding counts UTF-8 bytes, not characters, and never splits a multi-byte character. Accented names and non-Latin scripts come through intact.
Which rows become contacts
Every non-empty data row becomes one card. vCard 3.0 requires FN, so the converter builds it from the full name column, then from the name parts. If both are missing it uses the company, the first email or the first phone number. Rows with none of these are skipped. If your file has only one Name column, the name goes into FN and N is left with empty parts. Splitting names into given and family names automatically is unreliable across cultures.
Semicolon and tab separated files
Spreadsheet apps in many locales save CSV with semicolons, because the comma is their decimal separator. Pick Semicolon or Tab in the Delimiter control if your file uses them. Quoted cells with delimiters or line breaks are handled by the same RFC 4180 parser as the other CSV tools. A UTF-8 byte order mark at the start of the file is ignored.
Frequently asked questions
How do I convert a CSV file to vCard?
Upload or paste your CSV. Check that the first row has column names such as First name, Last name, Email and Phone, then review the cards in the output pane. Click Download to save a .vcf file with one vCard per row.
Which vCard version does the converter create?
vCard 3.0 (RFC 2426). It is the most widely supported version for importing contacts. vCard 4.0 (RFC 6350) exists, but not every importer handles it.
How do I import the .vcf file into my phone or contacts app?
Most contact apps and web services can import .vcf files, for example Google Contacts and iCloud Contacts. Phones can usually open a .vcf file directly. Some desktop mail clients read only the first card in a file with many contacts. If that happens, import through a web contacts service instead.
My column is called Title but holds Mr. or Dr. What should I do?
If the file also has a Job Title column, as Outlook contact exports do, Title is read as the honorific and fills the prefix part of N. On its own, a Title column is treated as a job title, since that is its most common meaning. Rename it to Prefix if it holds honorifics.
Why do accented characters look wrong after import?
The .vcf file is written as UTF-8. If the characters were already garbled in the CSV, for example because it was saved in a legacy encoding, export it again as UTF-8. In Excel, choose the "CSV UTF-8" format when saving.
Are my contacts uploaded?
No. Parsing, mapping and the .vcf download all happen on your device.
Can I convert vCard back to CSV?
Not with this tool. It converts in one direction only. To turn a single contact into a scannable code, use the vCard QR Code Generator.
Sources & last verified
We checked this tool's behavior and the claims on this page against the specifications below on . The tool runs in your browser, so the output you see is exactly what the engine produced.
- RFC 4180: Common format for CSV files
- RFC 2426: vCard MIME Directory Profile (vCard 3.0)
- RFC 2425: MIME Content-Type for Directory Information
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