How to Transfer Contacts from iPhone to Android

When we decide to move from one phone to another, the contacts on our phones is the first thing we worry about. We always prefer to transfer the contacts from our old phone to the new phone we are going to use. In the past, it meant typing all the contacts of the old phone to the new one. In today’s smartphone world, our phones are capable of handling this type of work. The following section will guide you through how to transfer contacts from iPhone to android. This will be a useful feature when moving from one platform to the other. 

This article will explain,
1. How to Back up Contacts from iCloud
2. How to Transfer Contacts from Google Contacts
3. How to Switch from Android to iPhone

How to Transfer Contacts from iPhone to Android

How to Back up Contacts from iCloud

Backing up contacts on an iPhone is very easy when iCloud is enabled on the iPhone.

How to Transfer Contacts from iPhone to Android_Figure 01

The first step involves signing into iCloud account with the help of your computer. If the user does not have an iCloud account, he can easily create one by clicking on the “Create yours now” link on the browser page. A page like the following image will be displayed, which will help the user to set up an account.

How to Transfer Contacts from iPhone to Android_Figure 02

Next, you have to click on contacts.

How to Transfer Contacts from iPhone to Android_Figure 03

The next screen will display all your contacts as on the iPhone. By pressing the Command + A on a Mac or CTRL +A on a PC, all contacts will be selected.

How to Transfer Contacts from iPhone to Android_Figure 04

At the bottom of the page, there will be a gear icon. By clicking on the gear icon, a selection called Export vCard will be displayed. This needs to be selected in this instance.

How to Transfer Contacts from iPhone to Android_Figure 05

How to Transfer Contacts from iPhone to Android_Figure 06

An ensuing window will open up, all the contacts need to be selected again with the help of the Command + A or CTRL + A keys. By right clicking on any contact, we can choose to Export vCard. The vCard needs to be named here and then can be saved in a desired location.

How to Transfer Contacts from iPhone to Android_Figure 07

All contacts will be downloaded as a VCF file. This VCF file can be emailed directly to your email or imported to your Google Account.

After the new phone has been activated, the email account of the user needs to be set up. Afterward, the vCard can be imported from the user’s email account. This vCard can be used in order to upload the contacts to the new phone. It is recommended that this vCard is to be saved as a backup onto the email as it will serve as a cloud-based backup. A save on the desktop is also recommended for easy access when needed.  

How to Transfer Contacts from Google Contacts

The user will need a Google Account in order to move contacts within platforms. The user can easily setup a Google Account if he is not an owner of one. Usually, it is a good idea to have a Google Account for an Android device.

How to Transfer Contacts from iPhone to Android_Figure 08

How to Transfer Contacts from iPhone to Android_Figure 09

The first step to transfer contacts is to log into Google contacts on the browser. On the left-hand corner of the Browser, you will see an option called Import contacts. You will have to click on this option and navigate to the file with the help of the choose file option to the vCard that was saved from iCloud.

How to Transfer Contacts from iPhone to Android_Figure 10

We will need to select the CSV or vCard File in the next step.

How to Transfer Contacts from iPhone to Android_Figure 11

The following window will be displayed afterward.

How to Transfer Contacts from iPhone to Android_Figure 12

The following window will be displayed when we click on to “Go to old contacts”. We can navigate to the vCard file with the help of the following window. All the contacts that were on the iPhone will be imported to the Android device with this final step.

How to Transfer Contacts from iPhone to Android_Figure 13

If you have been using a Google Account for a long time, it is inevitable that there would have been accounts that were duplicated.  The user may need to modify and delete these contacts, but there is also a Merge contact feature which has been designed to make this task easier. This may be an easy method to accomplish this task by is not the most accurate.

How to Transfer Contacts from iPhone to Android_Figure 14

There is also an option called Find and Merge Duplicate found on the “More” drop-down menu on the contacts page of Google Account. This option will automate search of contacts that are duplicated.

After contacts have been organized in Google Account, it is time to move them to the Android Phone. If the phone has not been powered up yet, the transfer of the contacts will be very fast. When the device boots up, it will ask for a Google Account. By entering the particular Google Account information, the phone will pick up the contacts on the Google Account and import then to the phone. There is no need for a manual upload what so ever here.

If the phone has been turned on, the phone may not have synced with a Google Account. In this instance, the user needs to head to the setting menu on the device and find the Accounts or Accounts and Sync option. There will also be an Add Account that can be used to Login to another Google Account if needed. When the appropriate Google Account is selected here, it will be synced with the phone. This includes the contacts, calendar, Gmail and Chrome and other components as selected by the user.

 How to Switch from Android to iPhone

If the user needs to switch from an Android Phone to an iPhone, the user needs to move to settings and then to Mail, Contacts and Calendars. Then he will need to move to Add Account and to Google. By entering Google Login info in the iPhone, all the contacts in the Google Account will be synced with the iPhone easily. If the user wants to be continuously synced with the Google Account, he has to go to setting and select Mail, Contacts and Calendars, go to Contacts and set the Google Account he wants to sync with as his default account.

Summary

With the help of Google service, it is now very easy to transfer contacts from one phone to the other. This also works with windows phone. There may be other applications which do the same process, but when we use the google account for this process, we are able to keep our contacts up to date.

About the Author: Reginald

Reginald has a BEng (Hons) degree in Electronics Engineering and has great passion for writing. He has been a freelance writer for over two years. His interests include electronic gadgets, smartphones and cameras, software, programming, and networking. He is also a detail
oriented person who is in the lookout for new trends and developments in technology.

Leave a Reply