We have decided to change mobile phone to a new one, but we absolutely do not want to lose the contacts on our old iPhone, so as to have them immediately available in the new phone. In this case we must import the contacts from the iPhone to another mobile phone, whether it is another iPhone or that it is a smartphone with Android operating system.
In this guide we will see how to import contacts from iPhone to another mobile phone, taking into consideration all the possible scenarios and the methods that we can exploit to effectively move the address book.
Using one of the proposed methods we can finally retire the old iPhone and use a more modern device without losing even a contact in the address book.
READ ALSO: Recover contacts and contacts on Android, iPhone and Samsung mobile phones
1) Import contacts to a new iPhone with iCloud
If we purchased a new iPhone to replace the old one, the steps to be followed to import are really very simple, especially if we have effectively synchronized iCloud on all Apple devices.
To start then open the old iPhone, click on Settings and go to the menu [User name] -> iCloud or, on iPhones with operating system lower than iOS 10.3, click on Settings -> iCloud .
In the iCloud configuration menu, make sure that the Contacts button is activated, so as to always generate an online backup of our entire address book.
Now let's go to the new iPhone and, we have not configured it yet, we choose to configure the phone as a new iPhone to avoid restoring things we no longer intend to use of the old iPhone, then enter the login credentials for the Apple ID previously used for synchronizing contacts.
If everything went in the right direction, we will see all our contacts in a short time even on the new Apple device.
We don't see saved contacts appearing ">
Once the account is added, make sure that the Contacts item is active and finally click on the Save button at the top right.
Now let's go to the Settings menu -> Contacts, then open the default Account menu and select Gmail .
From now on, your contacts will be saved through Gmail instead of using iCloud
To conclude the import of contacts we open the new iPhone and carry out the same steps seen so far, so as to start the synchronization of Google and therefore find the contacts moved.
3) Import contacts to a new iPhone using VCF
If we don't want to use our Apple account to move contacts, we can rely on a third-party app like My Contacts Backup, available for free download from here -> My Contacts Backup .
This app is able to save all contacts in a single VCF extension file and send them to any email address we wish.
We then click Backup and at the appropriate time we click Email, entering our email address that we will use for importing.
An email should be sent to the chosen account immediately, with the contact file attached.
Now open the new iPhone, go to the Mail app and configure, if we have not yet done so, the email used a little while ago.
To conclude we open the email received a little while ago, click on the VCF attachment and confirm the message that will appear on the iPhone ( Add all contacts ).
If we use a different app for mail (such as Outlook or Gmail ), we open the attachment, we click on the Sharing button, we now choose the Open option and we use the Copy to contacts item to add the contacts to the iPhone.
4) Import contacts from iPhone to Android via Google
If the new phone has an Android operating system, we can take advantage of the steps already seen a few moments ago to import contacts in a simple and painless way.
On the old iPhone we carry out the steps seen a little while ago to synchronize contacts with a Google account.
Now let's go to the new Android smartphone and, if we are at the first start, insert when required the login credentials for the same Google account used on the iPhone.
If everything went correctly, we should also see the contacts we had on the iPhone in the address book app of the Android phone.
Don't we see any contact?
Let's make sure we are connected via WiFi and check the synchronization status by going to the Settings menu -> Synchronization (also called Account ) and clicking on the Google account used, also on the Android phone.
Now we will have to make sure that the Contacts item is correctly activated.
After this check, we return to the Synchronization or Account menu and click Synchronize now at the bottom to force the synchronization of all the accounts on the phone.
5) Import contacts from iPhone to Android using VCF
In addition to online accounts, we can import contacts from iPhone to Android using the VCF file as already seen for transferring contacts between two iPhones.
We use the app shown above to send us the VCF file to the email address, then open the mailbox on our Android smartphone and download the VCF file into memory.
We can open it both using the Contacts app present by default on every Android device (it should have an option Import contacts from VCF ) and using the Google Contacts app, downloadable from here -> Google Contacts (Android).
Now we click on the button with the three horizontal lines located at the top left and select Setting from the side menu.
Among the available items, select Import, then open the .vcf File entry relating to our Gmail address or, alternatively, to the device's contact memory and select the previously downloaded file.
All the contacts we had on the iPhone will be immediately stored on our new Android smartphone.
READ ALSO: iPhone address book backup by saving contacts in Google / Gmail
