Importing / Exporting Contacts

Page to discussing an import/export feature for Contacts.

Formats

VCard

The most common format for describing a contact is the VCard format (Wikipedia). It's often saved to a .vcf file (which can contain multiple VCard)

Example:

BEGIN:VCARD
VERSION:4.0
FN:Simon Perreault
N:Perreault;Simon;;;ing. jr,M.Sc.
BDAY:--0203
ANNIVERSARY:20090808T1430-0500
GENDER:M
LANG;PREF=1:fr
LANG;PREF=2:en
ORG;TYPE=work:Viagenie
ADR;TYPE=work:;Suite D2-630;2875 Laurier; Quebec;QC;G1V 2M2;Canada
TEL;VALUE=uri;TYPE="work,voice";PREF=1:tel:+1-418-656-9254;ext=102
TEL;VALUE=uri;TYPE="work,cell,voice,video,text":tel:+1-418-262-6501
EMAIL;TYPE=work:simon.perreault@viagenie.ca
GEO;TYPE=work:geo:46.772673,-71.282945
KEY;TYPE=work;VALUE=uri:
 http://www.viagenie.ca/simon.perreault/simon.asc
TZ:-0500
URL;TYPE=home:http://nomis80.org
END:VCARD

CSV

To export contacts in Google Contacts (and some others as well), you can also pick the option to export to CSV

Remarks

• How to deal with (parially) invalid VCards?
• How to deal with untrusted data?
• How to deal with bulk imports?
• Preview contact before importing?
• ...

Design

Prior art

Google Contacts (Web app)

Allows you to import a file: that will import it without showing a preview, but it will set a (custom) label on each imported contact.

Android

Allows you to import a file: that will import it without showing a preview, but it will set a (custom) label on each imported contact.

iOS

Windows

Allows you to import a file and first preview any contact in it.