How to Export ICloud Contacts To A File
Two questions here:
1. Is there a way to export all of the contacts stored in Icloud to a file?
2. Is there a way to import contacts to the cloud from a file?
Two questions here:
1. Is there a way to export all of the contacts stored in Icloud to a file?
2. Is there a way to import contacts to the cloud from a file?
I also would like to know this.
I would like to see a solution to this too. As much as i like to have all my contacts in the cloud, it seems all too easy to lose ALL my contacts should the sync go bad. I would prefer to have a way to download all my contacts in some sort of standard format for my own backup needs.
I haven't seen any options to download contacts from icloud.com to this date.
I've done a bit of experimenting and I don't have a definitive answer yet, but I do have some possible leads. They ain't pretty, though.
First of all, (and I would love to be wrong on this) there is no way currently to export contacts from iCloud.com directly.
Secondly, if you have Lion (from what I understand), it is possible to export contacts from Address Book. I'm not certain, but this can apparently be done from the File menu.
Now, assuming you DON'T have Lion, but do have an iOS5 device and a pre-Lion OSX computer (Snow Leopard, for example), you can perform the following steps to get any iCloud contacts into your local Address Book.
Problems I encountered:
Possible refinement I have yet to try:
Backup and remove all contacts from the pre-Lion computer, THEN sync. This should eliminate the duplication problem, which would create a local Address Book which can be exported. Theoretically the data is the same, as both iCloud and Address Book use vCard data for their records.
I have tried your refinement but unfortunately it does not seem to work, it seems that we are left without the ability to sync contacts between mac (pre Lion) and iPhone with ios5. I have not upgraded to Lion yet because they took out frontrow (I was one of the few to probably use it) and isync that i use to sync my old palm pilot
Now I have contacts on icloud ios device but not on the mac really unpleasant situation ðŸ˜
Anyway hope either someone comes with a solution or Apple itself fixes this.
Need contacts all synched and do not need duplicates 🙂
If you have both your Mac and iPhone synced with the same iCloud account that's too easy. Just open AddressBook on your Mac and go to File>Export>Address Book Archieve, and there you go. All your contacts into a safe file you can store wherever you want.
Felipe-
Unfortunately, this assumes you have upgraded to Lion. The point of this discussion is that the users have not upgraded to Lion, but are using iCloud, presumably through an iOS 5 device.
As far as I can tell, there has been no solution to this issue.
I hope Apple will provide a solution sooner or later. My idea is we can sync contacts to iCloud as well as Outlook at the same time, which means can we have 2 same back-ups, then we can export the contacts through Outlook.
While I didn't find a solution to sync both iCloud with an older version of Address Book on Snow Leopard, I did discover that you can export your contacts from iCloud to another Address Book. It's not a perfect solution, but at least gives you the ability to move your contacts.
From Address Book on a Mac with Lion on iCloud:
Hope that helps!
There is a solution to your problem on the iCloud website. What you need to do is go to the website log in and click on the contacts icon. Click on your first contact and press ⌘A on your mac (Ctrl-A on pc) to select all your contacts. On the right side you will see pictures of your contacts and a total number of contacts selected. Once you have selected all your contacts. Click the little cog at the bottom left corner and then click export vcard. It will download and now you have a backup of your contacts! If ever you need to import from that file click the cog again, click import vcard and then target the file we downloaded and backed up.
I've never seen the method mentioned by Gypsor before, that is a very handy thing to know! It seems to be the easiest method to doing all of this. Thanks!
Thanks for this. I got the file, but having trouble importing into Outlook. Using Outlook 2007 - Import Export - Import a VCARD file only brings in the first contact. The VCF file itself is pretty large and seems like all the data is in it. Does anyone have any suggestions?
Outlook doesn't appear to support multi-contact vCards. You'll have to find something to split them into individual vCards. There used to be an application called "vCard Splitter" but I don't know whether it is still around.
It's easy to get all your contacts from iCloud onto Snow Leopard. You can't sync them, though.
But using this method the photos of your contacts on iCloud are not exported in the vcard file.
Does someone found a way?
If you are running on Windows with Outlook by default when you open the ''vCards de iCloud exportadas.vcf' exported by iCloud it will open with Outlook.
You can right click on the file, 'Open with', 'Windows Contacts'. It will open the contacts one by one and you'll be able to import them. It is not the easyest way to do it but it works.
Other way (the best for me) is importing the file in gMail. Yes my friend, gMail will import ALL the contacts from the vcs card to your gMail account.
Hope it helps!
How to Export ICloud Contacts To A File