How to import contacts from Excel or CSV to iPhone

Step 1: check the spreadsheet

• Use one row per contact, with column names in the first row: Name, Mobile, Email, Company and so on. The exact wording doesn’t matter.
• Use either one full-name column or separate first-name and last-name columns. The iPhone sorts contacts by these.
• Give each phone number and e-mail address its own column, such as Mobile, Work phone and Home phone, rather than putting several in one cell.
• Write phone numbers with their country code, such as +1 555 010 0100. Numbers without one may not match in WhatsApp.

Phone numbers that Excel has changed

Excel treats a long run of digits as a number. It shows it in short form, such as 4.47E+11, and drops a leading 0 or +. If you save that sheet as CSV, the CSV keeps the changed value, and so would your iPhone.

• Convert the .xlsx file itself, not a CSV saved from it. The workbook keeps every digit Excel stored, so a number shown as 4.47E+11 comes out in full.
• A leading 0 or + that Excel has already removed can’t be recovered from the file. Format the phone column as Text and type those numbers again, or add the country code.

Step 2: convert the sheet to a .vcf file

1. Open the CSV to VCF converter and choose your .xlsx, .csv or .tsv file.
2. Check the column matching. Each column is matched to a contact detail for you, such as Mobile to mobile phone. Change any that look wrong, or set a column to “not used”.
3. Keep vCard 3.0, which the iPhone reads, and keep the default of one combined file.
4. Check the preview, then download the .vcf file.

Rows with no name, company, phone number or e-mail are skipped and listed, so you can see what was left out. The file is made in your browser and your list is never uploaded. To read through the finished file first, open it in the VCF viewer.

Step 3: choose the account the contacts go to

New contacts are saved to the iPhone’s default account. Open Settings → Apps → Contacts → Default Account and pick one before you import. Contacts Accounts, on the same screen, lists the accounts you can choose from.

• iCloud keeps the contacts on your other Apple devices too.
• Gmail or another account puts them there, so they also appear in that account on the web.

Step 4: add the contacts on the iPhone

1. Send the .vcf file to yourself by e-mail or in Messages.
2. On the iPhone, tap the .vcf attachment.
3. Tap Add All Contacts to add every contact in the file.
4. Open Contacts and check a few cards: names, numbers and e-mail addresses.

You can also send the file from a Mac with AirDrop. Tap Accept on the iPhone, then add the contacts the same way.

Or import at iCloud.com

For a long list, importing on a computer avoids opening the file on the phone.

1. On the iPhone, check that iCloud Contacts is on: Settings → [your name] → iCloud, tap See All next to Saved to iCloud, and turn on Contacts.
2. On a computer, go to icloud.com/contacts and sign in with your Apple Account.
3. Click the Add button on the right, choose Import Contact, and select the .vcf file.

Each person in the file becomes a separate contact in the All Contacts list, and the contacts then appear on every device that uses iCloud Contacts. If your iPhone uses Gmail for contacts instead, import the same file at contacts.google.com with Import. Google takes up to 3,000 contacts per import, so split a bigger file with the VCF splitter.

If something looks wrong

• Numbers are wrong or cut short. See “Phone numbers that Excel has changed” above, fix the sheet and convert it again.
• The contacts went to the wrong account. Change the Default Account, then import again.
• Every contact appears twice. The file was imported twice, or the people already existed. In Contacts, tap View Duplicates below My Card, then Merge All.
• First and last names are swapped. A column was matched to the wrong name field. Fix the matching in step 2 and convert again.
• Only one contact was added. The file holds a single contact. If you chose “one file per contact”, convert again with one combined file.