Documentation

    Table of Content
    • 3D File Formats
      • 3D File Formats
      • 3D2
      • 3DS
      • 3MF
      • AMF
      • ASE
      • DAE
      • DRC
      • FBX
      • GLB
      • GLTF
      • IPT
      • JRXML
      • JT
      • MA
      • OBJ
      • PLY
      • PRC
      • RVM
      • STEP
      • U3D
      • USD
      • USDZ
      • VRML
      • X
      • X3D
    • Audio File Formats
      • Audio File Formats
      • AAC
      • AC3
      • FLAC
      • M3U
      • MID
      • MKA
      • MP3
      • OGG
      • OPUS
      • RA
      • SDT
      • STAP
      • WAV
      • WMA
    • CAD File Formats
      • CAD File Formats
      • CF2
      • DC3
      • DGN
      • DWF
      • DWFX
      • DWG
      • DWT
      • DXF
      • HPGL
      • IFC
      • IGES
      • IGS
      • JVSG
      • NWC
      • NWD
      • NWF
      • PAT
      • PHJ
      • PLT
      • PSM
      • PSS
      • RVT
      • STL
    • Compression File Formats
      • Compression File Formats
      • 7Z
      • ARC
      • ARJ
      • BZ2
      • DAA
      • GZ
      • RAR
      • TAR
      • ZIM
      • ZIP
    • Database
      • Database File Formats
      • ACCDB
      • ACCDE
      • ACCDT
      • ACCFT
      • BAK
      • BCP
      • DDL
      • DTSX
      • LDF
      • MDB
      • MDF
      • MYI
      • NDF
      • NSF
      • SQL
      • SQLITE
    • EBook File Formats
      • EBook File Formats
      • AZW
      • AZW3
      • CBC
      • CBR
      • CBZ
      • EPUB
      • FB2
      • KFX
      • LRF
      • LRS
      • LRX
      • MOBI
      • TR
    • Email File Formats
      • Email File Formats
      • EDB
      • EML
      • EMLX
      • ICS
      • MBOX
      • MSG
      • OFT
      • OLM
      • OST
      • PST
      • TNEF
      • VCF - Virtual Contact File
    • Font
      • Font File Formats
      • CFF
      • CFF2
      • EOT
      • FNT
      • FON
      • JFPROJ
      • OTF
      • PFA
      • PFB
      • PFM
      • SFD
      • TTC
      • TTF
      • Type1
      • WOFF
    • GIS File Formats
      • GIS File Formats
      • E00
      • FileGDB
      • GeoJSON
      • GML
      • GPX
      • KML
      • KMZ
      • OSM
      • SHP
    • Image File Formats
      • Image File Formats
      • AI
      • APNG
      • AVIF
      • BMP
      • BPG
      • CDR
      • CMX
      • CPC
      • DCM
      • DIB
      • DICOM
      • DJVU
      • DNG
      • EMF
      • EMZ
      • EXIF
      • FLIF
      • FODG
      • GIF
      • ICO
      • J2C
      • J2K
      • JFIF
      • JP2
      • JPEG
      • JPF
      • JPM
      • JPX
      • JXR
      • ODG
      • OTG
      • PNG
      • PSB
      • PSD
      • SVGZ
      • TGA
      • TIFF
      • VDX
      • VSD
      • VSDM
      • VSDX
      • VSS
      • VSSM
      • VSSX
      • VST
      • VSTM
      • VSTX
      • VSX
      • VTX
      • WEBP
      • WMF
      • WMZ
    • Note Taking File Formats
      • Note Taking File Formats
      • ONE
      • ONETOC2
    • Page Description Language
      • Page Description Language
      • CGM
      • EPS
      • PCL
      • PS
      • SVG
      • SWF
      • TEX
      • XPS
      • XSLFO
    • PDF
      • PDF
      • PDF/A
      • PDF/E
      • PDF/UA
      • PDF/VT
      • PDF/X
    • Presentation File Formats
      • Presentation File Formats
      • ODP
      • OTP
      • POT
      • POTM
      • POTX
      • PPS
      • PPSM
      • PPSX
      • PPT
      • PPTM
      • PPTX
    • Programming
      • Programming
      • C
      • Class
      • CPP
      • CS
      • CSPROJ
      • Dart
      • H
      • JAR
      • Java
      • KT
      • MF
      • PDB
      • PHP
      • PY
      • SH
      • SLN
      • SWIFT
      • TOML
      • VB
      • VBPROJ
      • VCXPROJ
      • YAML
    • Project Management File Formats
      • Project Management File Formats
      • MPP
      • MPT
      • MPX
      • XER
    • Spreadsheet File Formats
      • Spreadsheet File Formats
      • CSV
      • DIF
      • FODS
      • NUMBERS
      • NUMBERS-TEF
      • ODS
      • OTS
      • SXC
      • TSV
      • XLA
      • XLAM
      • XLM
      • XLS
      • XLSB
      • XLSM
      • XLSX
      • XLT
      • XLTM
      • XLTX
    • Video File Formats
      • Video File Formats
      • 3G2
      • 3GP
      • ASF
      • AVI
      • F4V
      • FLV
      • M4V
      • MJPEG
      • MK3D
      • MKS
      • MKV
      • MOV
      • MP4
      • MXF
      • QT
      • RM
      • RMVB
      • RV
      • SRT
      • VOB
      • VP6
      • WEBM
      • WMV
      • Xvid
    • Web File Formats
      • Web File Formats
      • ASP
      • ASPX
      • CHM
      • CSS
      • HTM
      • HTML
      • IXBRL
      • JS
      • JSON
      • MHT
      • MHTML
      • Sass
      • SCSS
      • VDW
      • XAML
      • XBRL
      • XHTML
      • XML
      • XOML
      • XSLT
    • Word Processing File Formats
      • Word Processing File Formats
      • DOC
      • DOCM
      • DOCX
      • DOT
      • DOTM
      • DOTX
      • MD
      • ODT
      • OTT
      • RTF
      • TXT
    • Reporting
      • RDL
      • RDLC
      • RPL
    1. Home
    2. Email File Formats
    3. VCF - Virtual Contact File

    What's on this Page

      • What is a VCF file?
      • VCF File Format
        • VCF 2.1
        • VCF 3.0
        • VCF 4.0
      • References

    What is a VCF file?

    VCF (Virtual Card Format) or vCard is a digital file format for storing contact information. The format is widely used for data interchange among popular information exchange applications. Most operating systems such as Windows and MacOS come with default applications to create and open these files. A single VCF file can contain contact information for one or multiple contacts. A VCF file usually contains information such as contact’s name, address, phone number, email, birthday, photographs and audio in addition to a number of other fields. Being supported by email clients and services, there is no loss of data during the transfer of contacts via using the vCard format. The media type for VCF file format is text/vcard.

    VCF File Format

    VCF files are textual by nature and are human readable. These can be opened in text editors such as Notepad on Microsoft Windows and TextEdit on MacOS. If there is an image in the file, however, it won’t show in the text editor.

    Microsoft Outlook provides support for opening VCF files as well as convert to a number of other formats such as the popular MSG format. VCF file format enhanced with time from version 2.1 to 4.0 adding detailed information to the file format. The format is also used to export phone contacts and later import in another device.

    VCF File Format

    VCF 2.1

    Following is an exmaple of version 2.1.

    BEGIN:VCARD
    VERSION:2.1
    N:Gump;Forrest;;Mr.
    FN:Forrest Gump
    ORG:Bubba Gump Shrimp Co.
    TITLE:Shrimp Man
    PHOTO;GIF:http://www.example.com/dir_photos/my_photo.gif
    TEL;WORK;VOICE:(111) 555-1212
    TEL;HOME;VOICE:(404) 555-1212
    ADR;WORK;PREF:;;100 Waters Edge;Baytown;LA;30314;United States of America
    LABEL;WORK;PREF;ENCODING#QUOTED-PRINTABLE;CHARSET#UTF-8:100 Waters Edge#0D#
     #0ABaytown\, LA 30314#0D#0AUnited States of America
    ADR;HOME:;;42 Plantation St.;Baytown;LA;30314;United States of America
    LABEL;HOME;ENCODING#QUOTED-PRINTABLE;CHARSET#UTF-8:42 Plantation St.#0D#0A#
     Baytown, LA 30314#0D#0AUnited States of America
    EMAIL:forrestgump@example.com
    REV:20080424T195243Z
    END:VCARD
    

    VCF 3.0

    Following is an example of version 3.0.

    BEGIN:VCARD
    VERSION:3.0
    N:Gump;Forrest;;Mr.;
    FN:Forrest Gump
    ORG:Bubba Gump Shrimp Co.
    TITLE:Shrimp Man
    PHOTO;VALUE#URI;TYPE#GIF:http://www.example.com/dir_photos/my_photo.gif
    TEL;TYPE#WORK,VOICE:(111) 555-1212
    TEL;TYPE#HOME,VOICE:(404) 555-1212
    ADR;TYPE#WORK,PREF:;;100 Waters Edge;Baytown;LA;30314;United States of America
    LABEL;TYPE#WORK,PREF:100 Waters Edge\nBaytown\, LA 30314\nUnited States of America
    ADR;TYPE#HOME:;;42 Plantation St.;Baytown;LA;30314;United States of America
    LABEL;TYPE#HOME:42 Plantation St.\nBaytown\, LA 30314\nUnited States of America
    EMAIL:forrestgump@example.com
    REV:2008-04-24T19:52:43Z
    END:VCARD
    

    VCF 4.0

    Following is an example of version 4.0.

    BEGIN:VCARD
    VERSION:4.0
    N:Gump;Forrest;;Mr.;
    FN:Sheri Nom
    ORG:Sheri Nom Co.
    TITLE:Ultimate Warrior
    PHOTO;MEDIATYPE#image/gif:http://www.sherinnom.com/dir_photos/my_photo.gif
    TEL;TYPE#work,voice;VALUE#uri:tel:+1-111-555-1212
    TEL;TYPE#home,voice;VALUE#uri:tel:+1-404-555-1212
    ADR;TYPE#WORK;PREF#1;LABEL#"Normality\nBaytown\, LA 50514\nUnited States of America":;;100 Waters Edge;Baytown;LA;50514;United States of America
    ADR;TYPE#HOME;LABEL#"42 Plantation St.\nBaytown\, LA 30314\nUnited States of America":;;42 Plantation St.;Baytown;LA;30314;United States of America
    EMAIL:sherinnom@example.com
    REV:20080424T195243Z
    x-qq:21588891
    END:VCARD
    

    References

    • VCF - By Wikipedia