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VCF converter

A .vcf file is a vCard: one or more contact records written as property lines — names, phone numbers, email addresses, organisations, photos — inside BEGIN:VCARD and END:VCARD markers. It is the format your phone exports when you share a contact.

Private for supported formats — processed in your browser

Convert supported files

Runs on your device

Drop VCF files here

Batch files can each use a different output. Nothing uploads for local conversions.

Working inputs include camera RAW, browser-local audio/video, PDF, CBZ/CBR comics, office documents, ebooks, markup, 3D models, structured text, images, and archives.

Where VCF comes from

The Versit consortium published vCard 2.1 in 1995; the IETF took it over with RFC 2426 (version 3.0) in 1998 and RFC 6350 (version 4.0) in 2011. All three versions remain in circulation simultaneously, which is the format's defining practical problem — a 4.0 file can be rejected by software that only speaks 2.1, and version negotiation happens by trial and error.

How VCF works

  • Each card is a BEGIN:VCARD / END:VCARD block; one file may hold many cards in sequence.
  • The structured N property is semicolon-separated as family;given;additional;prefixes;suffixes, while FN is the free-form display name.
  • Property parameters use TYPE= to distinguish work from home and voice from fax.
  • Photos may be embedded as base64 or referenced by URI, so file sizes vary enormously for the same contact count.
  • Version 4.0 changed the encoding rules and made UTF-8 mandatory, breaking round trips with 2.1 files.

When to use VCF

  • Exporting or importing contacts between phones, mail clients and CRMs
  • Attaching a contact card to an email signature
  • Bulk-migrating an address book between providers
  • Flattening contacts into a spreadsheet for deduplication

Strengths and limitations

Strengths

  • Universally supported by phones, mail clients and address books
  • Plain text and human-readable, so a broken import can be diagnosed by eye
  • Carries rich structured detail including photos and multiple typed addresses

Limitations

  • Three incompatible versions in active circulation
  • Embedded base64 photos bloat files and diff terribly
  • Escaping rules for commas and semicolons inside values are routinely got wrong

Compatibility

Read by iOS, Android, Outlook, Google Contacts, Thunderbird and every CRM worth the name. Novus Convert parses cards locally and converts to JSON and CSV, which is usually what someone wants when deduplicating or auditing an exported address book.

Names, organisations, titles, emails and phone numbers are preserved. Embedded photographs are not carried into tabular output.

Convert VCF to another format

Convert other formats to VCF