vCard / Contact Card Generator

What is vCard?

vCard (Virtual Contact File) is an open standard for electronic business cards. Files use the .vcf extension and are supported by virtually all contacts apps, including Apple Contacts, Google Contacts, Outlook, and Android.

Key vCard fields

Version differences

vCard 3.0 (RFC 2426) is the most widely compatible. vCard 4.0 (RFC 6350) adds UTF-8 support, multiple value types, and UUID-based UIDs, but may not work in older apps.

QR code distribution

vCard files are commonly distributed via QR code for contactless business card sharing. A minimal vCard 3.0 string (name, phone, email) typically encodes in a small, easily scannable QR code. Some apps use the lighter MECARD format (MECARD:N:Smith,John;TEL:+15551234567;EMAIL:john@example.com;;) which produces an even smaller QR code, but MECARD supports fewer fields than vCard.

Character encoding and special characters

vCard 3.0 uses UTF-8 for non-ASCII content; include a CHARSET=UTF-8 declaration on fields with accented characters, Cyrillic, or CJK name components. vCard 4.0 mandates UTF-8 throughout and removes the need for an explicit charset declaration. If you are sharing with Outlook on older Exchange environments, prefer vCard 2.1, which uses quoted-printable encoding for non-ASCII text.

Platform compatibility