How to export contacts from Gmail, Outlook, iPhone and more

Every big contacts app can hand you a file of your address book. The catch is that they don't all hand you the same file, and the one you get decides where it can go next.

How do you export contacts?

To export contacts, open the contacts section of the service that holds them and look for Export. Google Contacts gives CSV or vCard, Outlook gives CSV, iCloud and iPhone give vCard, and Android's Contacts app saves a .vcf file. Choose vCard to move contacts between apps and CSV to edit them in a spreadsheet.

Find your service in the table, then jump to its steps.

Which file will you get?

Those are the full-address-book exports each company documents as of October 2026. Before you export, check which format your destination accepts, so you pull the right file the first time.

vCard or CSV: which format should you choose?

vCard (a .vcf file) is the standard format for contact cards, defined in RFC 6350. Each contact is a block of text that starts with BEGIN:VCARD, and the format has fields for names, several phone numbers and addresses, birthdays and even a photo. Pick vCard when you are moving contacts to another app or phone.

CSV is a plain spreadsheet: one row per contact, one column per field. Pick CSV when you want to clean up, merge or sort contacts in Excel or Google Sheets, or when the service you are moving to asks for it. The downside is that every provider names its columns its own way, so a CSV from one service sometimes needs its headers tidied before another accepts it.

If the destination accepts both, vCard is usually the safer bet, since the file carries its own structure.

Export contacts from Gmail (Google Contacts)

Gmail keeps your contacts in Google Contacts. Google's export help page gives these steps for a computer:

1. Go to contacts.google.com.
2. Select the contacts you want. For everything, check the box next to any contact, then at the top left choose Selection actions, then All.
3. At the top right, click More actions, then Export.
4. Pick a format. Google says to select Google CSV to back up your contacts. Choose vCard if the contacts are going to another app or phone.
5. Click Export.

One limit from Google's page: if you use Google Contacts for work or school, you can't select all contacts in the Directory. Export the contacts you saved yourself.

Export contacts on Android

On an Android phone using Google's Contacts app, Google's steps (same help page, Android tab) are:

1. Open the Contacts app.
2. At the bottom, tap Fix & manage, then Export to file.
3. Choose one or more accounts to export from.
4. Tap Export to .VCF file.

If your phone came with its own contacts app, the menus differ. If those contacts sync to your Google Account, the computer steps above export them too, with the choice of CSV.

Export contacts from Outlook

Microsoft covers every version of Outlook on one page, Import or export contacts in Outlook using a .csv file. All of them export CSV.

Outlook on the web and Outlook.com

1. Open People from the side panel.
2. On the ribbon, choose Manage contacts, then Export contacts.
3. Choose All contacts or a single folder, then Export.

New Outlook for Windows

1. Open People from the side panel.
2. On the ribbon, choose Export contacts.
3. Under Contacts from this folder, pick an option, then Export. The file lands in your Downloads folder.

Classic Outlook for Windows (the version with a File tab)

1. Choose File, then Open & Export, then Import/Export.
2. Choose Export to a file, then Comma Separated Values.
3. Select the Contacts folder under your account. Microsoft flags this step as the key one, especially on a shared computer.
4. Choose where to save the file, then Finish.

Outlook shows no message when it is done. The progress box simply goes away.

Microsoft adds two warnings worth reading before you touch the file. If you open the CSV in Excel, it's "normal" to see lots of empty cells, and Microsoft recommends closing the file without saving, because saving can leave it unusable for importing. And if your contacts include characters outside the English alphabet, such as Greek, Cyrillic, Arabic or Japanese, the file should be UTF-8. If yours isn't, Microsoft's fix is to load the CSV in Excel with Data, then From Text/CSV, and save it as CSV UTF-8 (Comma delimited).

Export contacts from iCloud

iCloud exports vCard only, from the web. Apple's iCloud contacts guide gives these steps:

1. Go to icloud.com/contacts and sign in.
2. To export everything, open the select menu and choose Select All Contacts. To pick several, hold Command on a Mac or Control on Windows and click each one.
3. Open the actions menu and choose Export vCard.

When you export several contacts, Apple puts them all in a single vCard file.

Apple's guide lists no CSV option. If your destination only takes CSV, export the vCard here and convert it with another app.

Export contacts from iPhone

You don't need iCloud or a computer for this. Apple's iPhone export steps are:

1. Open the Contacts app.
2. Tap the Lists button.
3. Touch and hold a list, such as All Contacts, or create a new one with Add List.
4. Tap Export, choose the fields to include, then tap Done.
5. Choose how to send or save the contact cards, such as Messages or Mail.

The field picker is worth a look. If your contacts carry private notes you don't want in the file, leave that field out here.

Export contacts from Yahoo Mail

Yahoo's contacts help page gives a short path:

1. In Yahoo Mail, click the Contacts icon.
2. Click the More options icon.
3. Click Export (CSV).

Yahoo's page carries a warning other guides miss: contacts with special characters, "like accent marks or dashes," will cause an export to fail. If yours fails, edit those contacts to remove the characters, then try again. Yahoo labels that page as written for the older desktop version of Yahoo Mail, so the menu may sit in a slightly different place in the new design.

Check the file before you import it

Before you delete anything or close an account, confirm the export is complete. It takes two minutes.

• vCard: open the .vcf in any text editor. Every contact starts with BEGIN:VCARD. Search for that line and compare the count with the number of contacts your old service shows. On a Mac or Linux, grep -c BEGIN:VCARD contacts.vcf prints the count.
• CSV: open it in a spreadsheet and look at the row count. The first row is the column headers, so the number of contacts is one less than the number of rows. Then close it without saving, as Microsoft advises.
• Spot check: pick three contacts with unusual details (an accent in the name, a second phone number, a birthday) and make sure they came through.

Keep the file somewhere safe. A contacts export is a full list of the people you know, with their phone numbers and addresses, so treat it like any other private document.

Frequently asked questions

How do I export all my contacts at once? Every service above has a select-all step. In Google Contacts it's Selection actions, then All; in iCloud it's Select All Contacts; on iPhone, export the All Contacts list; in Outlook on the web, choose All contacts.

Can I export iPhone contacts to CSV? Not directly. Apple's iPhone and iCloud exports both produce vCard. Many services accept vCard anyway, so check your destination before converting anything.

Can I open a vCard in Excel? Not usefully. A vCard is structured text, not a table. Excel works with CSV, so export CSV if a spreadsheet is the goal.

Does exporting contacts delete them? No. Exporting makes a copy. Your contacts stay in the original account until you delete them yourself.

Why are there so many empty columns in my CSV? Each column is a possible field, such as a second address or a job title, and most contacts don't use most fields. Microsoft calls this normal for its own exports.

Bringing contacts to Secria

If the contacts are moving with your mail, Secria imports contacts from a CSV or vCard file, so whichever file your old service gives you works. Your mail can come along too: Settings, then Import & export, then "Bring mail in" accepts MBOX, EML, PST and .zip files, encrypts your mail in your browser before upload, and keeps the original dates, on every plan. Our guides to switching from Gmail and exporting iCloud Mail cover the mail side. Secria shows no ads and never mines your mail, and tracking pixels are removed automatically and senders never see your IP address. You can create an account and import both in one sitting.