How to Transfer CSV Contacts to iPhone, iPad or iCloud

Topmost Solution to Migrate CSV Contacts to iPhone, iPad or iCloud

Having your contacts easily accessible to all platforms like Android, iPhone, iPad, iCloud etc. is the want of all users who are working on various platforms and devices. Here, we are discussing the same issue in this post.

If you have contacts stored in CSV file format and want to move them to iPhone or iCloud. You must go through this article.

CSV means Comma Separated Value which is a table-structured format used for contacts storage and is supported my email clients like Thunderbird, MS Outlook etc. Contact doesn’t only mean the phone number but it also includes name, email address, image, address and many other things. Generally, users use CSV and VCF/vCard formats for contacts storage. Having CSV, a very common format but it is not supported by iPhone, iPad, iCloud etc. whereas VCF format is well supported in them and is known as the standard format for storing contacts.

Compare CSV versus VCF formats

• There is a lack of standardization in CSV files. There are no rules set how contacts are written to CSV Whereas VCF is a standardized format for contact storage and transfer.
• CSV does not support contact photos whereas VCF stores contact photos, audio clips as well.
• VCF is a single contact file so it can be easily managed and transferred whereas CSV holds contacts in batches.

Solution to import contacts from CSV file to iPhone, iPad, iCloud without iTunes

To migrate contacts from CSV to Air, iCloud, iPhone 8, 7, 5C or iPad. Follow the three steps given below –

• Export CSV to VCF format
• Transfer vCard to iCloud
• Sync iCloud with iPhone

Step 1. Convert CSV contacts into VCF

To do this, the users can take help of Softaken CSV to vCard Converter for Windows to simply convert CSV file to iPhone supported VCF format. To do the conversion, follow the mentioned steps –

1. Initially, download and launch the application on your Windows machine.

2. Once it is installed, run it and browse CSV file whom you want to move to iPhone.

3. This will open the CSV file and provide you a complete view of CSV file where you can map the contact fields as per your requirements. The mapping option is provided on the right-side corner of the wizard.

4. Now, Browse the Output destination for saving the VCF files.

5. Once you are done with the output location selection, click on the Convert Now option and this will commence the conversion process.

Step 2. Transfer VCF file to iCloud

Once you got vCard files, follow the given instructions with these steps –

1. Open your iCloud account by proper login details.

2. This shows various options, select the Contacts

3. Once you select Contacts option, here will open a new window showing no contacts are selected.

4. Click on the gear icon and click on the Import vCard option.

5. After that, you will find a new dialog box that consists of vCard files present in your system.

6. Select vCard file that you want to import in iCloud.

If you are unable to import vCard, here are the steps –

7. Open vCard file where you will find a list if all VCF files. Choose the files whom you would like to import.

Step 3. Sync iCloud to iPhone

To move VCF contacts to iPhone, you need to sync contacts from VCF to iPhone. For this follow the steps –

1. Open your iPhone screen and go to

2. Open your Apple ID.

3. Choose iCloud

4. Enable Contacts option to import CSV to iPhone to import vCard to iPhone, iPad or iCloud.

5. By this, the contacts which are exported in VCF format will be synced with the contact list of iPhone.

Bottom Lines

Manually performing the whole migration to iPhone from CSV file is really a tiresome task but with the software approach, the task has become somehow easy for the users so that users can easily access CSV files in iPhone.