vCard

vCard is a file format standard for electronic business cards used to exchange contact information between people, organizations, and devices. A vCard is usually stored with the .vcf extension and can be attached to emails or imported into contact managers and address books. The format supports a range of fields such as name, organization, title, telephone numbers, email addresses, postal addresses, URLs, photos, logos, and notes, enabling a compact and interoperable representation of a person’s contact data.

vCard originated in the 1990s to facilitate standardized exchange of contact information and has evolved through several versions, including 2.1, 3.0, and the current 4.0. The latest specifications are published as RFCs, with vCard 4.0 defining the modern syntax and semantics. The MIME type most commonly associated with vCards is text/vcard, though older contexts may use text/x-vcard. A vCard file may contain multiple entries, each enclosed by BEGIN:VCARD and END:VCARD.

A vCard is a text-based format with one property per line. Each line consists of a property name, optional parameters, a colon, and the value. Key properties include FN (formatted name) and N (structured name); TEL (telephone), EMAIL (email address), ADR (postal address), ORG (organization), TITLE (job title), URL, PHOTO, and NOTE. vCard 4.0 uses UTF-8 encoding by default, supports binary data such as images (BASE64 encoded), and allows parameters such as TYPE to indicate context (for example, HOME or WORK). Lines can be folded to fit line length constraints.

Today, vCard remains widely supported by modern contact managers, email clients, and mobile systems, making it a common standard for sharing contact information. Some older software may offer better compatibility with earlier versions. Privacy considerations apply when distributing vCards containing personal data.