How to export contacts from iPhone to Excel or CSV

Before you start: which contacts are where

Your iPhone can show contacts from several accounts at once, such as iCloud, Gmail or a work Exchange account. To see which ones you use, open Settings → Apps → Contacts → Contacts Accounts. New contacts go to the account shown under Default Account on the same screen.

• The Contacts app on the iPhone exports the lists you see on its Lists screen, and works without a computer.
• iCloud.com exports the contacts saved in iCloud, and needs a computer or tablet.
• The Contacts app on a Mac exports whatever you select in it, and can also go straight to a spreadsheet with Numbers.

If most of your contacts are in Gmail rather than iCloud, exporting them from Google Contacts is quicker. The Google and Android export guide covers that.

Method 1: export from the Contacts app on iPhone

These steps follow Apple’s guide for iOS 27 and iOS 26.

1. Open the Contacts app and tap the Lists button (at the top left on iOS 26).
2. Touch and hold the list you want to export. To export only some people, first make a list for them with Add List.
3. Tap Export, choose the fields to include, then tap the Done button.
4. Choose how to send or save the file: Mail, Messages, or Save to Files to keep it on the phone.

Fields you leave out are not in the file at all, so keep notes, addresses and birthdays selected if you will want them in the spreadsheet. To send a single person, open their card and tap Share Contact instead.

Method 2: export from iCloud.com

Contacts on iCloud.com works only on a computer or tablet, not in a phone’s browser.

1. Go to icloud.com/contacts and sign in with your Apple Account.
2. Click the Actions button at the top of the list, then Select All Contacts. To pick only some, hold Command (Mac) or Control (Windows) and click each contact.
3. Click the Share button, then Export vCard.

When several contacts are selected, iCloud saves them all in one .vcf file. A common slip is exporting only the contact that happened to be open, so check that the whole list is highlighted before you click Share.

Method 3: export from Contacts on a Mac

1. Open the Contacts app and select the contacts. Press Command-A to select every contact in the list.
2. Choose File → Export → Export vCard, pick a location and click Save.

Notes and photos are exported only if they are turned on in Contacts → Settings → vCard (Export notes in vCard and Export photos in vCard). Don’t choose Contacts Archive from the same menu: it makes an .abbu backup file for the Contacts app, not a .vcf.

A Mac can also skip the vCard step. Open a Numbers spreadsheet, drag the selected contacts into it, then choose File → Export To and pick Excel or CSV. Apple notes that this way includes fields you chose not to share on your own card.

Turn the .vcf file into Excel or CSV

1. Open the VCF to CSV converter on the device that has the file. On an iPhone, open it in Safari and pick the file from Files.
2. Choose the .vcf file. You can add several, for example one from iCloud and one from Gmail, and they are combined.
3. Pick a layout: Spreadsheet for Excel, Numbers or Google Sheets, or Outlook CSV or Google Contacts CSV if the contacts are going into one of those apps.
4. Choose Excel workbook (.xlsx) or CSV, and download.

Each contact becomes one row, and every phone number, e-mail and address gets its own column. Custom labels you gave numbers on the iPhone become the number’s type. Photos are left out, because a cell can’t hold them. Your browser reads and converts the file on your device, so the contacts are never uploaded.

To look through the file before converting, open it in the VCF viewer, which shows each contact as a card.

If something looks wrong

• Numbers show as 4.47E+11 or have lost their +. Excel turned them into numbers when it opened a CSV. Download the .xlsx version instead, which keeps them as text.
• Some contacts are missing. They are probably in another account. iCloud.com only has iCloud contacts, so export the other account too and convert the files together.
• Notes are empty. On the iPhone, the Notes field was left out during export. On a Mac, turn on Export notes in vCard and export again.
• The same person appears twice. They are saved in two accounts. On the iPhone, tap View Duplicates below My Card to merge them, or remove duplicates from the file with the VCF merge and de-duplicate tool.
• Excel shows lines of code. You opened the .vcf file itself, which Excel can’t read as contacts. Convert it first, then open the .xlsx file.