VCF to Outlook — a vCard file into the CSV Outlook imports
Outlook imports one vCard at a time. Convert a .vcf with many contacts into the CSV Outlook takes in one go, with every field in its own column.
About this conversion
Outlook on Windows opens a .vcf with several contacts and imports only the first one — a limitation people discover after the fact. Its CSV import takes the whole list, but only in its own layout of named columns. The page writes that layout: mobile, home and business phones in their columns, the work address split into street, city and postcode, the website in the field Outlook shows as Website rather than buried in the notes. Checked by importing into Outlook on the web and into classic Outlook on Windows. The two read CSV differently, so there are two files: the button saves the one for Outlook on the web and the new Outlook (UTF-8, any alphabet). Classic Outlook’s import wizard needs “CSV for classic Outlook (Windows)” from the Export menu — written in your Windows code page, the way the wizard expects.
Just want to look inside it?
The same tool without converting anything: open the file and read it.
The same contacts, any way out
The file is read once and stays open, so the format is picked at the end: the same list
can leave here as XLSX, CSV, CSV for Google Contacts or PDF. Before that you can search it, see which people are saved
twice — the same number written as (555) 201-4477 in one file and
+15552014477 in another counts as one — and fold the duplicates into a single
card without losing any phone, address or note.
Questions
- Where do I import it in Outlook?
- New Outlook and Outlook on the web: People → Manage contacts → Import contacts — use the file the button saves. Classic Outlook: File → Open & Export → Import/Export → Import from another program or file → Comma Separated Values — use “CSV for classic Outlook (Windows)” from the Export menu.
- Names came out as “Ñ” or first names are missing.
- That is classic Outlook reading a UTF-8 file. Save “CSV for classic Outlook (Windows)” instead and import that one.
- What about fields Outlook has no column for?
- Extra phones, related people and custom dates go into the Notes field with a label, so nothing is dropped silently.