transfer contacts from macbook to iphone

Easiest way is to use iCloud. Set up and iCloud account on your phone and enable contacts syncing. Then sync your Mac with your iCloud account as shown here: http://www.apple.com/icloud/setup/mac.html, and enable contact syncing.

If you don't want to use iCloud you can sync your contacts using iTunes. If this is your first sync, be sure there is at least one contact in Address Book/Contacts on your Mac. Then select to sync your contacts on the Summary tab of your iTunes sync settings and sync. When you sync you should get a merge or replace prompt for contacts. If you want to merge the contacts on your phone with those on your Mac, choose Merge. If you want to replace the contacts on your phone with those on your Mac, choose Replace.

If you have already been syncing with iTunes, first reset the SyncServices folder as explained here: http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1627. Then follow the process described above.

Here is a tip for if you have iCloud switched on and you want to replace all your contacts on your phone with your contacts on your Mac.

Plug in iPhone, launch iTunes, in Backups select This computer, click on info tab on left side (you will notice 'Sync contacts' is greyed out), On the phone go to Settings - iCloud - scroll down to Backup - turn off (on the phone now I think it says do you want to back up from your computer now, here say yes), scroll back up to Contacts - turn off, on the Mac you will see the Sync contacts is no longer greyed out - tick it - tick All contacts, scroll down to Advanced - tick Contacts, this will do it once once only make sure its NOT ticked next time (you only need to copy them once, so next time it will just sync), click Sync. When it has finished Eject your phone and your will see the contacts have copied from your Mac to your iPhone which is what you want. Hope this helps, Cheers.

- '10 years an Mac Apple hardware engineer and I still managed to delete my entire docs, pictures, movies, downloads folders using Time Machine back up because it decided to stop backing them up months ago without warning me! As there wasn't enough space on the HD! and didn't think it would be a good idea to tell me that! Thank you Apple Time Machine!'

The easiest way is to go to your Settings Menu of your phone and click on iCloud. Simply click "off" Contacts.

Then log into iTunes on your mac and connect your phone to your mac. With your phone connected, click on the your phone icon, then click the Info tab and scroll down to Sync Contacts and check the box, then you can select to either sync all contacts or a group of contacts that you made.

JohanNicoJun 9, 2014 11:29 PM Re: transfer contacts from macbook to iphone
Re: transfer contacts from macbook to iphonein response to paulfecht

You can import an electronic business card, also called a vCard, into iCloud Contacts. If the vCard contains contact information for more than one person, each contact becomes a separate entry.

You may also follow the guide How to Transfer Contacts from Computer to iPhone

1. In iCloud Contacts, choose Import vCard from the Action pop-up menu , which appears at the bottom of the All Contacts list or a list of group contacts

2. Select a vCard to import.

The contacts from the vCard are added to the All Contacts group in Contacts. You can add the contacts to any other group by dragging them to the desired group.

I followed exactly what you wrote, I made it. Wonderful.

You don't need to download any software, simply go to the contacts in your MAC, in the pull down tab, select EDIT then SELECT ALL (contacts); go to FILE then EXPORT then on side tab select EXPORT VCARD. Save this onto your desktop, go to your desktop right click on the file (which will look like a Rolodex card) and click on SHARE, send your iPhone a text message and the phone will step you through the process of adding the contacts.

Use your Mac Address Book and sync your iPhone with iTunes. From the Info tab, under Contacts, make sure to select “Address Book” from the drop-down menu before you sync.
I am not sure whether it works on Mac, but you can use copytrans contacts to transfer the contacts too (in case you do not want to use iTunes sync):

http://gg.gg/s2in

Finally, you can simply use the iCloud app and install it on your Mac. Make sure to enable iCloud contact sync on your iPhone. Then import contacts from your Mac to your iCloud application, this will move and sync the contact entries to your iPhone.

I've just managed it on my new iPhone 5. Sorry, johnnylugnutz.

Syncing from the old iPhone to the Macbook is easy and wasn't part of the question.

Assuming you now have your contacts updated on your Macbook, unplug the old phone and plug in your new iPhone 5. Wait while it tries to find a way not to talk to you.

Click on the new iPhone icon on the left when it finally appears.

Click on the Info tab on the line along the top. Then click All Contacts (and Sync Calendars and Mail Accounts, if you wish). AND also go to Advanced at the bottom of the screen. Under Replace information on this iPhone, click Contacts (and Calendars, if appropriate). Then click Apply at the bottom right of the screen.

This gives you a one-time transfer to your iPhone (but you can repeat it any time you wish).

It looks like it doesn't work, as the new phone doesn't have a separate icon on the main screen for Contacts. But if you go to Phone at the bottom, there, as one of the options, is Contacts. Open sesame!

I'm still trying to work out how to get a separate icon for Contacts on my main screen.

There have two ways to solve it:

first,you can use iTunes to sync your contacts,you can get on your contacts sync to itunes, and then you can extract contacts from itunes to your iphone.

second,you can use iCloud,you can backup contact to iCloud,and then you can extract contact from backup

However,it takes awhile, not faster,and need to connect the Internet,you can also use some tools to help you to transfer contacts from macbook to your iphone,some tools are free, some tools for a fee,to choose the appropriate tool can help you save time and save unnecessary trouble,Good luck!!!

Use your Mac Address Book and sync your iPhone with iTunes. From the Info tab, under Contacts, make sure to select “Address Book” from the drop-down menu before you sync.
I am not sure whether it works on Mac, but you can use copytrans contacts to transfer the contacts too (in case you do not want to use iTunes sync):

Finally, you can simply use the iCloud app and install it on your Mac. Make sure to enable iCloud contact sync on your iPhone. Then import contacts from your Mac to your iCloud application, this will move and sync the contact entries to your iPhone.

You can import an electronic business card, also called a vCard, into iCloud Contacts. If the vCard contains contact information for more than one person, each contact becomes a separate entry.

You may also follow the guide How to Transfer Contacts from Computer to iPhone

1. In iCloud Contacts, choose Import vCard from the Action pop-up menu , which appears at the bottom of the All Contacts list or a list of group contacts

2. Select a vCard to import.

The contacts from the vCard are added to the All Contacts group in Contacts. You can add the contacts to any other group by dragging them to the desired group.

I just transferred my contacts and calendar from an iMac running Mavericks 10.9.4 to an iPhone 4 running the latest IOS using only synchronization and without any problems. I just followed Eric Lock's instructions provided in the last post of the first page of this thread.

Try My Contacts Pro (Free to Download). You could export all contacts on your iPhone and send them via e-mail, also could import them to your Address Book on your Mac.

If you have 500 contacts or less, the app My Contacts Backup is free.

Hmmm....Great suggestions above from various vendors to export iPhone contact data from iPhone to Mac. However, I'm looking for the other direction Mac contacts syncing or exporting to iPhone or iPod. Mac to iPhone this was a NORMAL feature in iTunes and has been removed by Apple. Apple is requiring that everyone upload their data to APPLE's iCloud...I'm not interested in sharing my contacts with anyone. Just want a local non internet sync computer to iPhone. Anyone have this solution?