Import Contacts is an application to help you import your contacts directly to your Android device without the need to upload them to Google first. Contacts (vCard “.vcf” files) are imported from your SD card directly in to the phones contact list. It is free software, available under the GPLv3.
Background
On earlier Android devices (before Android 2.1) it is possible, I believe, to import your contacts via your Google account (by uploading them to GMail and syncing), but this seems unnecessary. I would rather not needlessly furnish Google with yet more of my personal information. Since contacts could just be imported directly to the phone, I decided to write this application.
I should add that this has also been an exercise in learning both Java and the Android framework for me, and this app is my first of both. I hope it may be of some use to anyone else learning how to write software for Android.
Usage
If you have Android 2.1 or above, you may not need this app. The ability to import and export vCard contacts was added to Android 2.1. Go to your contacts, press “menu” and select “Import/Export Contacts” instead.
Import Contacts can only import vCard contacts (files with the “.vcf” file extension).
Copy your contacts to the device’s SD card.
Plug your android device in to your computer with a USB cable. On the device, you should get a notification saying “USB connected” which you can select to copy files from your computer. Once selected and mounted, the device’s SD card should show up on your computer.
You might want to create a new directory (called, for example, “contacts“) on your SD card to put your contacts in. You may have one large vCard file (with lots of contacts in), or you may have many small vCard files. Either way, copy your vCard (.vcf) files in to this directory.
Finally, from the notification area, select “Turn off USB storage” and unplug your device from your computer.
Importing your contacts
Run the Import Contacts app on your android device. Import Contacts is extremely simple to use – just follow the instructions.
On the second screen, you will be asked whether you want to import contacts from one vCard file or whether you want to scan a folder for many vCard files.
- If you only have one large vCard file (with lots of contacts in) then choose to import contacts from a single file, and select that file
- If you have many small vCard files then choose to scan a folder for them. Select the folder on the SD card that you copied your vCards to.
The third screen lets you choose what to do if a contact is found that already exists on the phone.
Finally, the last screen does the importing.
Help
If you need help with this software, feel free to ask a question in the support forum:
Getting It
You don’t have to download the app from here. You can search for “Import Contacts” on the Android Marketplace (or scan the QR code to the right).
As well as in the Android Marketplace, you can download the APK from here. For help on installing an APK on your Android device, see this page.
Download Import Contacts version 1.141K
When installing the app from an SD card, the app requires permission to modify/delete content from the SD card. It doesn’t actually modify anything. It’s a known bug in Android.
Development
The project’s development site is here:
Source code
The source code is available under the terms of the GNU General Public License version 3 or later. You can obtain it from the bazaar repository at:
http://bzr.ed.am/android/import-contacts
You can also view the source code on-line at the project’s development site, above.
Bugs
If you discover any bugs, I would be grateful if you would let me know about them. Please report them at the project’s development site, above.
Looks like a great app. When will we be able to download the apk from market or this website?
I’ll get the apk on here for downloading in the next few days. It’s a bit buggy though.
I stopped working on it because new 1.5 (cupcake) version of Android has a vcard import built in to it, doesn’t it?
I’ve got a Android 1.5 phone (Samsung i7500) yesterday and it does not seem to have the capability to import vcfs… they have noted the ability to import contacts from SIM(!) in release notes.
There is another app to import contacts, but I’d rather try yours as it is OSS. I’m perfectly capable to compile it myself, but of course I’d also be happy to help you test it.
Other app link: http://www.dusystems.com/importContacts.html
Ok, I’ll get it cleaned-up a little and make it available to download this weekend.
Thanks for uploading the apps. I works perfectly on my HTC Magic. The only thing is the app imports the contacts the my phone contacts list labeled google and not phone. This means it would sync the contacts to google. Any suggestions?
Thank you very much! Used it to import a vcard exported by MyPhoneExplorer for S/// First attempt (pointing the path directly to a file instead of the contacts folder) failed though.
Good point. I’ll make the app check to see if you’ve entered a filename and use it if you have. Thanks for the feedback!
I have a DROID (Android 2.0.1), and the Contacts list already has an “Import/Export” feature that lets me import VCF’s from the SDCard. However, even though the Contacts list can share VCF’s via e-mail, the GMail client cannot open attached VCFs for import. I really need an app (preferably one that’s free or at least cheap) that can do that.
Really? Well it’s good that Google have added propper support for VCF import/export to Android. If you can save your email attachments to your SD card, then this application should allow you to import them. I should warn you though that I’ve not tested it on Android 2.0+ (I’ve only got 1.6).
Reposting comment, because I’m a doof and put the first one in the wrong place…
This app is great! Small, simple, and right to the point. Any chance you could make it do CSV import/export? I’m an old Linux guy, and I LIKE using plain text files.
I really need to learn how to write apps like this. Got any favorite sites to help start my education?
Thanks! Yeah, this is certainly possible – the app was written to handle multiple formats, it just only does one at the moment. I’d rather add support for “standard” formats though. And do you know that VCFs are simple text files? Maybe a better approach would be to write a little app/script to convert your contacts to VCFs and then import them?
I learnt enough about Android to write this app from Google’s documentation. It’s very good. I’d definitely recommend reading the tutorials in the resources section too.
facepalm Never even checked to see if VCF was ASCII. Scripting that conversion should be a short afternoon’s work. Thanks!
And I’m checking out the developer links now. With luck, I’ll be able to whip up tools to let me sync more stuff without going through GMail. My Android phone rocks, but I wish they didn’t tie everything to their little cloud setup.
Yep, me too!
Thank you for this superb app. Installed on Samsung Galaxy Spica i5700 and it worked great.
I’m trying to import contacts from an older Nokia, but I’m running into encoding problems: “Error parsing vCard in: blablabla.vcf. vCard uses unsupported ENCODING”. I tried converting the VCF files to basic ANSI encoding using iconv, but am getting the same error message.
Could you shed some light on this?
Hi, I’ve been working on this app again just recently actually. I’m trying to polish it off for v1.0 and get it ready to release in the Android market place. I’d be very interested in fixing this error. Would you be prepared to send me a .vcf file so I can see what’s going on? You have my word that I’d keep it private, or course. If you are, email it to me and I’ll look in to it right away.
Every contacts that weren’t imported had special chars in the vcf file name… As I’m french my contacts frequently contain é, è, à, ç,…
Thanks a lot for the app ! Hope you can fix that issue…
Thanks, I’ll look in to it.
I’ve sent you an example VCF file that refused to load. Good luck with the bug hunting! :-)
wwwald
This is indeed a very useful app and only of its kind available as far as I know. It helped me transfer all my contacts from my Nokia to Xperia x10 mini without going for online sync.
Hey all,
Just a quick note to say that I was soooooo annoyed at the prospect of having to transfer 415 contacts from my old school symbion N96 but this app worked like a dream for me – I just threw the lot on the mem card that came with my new desire and typed in the location as prompted and now job done.
Thank you Edam
Hi,
Thanks for the app. Helped when I couldn’t sync my contacts online.
However, I seem to be having a problem with it. The app only imports one number per contact. Eg: I have 246 contacts with a total of 347 numbers, but only 246 numbers show up.
I’m using a Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini pro and my contacts.vcf file was exported via GMail.
Any ideas as to why this is happening
Cheers, Tushar
Hi. It is supposed to be able to handle multiple numbers. If you would be prepared to send me a vcard that doesn’t import properly, I will take at what is going wrong. I’ll keep your data safe.
Thank you very much for this app. Unfortunately, it does not seem to recognize or populate all of the contact fields from my vcard data. Specifically, I’d like to be able to use the TITLE, ORG, ADR, and NOTE types to populate my contacts.
I don’t have an Android development environment set up, but I’m not averse to writing some code to help make this happen.
Thanks! -David
Hi there. If you are prepared to send me a vcard with the fields in, I will happily extend the app to include what it can of them. I would keep your vcard safe, of course.
Can you please share the source code.I am working on import-export of contact on Android 1.6.This would be very useful
The sourcecode is already available. There are instructions for obtaining it above. I should add though, that the use of this sourcecode in your application would require you to also release the sourcecode for your application under the GPL version 3 or later.
You have saved my rear end ! Just went in on an XperiaX10 coming from Windows Mobile. Both O/S have major drawbacks. Running around for 5 days with no contacts. Outlook would NOT help with vcf exporting. Downloaded an app for the proper export, your app did the rest. Many Thanks Dude!
Hi, I own a Xperia X10 mini and the import from my Nokia 6233 vcf-files works fine and if the contacts call me they show up. Only when I want to edit or view the numbers, the contacts show now phone number. I activated the “show all groups”.
I ment “shows NO phone number”
Hi, first of all thanks a lot for the application. I’m using the version 1.0 but with adding my new contacts they are added to my gmail account. After bringing the phone to the flight mode the contacts are added to the phone contacts.
I just recognized that they are added to the phone contacts as google contacts.
The contacts are actually added a special group, which is called “My Contacts” on my phone (a G1 running Android 1.6). I think I heard someone else say that it’s called “Favourites” on theirs. Maybe your phone calls that group “Google Contacts”? Glad you got it working anyway!
Is the Special characters bug fixed? because i still get it and i have lots of contacts whit öäüõ :D But the oder 150 contacts where all imported just fine
It is good application
Thanks much. I have successfully copied contacts following above instructions
Doesnt work for contacts with photos, any thoughts???
Yeah, I’d have to write a whole lot more code to be able to read and store images from vCards. I’d like to do it sometime, but it’s just a case of finding time!
Install me
This is a great app. I greatly appreciate you making it available. I have an android tablet running 1.6. I followed your instructions and it imported everything. Thanks
Thank you for this application. I have Android 2.2, but your app is still useful because “Import/Export Contacts” does not manage duplicates like your app does. The stock functionnality only adds “joined” contacts!
However, I have noticed one small issue. My Contacts->Settings->Save new contacts to option was set to “Always ask”. The available options were Phone, SIM, Google. When I first used your app, the contacts were saved to my google account without asking which created joined duplicate contacts. However, setting this option to “Phone” did what I wanted. It’s not that big a deal, since there is a workaround. Just thought I would let you know.
Thanks again!
Hi. Thanks for this! I hope other people with 2.2 (and 2.1?) will find it useful.
I only have a 1.6 device, which doesn’t have the option you’re talking about on, so it’s not something that I ever considered when writing the app.
Hi,
This is the first import app who take care of prefix like #31# and *31# (hide and send CLIR), many thank to his developer and his quick reply to solve my problem.
Good day, Laurent.
I use android 2.1 and your app is nice. Improvement I’d like to see it import CSV files. I say that because I can rapidly edit contacts in EXCEL. I use an app called UiA – Backup contacts that outputs all the contacts as CSV which is compatible with spreadsheet and databases.
Adding CSV support seems like a good idea! I’ll try and get round to it sometime.
Hello, i’m glad somebody has worked out a way to avoid giving away all our contacts data to google servers. Thank you for that. Android 2.0 includes an import feature but it doesn’t allow importing in the phone addresbook, just google’s >_>.
I’m trying to import some vcfs I exported from outlook but the applications says they’re “malformed”… maybe some nonstandard feature from outlook?
If you would be willing to send me one of your vCards from outlook I’ll look at why it’s being rejected by the app. and get back to you. It’s entirely possible that it’s a bug on my part.
many thank to his developers and his quick reply to solve my problem.
thanks a lot! i really need this
Great app! Thank you!!
Tim, I just dropped you a private email regarding some problems I’m having importing my VCD into a rooted Barnes & Noble NOOKcolor (Android 2.1). Please get back to me when you can; thanks in advance!
Regards, Brian Dipert Senior Technical Editor, EDN Magazine
Thank you!!! I am enjoy by findin your project. Best regards! I hope your success!
Thank you!!! It worked and saved me a lot of time. Really appreciate. Best of luck in the future…
Thanks for the application. It works great in my SGS2 Android 2.3.2. Unfortunately, some of the Chinese names are not recognized or saved.
Well done!
Thanks! Look out for version 1.2, coming very soon, though. It has much better support for version 3 vCards, which might be your problem.
Wonderful app. Worked like a charm and thanks a ton!
Thank you. It worked for me, from E66 to SAMSUNG GSII. Thanks again.
I’ve installed latest ImportContacts on my Epic4G, running CyanogenMod9 (ICS 4.0.3).
I exported a bunch of .vcf from Thunderbird, storing them in a folder on my /sdcard.
Using “ImportContacts” app, I imported the Contacts — no errors.
All the imported contacts show up in the Android “People” app, but they’ve been imported to, and associated with, my me@gmail.com account, even though it’s not sync’d with Google, rather than just @phone, unsynced.
How do I get thsoe contacts to import into the unassociated “Phone (only)” account?
Hi Paul, this is something I’m working on for the next release. Currently, it is not possible. Sorry. :o(
I like it