How to Export Outlook Contacts to vCard? Complete Guide
Organizing contacts effectively is the basis of communication, and Outlook is a widely used platform for this purpose. But, you may need to export Outlook contacts to vCard file, such as vCard (.vcf), for various reasons, such as importing them into other applications or sharing them with colleagues or friends.
In this article, we will walk you through the methods to convert Outlook contacts to vCard format with ease. This will be particularly useful if you want to keep a backup, move your contacts to another device, or share them in a format that is compatible with a variety of platforms and devices.
What is a vCard?
A VCF vCard is a standard file format for electronic business cards, mostly used to store contact information. A vCard can contain a person’s name, phone number, email address, postal address, and other details. these are commonly used across various platforms like smartphones, email clients, and even online address books because of their portability and compatibility.
Converting your contacts as vCard from Outlook permits you to share individual or multiple contacts with ease across different systems and devices.
Reason to Export Outlook Contacts to VCF
- Cross-Platform Compatibility: vCard is compatible with almost all modern email and contact management systems, including Android, iOS, Google Contacts, and macOS.
- Portability: vCard files are small and easy to share through email, messages, and cloud storage.
- Backup: You can save a personal backup of your contacts, which is essential if your Outlook account is deleted or compromised.
- Easy Import or Export: Multiple email clients, smart mobile phones, and other devices support the vCard format, making it easy to import/export contacts.
Read More: Convert VCF File into PDF
How to Manually Export Outlook Contacts to vCard Format?
As already mentioned, MS Outlook does not provide any direct method to convert Outlook contacts to vCard. Exactly why most of the professionals go for automated software. To continue it manually, you will have to convert them into CSV format and then into VCF. Perform the below-given steps to know-how:
Step 1: Open MS Outlook & Access Your Contacts
First, you need to launch the Microsoft Outlook application on your computer. The steps below may slightly differ depending on the version of Outlook you’re using, but the general process remains the same.
- Start Microsoft Outlook and hit the People tab, located at the bottom of the navigation pane. This takes you to the Contacts view.
- If you’re using Outlook 365 or a web-based version of Outlook, access the People section by clicking the People icon in the app launcher.
- Go to the Contacts view and you will see all the contacts posted there.
Step 2: Select Contacts to Export
You have several options for selecting the contacts you want to export:
- Exporting Individual Contacts: If you want to export just one contact, simply locate that contact in your list and click on it.
- Converting Multiple Contacts: To export multiple contacts, hold down the Ctrl button (Win) or Cmd key (Mac) and click each contact you want to export.
- Alternatively, you can press and drag to choose a range of contacts.
- Exporting All Contacts: To select all of your contacts, click on one contact and then press Ctrl+A (Windows) or Cmd+A (Mac) to select everything.
Step 3: Open the Export Options
Once you have selected the contacts you want to export, follow these steps:
- Choose the File tab in the upper-left corner of Outlook.
- From the File menu, choose Open & Export, and then select Import/Export.
This will open the Import and Export Wizard, which allows you to choose different export formats for your contacts.
Step 4: Choose Export Format
In the Import and Export Wizard:
- Choose Export to a file, and click Next.
- On the next screen, choose Microsoft Excel or Comma Separated Values (CSV), and click Next. (While this may seem like the wrong choice, we’ll convert the file to vCard after this step.)
- Choose the Contacts list of available folders and press Next.
Step 5: Export and Save Your File
- Select the location on your PC or computer where you’d like to save the converted contacts file (such as the desktop or a specific folder).
- Name your file (e.g., Outlook Contacts), and then click Finish.
Outlook will then begin exporting the selected contacts as a .csv file. While the CSV file will allow you to view your contacts in Excel, we will need to convert it into vCard format.
Read More Blog: Convert VCF to MSG File
Troubleshooting Common Issues
While exporting contact files to VCF or vCard format is usually a straightforward process, users may encounter some issues. these are some problems and their solutions:
- Missing Contact Information: Sometimes, when exporting from CSV or Excel, not all fields are mapped correctly. Before converting CSV to vCard, make sure the fields are arranged correctly.
- vCard Version Incompatibility: If your contacts aren’t displaying correctly on a device, it might be because of a version mismatch (vCard 2.1 vs. vCard 3.0). Try exporting the contacts in a different version.
- Corrupted vCard Files: If your vCard file doesn’t open correctly, it might be corrupt. Try re-exporting and converting the file again.
Bulk Export Outlook Contacts to vCard File Professionally
Despite the procedure being extremely convenient, users trying to export Outlook contacts to VCF are confronted with troubles. You can very much export MS Outlook contacts to vCard without any external help. However, the only condition is that the process must be carried out individually for each contact. Therefore, users end up having third-party tools as the last resort. When referring to third-party applications, the Outlook Contacts Export Tool plays an important role in the respective category. The application acts as a suitable platform to carry out the procedure.
The software is a boon in the industry for users with similar requirements. Mostly, the requirement is targeted towards a particular set of users for respective purposes. Also, you can import a VCF file to your Gmail account with all contact details with this help from this utility.
Few Clicks to convert Outlook contacts to vCard Format
1: Download the vCard to Outlook Converter Tool.
2: Select the PST file individually or in bulk (folder selection) from which contacts need to be converted.
3: The tool will scan the files and provide a preview of the contacts along with all the fields.
4: Now click on the Export button and export Outlook contacts to vCard.
5: The output can then be saved at the location of the user’s choice.
Conclusion
In this article, you learned about two ways to export Outlook contacts to vCard format. The application recommended above avails multiple other options to transfer your source files in addition to Outlook contacts to the vCard process. This adds up to the benefit of having the tool, as the users are provided more than just one output format, i.e., more than one platform to get Outlook contacts transferred. You can easily use this tool to export Outlook contacts to VCF file. The results provided are 100% accurate and easy to achieve.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Q1. Why should I export MS Outlook contacts to vCard?
Ans: converting contacts in vCard format makes it easy to share them across platforms such as iOS, Android, macOS, and even web-based email services like Gmail. This file provides support and ease of transferring to other devices.
Q2. Is it possible to export all Outlook contacts to a single vCard file?
Ans: By default, Outlook treats each contact as a separate vCard (.vcf) file. However, MS Outlook does not provide a direct way to convert multiple contact files to a single.vcf format. You may need a third-party tool or manual to merge them into a single file.
Q3. Is there any way to convert Outlook contacts to vCard in bulk?
Outlook does not allow you to export Outlook contacts to VCF in bulk at once. However, you can convert a CSV (comma-separated values) file (which can be converted from Outlook) to vCard using a third-party tool or online converter.