How to mass clean up Contacts using a Numbers spreadsheet/CSV?

Question

How to mass clean up Contacts using a Numbers spreadsheet/CSV?

Is it possible to export the Contacts to a spreadsheet in order to do an easier edit/fix and then import it back and wipe out the old? I have fixed some addresses etc. but have some better info in a Numbers chart and frankly if I could just clean out the old Contacts by exporting first to a spreadsheet and then combine or fix it by adding the better one, that would be a help. Thanks.

[Re-Titled by Moderator]

Original Title: Is it possible to do a mass clean up of Contacts using data in a Numbers spreadsheet/csv?

MacBook Pro (M4, 2024)

Posted on Dec 27, 2025 10:03 AM

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Answer 1

Camelot

Level 9

58,329 points

Dec 29, 2025 10:53 AM in response to Victoria Herring

You can do this, although it's non-obvious.

Contacts does not have an 'Export as CSV' option, only as vCard or an archive for backup purposes, and that's probably making you think it can't be done.

However, what's less apparent is that if you copy a contact (or group of contacts), they're copied in CSV format, which you can paste directly into Numbers. If you paste it into cell A1 of a new table, the first row will be the column/field headers, which is exactly what you need.

Once you make your changes you can save the sheet as a CSV file (File -> Export To-> CSV)

You can then choose to Import this file into Contacts.

Contacts will use some heuristics to gauge (guess?) if the import matches existing records and will give you the option to merge the contacts. For whatever it determines as a new contact, it will create a new record.

If, for whatever reason, you don't trust the heuristics (and I'm not aware of the conditions that it uses to determine a match), and you're confident of the data in your CSV, you could just delete all existing Contacts and import the CSV as a new set of data.

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Answer 2

Dec 29, 2025 2:44 PM in response to Camelot

THANK YOU!!!! It worked == I do have a lot of clean up to do but know it'll be easier to use Numbers to do it rather than contacts. It would seem that once I get the cleaning up done, I can export the old Contacts to abbu and vcf just in case and then wipe it and then set up the template the way I want and then import the csv...but for now am focusing on cleaning up the new Numbers doc. Thanks!!

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