One of rather frequent tasks is import of existing contacts from other sources into newly created Gmail account.
There are lot of tools (Gmail offer that as well) for two-way synhronization between various applications (Outlook and such), but one time, one way (Desktop -> Gmail) is not covered very well.
So, task is simple: import multiple VCF (vCard) contacts into Gmail contacts.
I will use Windows Contacts as an example inside Windows 7 (Nokia PC Suite can synhronize contacts in your phone with Windows Contacts) but procedure can be applied to any set of *.vcf files.
Get Windows Contacts into *.vcf format
- Open Windows Contacts
- Select “Organize / Select All“
- Select Export
- Select “vCards (folder of .vcf files)“
- Click on Export
You will be asked to select folder where all contacts wil be exported as .vcf files:
Let’s assume that you created new folder Cards on C: drive and exported *.vcf there. Also, create another subfolder of Cards folder – Final.
So, new structure is C:CardsFinal with bunch of *.vcf files into C:Cards
Combine all *.vcf files into one big file
Next step is to combine all *.vcf files into one big file.
Open Windows Explored and locate C:Cards. Press and hold Shift key and right-click with mouse anywhere in folder and select option “Open command window here“:
Don’t get scared by black window you got; you need to type just one short command:
copy /b *.vcf FinalBig.Vcf
You can close command windows after this.
If you are English speaking person and have no strange characters in names of your contacts, you can stop here – use C:CardsFinalBig.vcf as source of import in Gmail Contacts and you are fine.
However, most of us non-English speaking should do final step: proper conversion of file.
Convert big vcf file into UTF8
We will use Powershell for this final step.
Press Start, type Powershell and select Windows PowerShell. Now you will be presented with blue 🙂 screen. Type following sequence of commands, pressing Enter on end of every line (or do copy / paste)
cd CardsFinal
get-content "Big.Vcf" | out-file -encoding "UTF8" -filepath "ConvertedBig.Vcf"
That is it – import your file C:CardsFinalConvertedBig.Vcf into Gmail contacts 🙂
thank you very much!!!
helped me alot!!
@Wael: Enjoy 🙂
Thank you for sharing this.
You are welcome.
Great info!!
Easy to follow and helps save a lot of time. I had to import 346 contacts! Took less than a minute with your explanation.
Thank´s
I am glad that you found it useful 🙂
Super saveti. Uspela sam iz prve, iako nisam bas spretna sa kompjuterima 😀
Jako mi je drago zbog toga 🙂
thanks a lot
You are welcome 🙂
Thanks for sharing and great approach!!