Quick Links

We’ve shown you how to export a contact to and import a contact from a vCard (.vcf) file. However, what if you want to export multiple contacts at the same time to multiple vCard files or even a single vCard file?

Outlook doesn’t allow you to directly export all your contacts as vCard files or as a single vCard file, but there is a way to accomplish both tasks.

Export Multiple Contacts to Multiple vCard Files

Outlook allows you to forward contact information as a vCard. You can also select multiple contacts and forward them all at once. This feature allows you to indirectly export multiple contacts at once to multiple vCard files.

Click the People tab to access your contacts.

00a_clicking_people

Select all the contacts you want to export using the Shift and Ctrl keys as needed. Select Contacts the same way you would select files in Windows Explorer.

Click Forward Contact in the Share section on the Home tab and select As a Business Card from the drop-down menu.

01_selecting_forward_as_business_card

The selected contacts attached to a new email message as .vcf files. To select all the attached .vcf files, right-click in the Attached box and select Select All from the popup menu.

02_selecting_all_attachments

Make sure the folder to which you want to export the contacts is open in Windows Explorer. Drag the selected attached .vcf files from the new email message to the open folder in Windows Explorer.

03_dragging_contacts_to_folder

A .vcf file is created for each contact you selected and dragged to the folder.

04_vcard_files_saved_to_folder

You can close the Message window by clicking on the X in the upper, right corner of the window.

05_closing_message_window

NOTE: You can also close the Message window by clicking the File tab.

06_clicking_file_tab_message_window

Then, click the Close option on the left.

07_selecting_close_on_file_tab

Because you already have your .vcf files, you don’t need to save or send the message, so click No when asked if you want to save your changes.

08_save_changes_dialog

If it turns out that a draft of your message was saved, the following message displays. Click No to delete the draft.

09_keep_draft_dialog

Export Multiple Contacts to a Single vCard (.vcf) File

If you would rather export your contacts to a single vCard (.vcf) File, there is a way to do this using Gmail. We’ll export the contacts from Outlook as a .csv file and then use Gmail to convert the .csv file to a .vcf file.

Select the contacts you want to export on the People page and click the File tab.

10_clicking_file_tab_to_export

On the Account Information screen, click Open & Export in the list on the left.

11_clicking_open_and_export

On the Open screen, click Import/Export.

12_clicking_import_export

The Import and Export Wizard displays. Select Export to a file from the Choose an action to perform list and click Next.

13_selecting_export_to_a_file

In the Create a file of type box, select Comma Separated Values. Click Next.

14_selecting_comma_separated_values

Contacts should be already selected in the Select folder to export from box. If not, select it. Click Next.

15_selecting_folder_to_export_from

Click Browse to the right of the Save exported file as box.

16_clicking_browse

Navigate to the folder to which you want to export the .csv file. Enter a name for the file in the File name edit box, keeping the .csv extension.

17_saving_csv_file

The path you selected is entered into the Save exported file as edit box. Click Next.

18_clicking_next

The final screen of the Export to a File dialog box displays listing the action to be performed. Click Finish to begin the export process.

19_clicking_finish

Once the export process is finished, you will see the .csv file in the folder in Windows Explorer.

20_resulting_csv_file

Now, we will import the .csv file into Gmail. Go to Gmail and sign in to your account.

21_clicking_gmail

Click Gmal in the upper, left corner of the main page and select Contacts from the drop-down menu.

22_selecting_contacts

On the Contacts page, click More above your list of contacts and select Import from the drop-down menu.

23_selecting_import_from_more_menu

Click Browse on the Import contacts dialog box that displays.

24_clicking_browse_on_import_contacts

Navigate to the folder in which you saved the .csv file and select the file. Click Open.

25_selecting_csv_file

Click Import on the Import contacts dialog box.

26_clicking_import

A screen displays listing the contacts you imported, but not yet merged into your main Gmail contacts list. Select the contacts you imported.

NOTE: The contacts you imported may be the only contacts in this list. If that’s the case, they all should be automatically selected.

Click More and select Export from the drop-down menu.

27_selecting_export_for_imported_contacts

On the Export contacts dialog box, select Selected contacts to indicate which contacts you want to export.

NOTE: We could have selected The group Imported 10/10/13 because that contains the same two contacts as the Selected contacts.

Select vCard format for the export format. Click Export.

28_clicking_export

Gmail creates a contacts.vcf file containing the selected contacts and asks you whether you want to open the file with Outlook or save the file. To save the file, select the Save File option and click OK.

29_saving_contacts_file

Navigate to the folder in which you want to save the contacts.vcf file, change the name of the file in the File name edit box, if desired, and click Save.

30_selecting_location_for_vcf_file

The .vcf file is saved to the selected directory and contains all the contacts you exported from Outlook.

31_multiple_contacts_vcf_file

This could be used as a way to backup your contacts in one file. You could also backup the .csv file. However, if you have a lot of contacts you will probably find that the .vcf file is smaller. We only exported two contacts, and our .csv file was 2 KB, while the .vcf file was 1 KB.

We will be showing you how to import multiple contacts from a single .vcf file into Outlook soon.