How to transfer contacts from iPhone to Google Contacts

How to transfer contacts from your iPhone to Google ContactsTime for another quick how to. This time we’re looking at how to migrate your contacts from your iPhone to Google contacts. This wil be useful for anyone that is moving from iOS over to android or just simply wants to make sure that their iPhone contacts are synced with whats in Gmail or Google contacts is.

I should point out that although the title of this post is “How to Transfer contacts from iPhone to Google Contacts”, this will actually work for any itunes account that has iCloud set up as we’ll actually be exporting your contacts from iCloud to Google Contacts.

Before we go any further, make sure you’ve backed up your iPhone just to make 100% sure that everything is safe and sound and you can revert back if needed. 

Right, lets sync these iPhone contacts with Google Contacts!

Ok, first step is to make sure that you have iCloud set up on your iPhone and are syncing your contacts. To check this, pick up your iPhone and go to:

Settings > iCloud > Contacts

Make sure that the you are using iClound and that the contacts sync setting is on.

iCloud Settings in iPhone iOs
iCloud Settings in iPhone / iOs

Step 2: With that confirmed, go to https://www.icloud.com/ and Login with your itunes details.

iCloud Dashboard
iCloud Dashboard

Step 3: Once logged into iCloud, go to your contacts and make sure that all the contacts are in there.

icloud contacts list
icloud contacts list containing all the contacts that are also on the iPhone

Step 4: Now for the slightly tricky bit, selecting all the contacts in the Contact list. To do this, single click the first contact on the list, scroll to the last contact, then click the last contact whilst holding down the shift button. This should select all contacts in your list as demonstrated in the screenshot below.

Note, if you don’t select all the contacts the export will only export one contact at a time which is not what you want to do if you have more than 2 contacts! (btw if anyone else knows of an easier way of selecting all contacts leave a comment below. I couldn’t find one via the menu – I’m guessing apple don’t want to make it easy to transfer contacts from iclould to another system like Google Contacts – who knows!?)

icloud contacts selected
iCloud Contacts selected – notice the blue highlighting and all the contacts appearing in the right hand window.

Step 5: With all your contacts selected, export your iPhone contacts in the vCard format  by clicking on the cog icon in the bottom left of the screen – see image below “Export vCard”.

export  cloud contacts in vcard format
export cloud contacts in vcard format – note the default name of the file might be the first contact on your list, don’t worry, if you have all the contacts will be in the one file. If you want to make sure, have a look at the size of the file after download – if its over 1K then everything should be good – right click the file and open with notepad if you want to make 100% sure…

Step 6: With your vCard file of all  your contacts downloaded, all you need to do now is to log into Google Contacts and then use the import function. To do this:

  1. Sign in to https://contacts.google.com/  
  2. Select the contact import tool under “More”

    Google Contacts Import Tool
    Google Contacts Import Tool
  3. Click “Choose File” and locate the vCard file you downloaded from iCloud

    Upload vCard File
    Upload vCard File
  4. Once processed, all contacts should be ready for you to view and amend before saving.
  5. If you’re happy with all the information imported then go ahead and save and your done! you should have now successfully transferred all your contacts from your iPhone and into Google Contacts. If you have an Android mobile phone then that uses your Google profile, you should see all your contacts on the device.

If this tutorial has been helpful please don’t forget to show it by leaving a comment, tweeting it or liking it on Facebook. Cheers! 🙂

About the author

My name is Tom Jepson. I'm a Technical SEO freelancer with almost 20 years experience in Search Engine Optimisation. Proud Father, Python enthusiast, Self-confessed tech nerd, Ropey Guitarist and Photographer.

53 thoughts on “How to transfer contacts from iPhone to Google Contacts”

  1. Cheers mate, my girlfriend has just made the jump from iPhone to Android and asked me to try and figure out how to get her contacts across to the new phone. Very helpful. Cheers!

    Reply
    • Hm, instead of having to go through iCloud why not use directly CardDAV and sync your iPhone with your Gmail contacts?

      You can also as easily use CopyTrans Contacts to export your iPhone contacts directly to a VCF file and then import them to your Gmail account.

      Reply
    • Thank you very much. This was very helpful. I really thought I at first, that I had to import all my 700+ contacts manually from icloud to my android.

      Reply
  2. Thank you very much indeed! For a second there i thought i was gonna have to type the whole of my contacts in manually. with 246 contacts that would NOT have been a fun job! 🙂

    Ash

    Reply
  3. Worked great! One note. My export file was 5MB and Google doesn’t allow you to import over 1MB. (And iCloud doesn’t allow you to select date ranges to make smaller files). I’m making 6 smaller files and will give that a try.

    Reply
  4. Follow-up, if you need to splitting files, make sure you keep all the header info (up to the first event) and footer (last line) in each file. I did this in Notepad. Tip, each event begins with ‘BEGIN:VEVENT’ and ends with ‘END:VEVENT’

    Tedious but worked. Good luck!

    Reply
  5. To select all contacts just select any contact and press “CTRL+A”.

    Thanks a lot for step by step instructions

    Reply
  6. Thanks alot! Very helpful. Other guides said it was a long and painful process, this made perfect sense and was super quick.

    Reply
  7. You’re a star… I’ve been on this for 2 days and tried all types of complicated things when it was this simple! Thank you!!!

    Reply
  8. This was very helpful. By the way, on copying the contacts, you can hit CTRL A and it will highlight the entire list of contacts.

    For some reason, by Android phone isn’t showing the contacts, so I still have some work to do. Thanks though!!!

    Reply
  9. Epic!! Thank you so much!
    By the way, the cog icon has a “select all” option. Just click on one contact and then click the cog icon and choose “select all”
    Much easier that way.

    Reply
  10. Wow, a real timesaver, I thought it would be a matter of manually synching. Incidentally, to select all contacts, click on the top one, scroll to the bottom, press shift and click the last address. Simples!

    Reply
  11. Thank you, I felt as though the cloud hijacked my contacts. Not crazy about the iphone, will return to the droid now that i have my contacts back on the earth.

    Reply
  12. AWESOME! This really has saved my life! I lost everything being hacked in yahoo and just shut everything down. Thank God for iCloud and Thank God for you helping me to import all my iPhone contacts into google. Much Love to you and your time to share. Bless! xo

    Reply
  13. It was most helpful. Lots of pictures, not too many words, gets to the point, and gets the job done! Thank you!

    Reply
  14. Days with struggle to merge between iPhone address to android, with your tips…. just done….
    Others ways… failed..

    Reply
  15. It was really easy to do and extremely helpful of course 🙂 I just want to tell everyone that because I am also using Mac and have all my contacts on the computer I didn’t had to use the iCloud website at all. I have just open the Contacts on the Mac selected them all, made the vCard, and then imported in Google. Thank you very much you are a life saver 🙂

    Reply
  16. Just got my first android and was loathing having to add my contacts one by one from my iPhone but this solved in under 5 minutes. Great tutorial!!

    Reply
  17. Thanks very much for the valuable guidance. Got it right in the first go and am having all my contacts on my now Samsung Note 5. You are a star. With profound gratitude

    Reply
  18. thanks–from california, some years after you posted too.
    had no idea how to do this; this tutorial was easy and clear.

    Reply
  19. I just transferred all my icloud contacts to Gmail via Outlook export. Easy! Similar to the process you describe.

    Reply

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