How do you get a contact list from Excel into your phone?

The parents' list for your class, the customer sheet for your shop or the membership roster of your club sits in Excel, and you want those numbers on your phone: to see who is calling, to add someone to a WhatsApp group or to send a reminder. Typing a hundred people in by hand eats an afternoon, and a single wrong digit only shows up on the day you cannot reach that person.

The good news is that phones can add contacts in bulk; they just do not accept an Excel file. What they take is a contact-card file called VCF. In other words, the job is to convert the sheet into that format once and hand the phone a single file. Below we walk through it step by step, making sure the numbers survive the trip. If you are restoring a CSV backup taken from an old phone, the route is exactly the same.

Why your phone does not recognise the Excel file

In a spreadsheet you know which column is the phone number and which is the e-mail; the file itself does not. A phone's contacts app wants a label on every piece of information: this is a name, this is a mobile number, this is an e-mail address. That is exactly what VCF (also called vCard) is: a small text file that writes each person as a separate business card with every field named. One .vcf file can hold hundreds of cards one after another.

So the route has three stops: the Excel list is saved as CSV, the CSV is turned into cards in a .vcf file, and that file is loaded onto the phone in one move. The diagram below shows the order and the three doors at the last step.

Preparing the sheet: headings and rows

Five minutes spent on the sheet before converting saves you from correcting hundreds of cards afterwards. The first row must say what each column holds: plain headings such as First name, Last name, Mobile, E-mail are enough. The CSV to VCF tool on this site recognises headings in five languages and treats a heading that contains the word name, such as "Parent name", as a full-name column. Information under a heading it does not recognise is left off the card.

You also decide here how each person will appear in your phone. If you are a teacher, writing "4B Parent Sarah Jones" instead of "Sarah Jones" pays off: you know at once who is calling, and searching your contacts for "4B" lists the whole class's parents together. If you have a CSV exported from Google Contacts or Outlook, its headings are already in place and you can use it as it is.

• One person per row, one piece of information per column; avoid merged cells
• A single heading row at the very top; delete any logo, date or note rows above it
• If someone has a second number, put it in its own column (for example Work phone)
• Blank rows in between do no harm; the tool skips them

Phone numbers: the leading 0, the country code and Excel's maths

The thing that damages a contact list most is the way numbers are written. When a cell holds nothing but digits, Excel assumes it is a quantity and throws away the zero at the front: you type 07700900123 and the cell keeps 7700900123. The conversion tool writes each number onto the card exactly as it finds it; it does not add a 0 or a country code for you. The fix therefore belongs in Excel, before you convert.

The safest form is the international one that starts with the country code: +44 7700 900123. A number stored like that rings the right phone even when you are abroad or using a foreign SIM. One formula repairs the whole column. If UK mobile numbers are in column B, type ="+44"&RIGHT(SUBSTITUTE(B2," ",""),10) in the second row of an empty column. It removes the spaces, keeps the last ten digits and puts +44 in front, so 07700 900123, 07700900123 and 7700900123 all end up the same. Copy the formula cell (Ctrl+C), select the cells beneath it down to the last row of your list and paste (Ctrl+V); each row converts its own number. Then head the new column "Mobile" and clear the heading cell of the old one; the tool ignores a column without a heading.

In the US and Canada there is no leading 0 to lose; numbers are ten digits, and ="+1"&SUBSTITUTE(B2," ","") is enough. Lists that mix countries need the foreign rows checked by hand.

If you see 4.47701E+11, and a word on accented names

A cell showing something like 4.47701E+11 looks alarming, but it is only the on-screen shorthand: inside the .xlsx file every digit is still there. The danger begins when you save from Excel as CSV, because the shortened form can be written into the file, and then the digits really are gone. There are two safe ways out. The formula above reads the cell's real value, so it works with the full number. Or skip saving as CSV altogether and give the .xlsx file to the Excel to CSV converter on this site; it writes the number actually stored in the cell. Neither route brings back a lost leading 0; the formula takes care of that.

For names with accents (José, Zoë, Siobhán), choose the save type that starts with "CSV UTF-8" in the File → Save As window. Once the CSV is saved, do not open it in Excel and save it again: Excel may turn your repaired numbers back into numbers. Take the saved file straight to the converter.

Importing the .vcf file on Android

First get the file onto the phone. The easiest way is to e-mail the downloaded .vcf to yourself, or put it in Google Drive and fetch it from the phone. If you did the conversion in the phone's own browser, the file is already in your Downloads folder.

When you tap the file, the phone offers to open it with the Contacts app. If you use Google's Contacts app there is a second route: open it, go to the Fix & manage tab at the bottom and use the option to import from a file, then point to the .vcf. Phones with their own contacts app, such as Samsung, name the menus differently; look for the word "Import" in the Contacts app menu.

During the import the phone may ask which account to save the contacts to. Choose your Google Account: the contacts are then kept in your account, and Google says they appear automatically on a new phone once you sign in with it. The "Phone" or "Device" option keeps them on that handset only.

Importing the .vcf file on iPhone

On iPhone the shortest route is e-mail. Send the file to yourself as an attachment, open the message in the iPhone Mail app and tap the attachment; the contact cards are listed and an option to add them all appears. If you saved the file in the Files app, tapping it there brings up the same screen.

For a long list, and if you are at a computer, iCloud is more comfortable. Go to icloud.com/contacts in a browser and sign in with your Apple Account, select the button on the right, choose Import Contact and pick the .vcf file. According to Apple's guide, each person in the file becomes a separate entry in the All Contacts list; this page is used from a computer or tablet, not a phone. If iCloud syncing is turned on for Contacts on your iPhone, the new entries reach the phone as well.

Apple: Import contacts on iCloud.com (official guide) →

Before importing a hundred people: test, back up, deduplicate

A bulk import is tedious to undo; nobody wants to delete hundreds of cards one at a time. So try the first three to five rows on their own first. If the cards show up with the names you wanted and the right numbers, move on to the full file. For a list with thousands of rows, break it into chunks with the Split CSV tool and load them one after another; if one chunk goes wrong, you redo only that one.

If some of these people are already in your phone, it will usually create a second entry for them. With a Google Account you can gather the twins afterwards: in the Contacts app go to Fix & manage → Merge & fix → Merge duplicates. On a computer, the menu at the top left of contacts.google.com has the same Merge & fix section. Before a large import, also back up your current contacts from that page with the Export command, so you have a point to return to if something goes wrong.

Frequently asked questions

Are VCF and vCard the same thing?

Yes. vCard is the name of the format and .vcf is the extension of files written in it. The tool on this site writes cards in vCard 3.0, a version that Android, iPhone, Google Contacts and Outlook all read.

I added the contacts, so why don't they show in WhatsApp?

WhatsApp reads your contacts itself and lists only numbers that have a WhatsApp account. If someone is missing, first check that the number is complete, ideally saved with the country code. If it is correct, that person's WhatsApp may be registered to a different number.

My spreadsheet changed. What happens if I import it again?

The phone does not overwrite the old cards; it creates new entries for the same people. Put only the newly added rows in a separate CSV and import that. If you have already reloaded the whole list, clean up with the merge duplicates feature.

Is it safe to put a customer or parent list through this site?

The list is never sent to a server. The conversion runs inside your browser and the result downloads straight to your device. With lists that hold personal data this matters: the job is done without uploading the file anywhere.

Do I have to save someone as a contact just to message them once?

Not for WhatsApp. Enter wa.me/447700900123 (your contact's number, country code first, no plus) in the phone's browser and a chat opens without creating a contact. A bulk import is for people you want your phone to recognise permanently.

Last updated: October 12, 2026