Backup All Outlook Contacts to VCard in 3 Easy Steps
For some reason, the Microsoft Outlook developers never really embraced the vCard format, and did not provide adequate ways to import/export to this format. The “File > Import and Export…” menu only has ways to import vCards, and no options to export them. Because of this, various tools and add-ins have appeared that allow you to backup/export your Outlook contacts to vCard, and some of them even cost money! Why should you have to pay to back up your contacts?
Well, you don’t. It turns out there is an easy (but non-obvious) way to do this in Outlook without any additional tools or add-ins. Here it is in 3 easy steps:
STEP 1: Select all contacts in your Outlook contact folder (CTRL-A).
STEP 2: Select “Forward as vCard” from the Actions menu.
STEP 3: When the new message appears with all of your vCards attached, select File > Save Attachments and save your vCards to a folder on your hard drive.
The draft message can be deleted/discarded. You now have a standard set of vCards that you can use however you like. You can even drag them onto your iPod Contacts folder and view them on the go from the iPod Extras>Contacts menu.
WARNING: When Outlook 2003 exports to vCards, it only exports the first email address! The other email addresses will be lost! This limitation only applies to OL2003 and is not an issue for OL2007 or OL2010. You can see some discussion of the OL2003 issue here.
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May 28, 2009 - 12:07 am
If you have a phone that can’t be syncronised with your outlook contacts or you just don’t want to bother with the installation, you can send this email to the phone and click on the atachment. The phone will ask you if you want to add this contact to the address book. Since there are many VCF files it’s probably better to join them into single VCF file before sending. Just follow the 3 steps above and then open DOS window in that directory and type this command:
copy *.vcf contacts.vcf
Copy command will join every VCF file into a single file called contacts.vcf.
When I tried this on some sony Ericsson phones, the phone filled the whole address book with one click.
December 5, 2011 - 1:11 am
Thank you;very much
December 5, 2011 - 1:24 am
thank you
May 28, 2009 - 6:53 am
Miha – Thanks for the great suggestion! I’ll have to try this out.
-Carl
July 4, 2009 - 5:28 pm
Works with Outlook 2007 too.
July 8, 2009 - 1:12 pm
Jan – Thanks for the report, glad to hear it works on OL2007!
-Carl
October 19, 2009 - 11:41 am
The easiest way to do this is to download Mozilla Thundebird (http://www.mozillamessaging.com/en-US/thunderbird/) and install it on your Vista OS. you don’t need to set up any account. once you have installed it. open up the address book and then select all the address’s and choose export. Select the LDIF format. Once this is done, copy this on a USB file and move the .LDIF file to your Mac. Now open up ‘Address Book’ within Mac and choose ‘import’ and navigate to the .ldif file and BAAMMM!! you are done. you should have all of your contacts in your Mac address book.
Now if you have an iPhone and MobileMe, enable syncing and make sure you have your address book option checked. doing this will add all of your contacts to your iPhone as well.
September 17, 2010 - 7:27 am
really good n greate information. Thanks
September 24, 2010 - 11:33 am
In Outlook 2007, this method will allow you to export the vCards with multiple email addresses.
November 27, 2010 - 11:35 pm
Good to know, thanks Louie!
-Carl
October 12, 2010 - 9:38 am
In Outlook 2007 it doesn’t work. I can’t access the ‘Save as’ option. When I select all I can only press send message. I’ve saved them in a group as vcards but don’t know how to transfer to my moto milestone. Thanks for help
November 27, 2010 - 11:32 pm
Chris -
It works a little differently in OL2007 / OL2010 since the File > Save Attachments command will likely be grayed out. Here are the steps (tested in OL2010):
STEP 1: Select the contacts you want to export
STEP 2: Right click on one of the selected contacts and select “Forward” from the context menu.
STEP 3: When the message window opens, just select all of the attachments and drag them to your desktop (or to a folder on your hard drive).
This just gets the contacts onto your hard drive as vCards for backup or use in other applications. If you are just looking to transfer contacts to your phone, you can probably buy software from your provider to synchronize data with Outlook and skip the vCard export. I have also had very good luck in the past using SyncCell for this purpose.
Hope that helps!
-Carl
May 29, 2011 - 11:48 am
This was very helpful. Thanks for sharing this.
July 16, 2011 - 12:26 pm
The described way has a problem. Not all Fields are exported, e.g. the notes field. So this is more for sharing purposes, than for backuping.
August 20, 2011 - 7:28 pm
Hi Alex –
I just tested this again using contacts with notes. It works just fine in OL2010. I seem to remember this working in OL2003 as well, but I no longer have an installation available to test. Which Outlook version are you using? Are there other fields besides the notes field that are an issue for you?
-Carl
July 22, 2011 - 1:49 am
Sweet, that copy command was just what I needed.
Thanks!!
Micah
July 27, 2011 - 1:28 pm
hi..
i have one my contact backup file in onenote2007 and i want to copy this my contacts in outlook 2007 in contact bussiness card thane wht should i do????????????
August 20, 2011 - 7:35 pm
Bhavesh –
I don’t know of an easy way to transfer contacts from OneNote to Outlook. I think you have to create each one manually in Outlook. I would recommend creating them in Outlook in the first place (or in some other service). OneNote is able to copy text from a business card scan, which is nice, but I would paste that text into an Outlook contact.
-Carl
July 28, 2011 - 3:07 pm
I just wanna say a BIG Thanks to you
Importing my contacts from my old cellphone to my new android one was a nightmare for me.
Thank you Thank you Thank you
August 20, 2011 - 7:36 pm
Good to hear… thanks for the comment!
-Carl
September 24, 2011 - 6:47 am
On OL2007 – If you want to transfer all your contacts to an Android based phone. Pl follow these simple steps.
1. Make a new folder call it anything you want on the desktop. ( example New folder)
2. In outlook go to contacts and select all your contacts by pressing Ctrl A ( this will higlight all of your contacts )
3. Simply drag the higlighted area into your “new folder”
This wil NOT move your original contacts from your Outlook2007
All your contacts are now stored in the “new folder” in a Vcard/vcf format.
Copy this folder on to your Micro SD card in your phone.
On your android device select appropriate selection to read all your Vcard/Vcf files.
October 6, 2011 - 9:22 pm
this last post did not work for me (OL2007) copying them to folder became .msg files. Had 538 contacts was freezing up and failing to “send as full contact Internet vcard” had to clear my temp folders and then select 100 at a time, that worked well, copied to folder. Ran DOS command on them to one .vcf file, then plugged phone into PC copied to root of (Galaxy S II w?2.3.4), unplugged phone from PC, went to “my files” on phone, folder I added, clicked on vcf file and it pulled them all in including notes!!!!!! You all rock here !!!!!! Thank YOU!!!
November 30, 2011 - 10:25 am
The same thing happens to me. It’s all in .msg. how do i convert them to .vcf? please help.
December 24, 2011 - 11:51 am
Joe, Mike – I’m not sure why Peter is recommending dragging the contacts right out of the Outlook view. I was having the exact same issue as you, which is why I came up with the method of forwarding the contacts, then dragging the VCF files out of the forwarded message. I would recommend trying the original guidance above to see if that works any better.
For the DOS command to join all of the files into one, see the very first comment above from MihaM.
-Carl
January 11, 2012 - 11:38 am
If someone want to convert contacts backup in vcf format lotus notes client can export contact in vcf format.
February 2, 2012 - 7:28 am
I end up with .msg files following all the options described. I have OL2010 (it is a company computer that works with exchange server). Any ideas how to do end up with vcf files?