Importing contacts

You can bring in contacts from a vCard (.vcf) or CSV file, as iCloud, Google and Outlook export them. The same contact never comes in twice, so it's safe to bring in a file again.

Import a file

1. Export your contacts from your old address book as a .vcf or .csv file.
2. In Contacts, open Import or sync, at the bottom of the sidebar.
3. If you can add to the household's book, choose which book to Add them to.
4. Drop the file under From a file, or press Choose files.
5. Contacts says how many there are, and how many look like contacts you already have. Those are merged into the ones you have unless you untick the box that says so, like Merge the 3 that look the same.
6. To keep them together, tick Put them in a group called …, with a group named after the file.
7. Press Import.

Merging keeps the name of the contact you already have, and adds the numbers, addresses and groups it didn't have. Without merging, they're added alongside, and Contacts offers to merge them later.

You can bring in up to 20,000 contacts and 64 MB at a time.

From Google

To bring in Google Contacts along with your photos, mail and calendars, use Settings › Moving in. Contacts that look like ones you already have are merged. See Moving in from Google, Apple or Microsoft.

On your phone

Import or sync also shows the address your phone syncs with. To set up a phone, see Phones and laptops.

Take them with you

Under Take them with you, Download saves all your own contacts as one .vcf file, which any phone or app can open.