vCard
Also known as: .vcf file, VCF, CardDAV, virtual card, digital business card
vCard (Virtual Card) is the open standard for digital business cards.
An electronic contact saved from your phone, exported from a CRM, or attached to an email is typically in vCard format. Files end in .vcf and contain structured contact data that any contacts app can import.
vCard, explained at three levels
At home
A vCard (.vcf file) is a digital business card. When someone sends you a contact via WhatsApp, or you export a contact from your phone, it's often a .vcf file. Any contacts app (iPhone, Android, Outlook) can open it and add the contact.
At work
CRM systems, email clients, and HR software can export contact lists as vCard files for importing elsewhere. When migrating between phone platforms or CRM tools, vCard is the common interchange format that preserves names, phone numbers, emails, and addresses.
At home
A .vcf file is a plain-text file with structured fields: FN (full name), N (structured name), TEL (phone, with type like CELL/WORK), EMAIL, ADR (address), ORG (organization), TITLE, URL, and PHOTO (Base64-encoded image or URL). Multiple contacts can be stored in one .vcf file.
At work
CardDAV allows contacts to sync across devices using a server. Apple iCloud Contacts, Google Contacts, and Nextcloud all expose CardDAV servers. Email clients (Thunderbird, Evolution) connect via CardDAV for synchronized address books. This enables a contact added on a phone to appear immediately on a desktop email client.
At home
vCard 4.0 uses UTF-8 and uses the MIME type text/vcard. Property parameters allow labelling: 'TEL;TYPE=CELL:+1-416-555-0123'. The UID property provides a globally unique identifier, enabling CardDAV sync systems to track updates and deletions. vCard 4.0 also supports linked properties (using URIs to reference external data) rather than requiring inline content.
At work
CardDAV synchronization uses ETags for optimistic concurrency: a client checks the ETag of a contact before updating to detect concurrent modifications. Large address book sync uses reports (address book queries) to fetch only changed contacts since a specific sync token, reducing bandwidth for large directories. Enterprise address books often replicate from Active Directory LDAP to CardDAV for cross-platform access.
Real-world examples
At home
Fatima switched from Android to iPhone. She exported all her contacts from her Android phone as a single .vcf file, then imported it into iCloud Contacts. All 300 contacts transferred in under a minute.
At work
Sophie's sales team exports leads from their CRM as vCard files and imports them into their phone's contacts app for easy calling. The vCard format ensures names, company, email, and phone all transfer correctly.
Common confusions
- vCard and ICS are the same thing — vCard (.vcf) stores contact information (people, organizations). ICS stores calendar events and schedules. They're separate standards often discussed together because they share a similar text-based format and are both used for PIM (Personal Information Management) data exchange.
For analysts
Bulk vCard exports from CRM systems are useful for data quality audits: parsing .vcf files programmatically reveals inconsistent formatting in names, phone numbers, and addresses that affect segmentation and outreach accuracy.
History & origin
vCard was created by the versit Consortium in 1995, then maintained by the Internet Mail Consortium and later the IETF: vCard 2.1 (1996), 3.0 (1998), and 4.0 (2011). It's used alongside iCalendar as the standard for exchanging personal information. CardDAV (RFC 6352) extended vCard for synchronized contacts over the internet, the same way CalDAV does for calendars. vCard 4.0 added full Unicode support and improved media type handling.