Send Contacts from iPhone to Another iPhone

Sending contacts from an iPhone is very easy, all data about the contact; from name, phone number, picture, email, URL, etc, can be exported as an inclusive vCard bundle and sent to someone else by email or text message. While we’ll focus on sending contacts between iPhones, these vCards are also usable by other iOS devices, Macs, Windows, and even Android phones.

Send Contacts from an iPhone to Someone Else

• Launch “Phone” and tap on “Contacts”
• Navigate to the contact you want to share and tap on their name



• Tap on “Share Contact”
• Select how to send the contact to another iPhone, choose “Email” to send it as an attachment to an email, or choose “Message” to send the contact through iMessage or SMS text

Depending on the choice of sharing method, either the Mail or Messages app will open and contain the selected contact in a preformatted message. If you choose Messages, the recipient will either need SMS service or iMessages enabled. From here you choose the recipient of the contact as if you were sending a standard email or text message and click send as usual.

On the receiving end, if someone sends you a contact all you need to do is tap on the contact name vCard (.vcf) to see a preview of the information, and then tap either “Create New Contact” or “Add to Existing Contact”.

If you were curious, the vCard format is not proprietary to Apple and the iPhone, these documents are widely considered the standard for virtual business cards, and should work on virtually any modern communication device, be it a smartphone, tablet, or PC. Obviously the standardization makes it much easier than manually typing out name, phone numbers, emails, and whatever else, so get in the habit of using the iPhones vCard sharing system and you’ll thank yourself later.