What is VCF?

VCF (.vcf) files contain vCard data - electronic business cards with contact information. A vCard stores names, phone numbers, email addresses, physical addresses, job titles, organizations, websites, birthdays, photos, and more. VCF is a plain text format that works universally across smartphones, email clients, and contact management systems.

You can share VCF files via email, text, QR codes, or AirDrop to quickly exchange contact info. Most phones automatically recognize VCF files and offer to import them into your contacts. VCF files can contain single contacts or entire address books with hundreds of contacts for backup and migration purposes.

Did you know? Many email signatures include VCF attachments for easy contact saving!

History

vCard was developed by the Versit Consortium (Apple, IBM, AT&T, Siemens) in 1995 to standardize electronic business card exchange across different platforms.

Key Milestones

  • 1995: vCard 2.1 introduced by Versit
  • 1998: vCard 3.0 (RFC 2426)
  • 2000s: Mobile phone adoption
  • 2011: vCard 4.0 (RFC 6350)
  • Present: Universal contact exchange format

Key Features

Core Capabilities

  • Contact Info: Names, phones, emails, addresses
  • Photos: Embedded contact pictures
  • Organizations: Company and job title
  • Birthdays: Date of birth
  • URLs: Websites and social media
  • Notes: Additional information

Common Use Cases

Contact Sharing

Quick contact exchange

Backup

Export phone contacts

QR Codes

Business card QR codes

Email Signatures

Attach contact info

Advantages

  • Universal contact standard
  • Works on all platforms
  • Human-readable text format
  • Supports photos and details
  • Easy to share and import
  • Single or bulk contacts

Disadvantages

  • Version compatibility issues
  • Large photos increase file size
  • No encryption by default
  • Inconsistent app support
  • Limited metadata fields

Technical Information

Format Specifications

Specification Details
File Extension .vcf, .vcard
MIME Type text/vcard
Format Type Contact data
Encoding UTF-8
Standard RFC 6350 (vCard 4.0)
Structure BEGIN:VCARD...END:VCARD

Common Tools

  • Apps: iPhone Contacts, Android Contacts, Outlook
  • Editors: Text editors, contact managers
  • Export: All major email/phone systems