Back up your iPhone contacts to CSV, Excel, or vCard

Open Delete Contacts, tap Export, choose CSV or Excel (.xlsx). The file is generated on-device and saved to Files (or shared via the iOS share sheet to AirDrop, Mail, etc.). Each row is one contact with all fields — name, phone numbers, emails, addresses, notes, organization — in named columns.

CSV is plain text — easiest to open in any spreadsheet app or text editor, but doesn't preserve multiple values per field cleanly (multiple phone numbers get concatenated). Excel (.xlsx) handles multi-value fields better and works in Numbers and Excel natively. vCard (.vcf) is the format iOS itself uses — best for restoring contacts back into any iOS, macOS, Android, or Outlook address book.

On your device, in the Files app. By default Delete Contacts saves exports to Files → On My iPhone → Delete Contacts. From there you can move it to iCloud Drive, Dropbox, email it to yourself, or AirDrop to another device — but the file never leaves your phone unless you choose to share it.

Yes, but only if iCloud Contacts sync is enabled (Settings → [your name] → iCloud → Contacts). iCloud syncs the live state of your address book — so if you delete a contact, the iCloud copy also gets deleted (with a 30-day recovery window). A vCard export from Delete Contacts is a point-in-time snapshot that stays unchanged regardless of what you do to the live contacts afterward.

We recommend exporting a vCard before any large cleanup operation (bulk delete, duplicate merge), and otherwise once per quarter. Backups are small (typically under 1 MB even for thousands of contacts) and creating one takes about two seconds.

Yes. Open the .vcf file from Files or Mail, tap 'Add All Contacts'. iOS imports every contact in the file. If you have duplicate detection on (iOS 16+), it will prompt before creating duplicates. The vCard format also imports cleanly into macOS Contacts, Outlook, Gmail, and Android.