Extract text from Windows contacts (CONTACT)
To convert CONTACT contacts to another format, you need Windows Contacts or other Data software.
To convert other file formats to the "Address Book File" file type, you need software like Windows Contacts or a similar tool.
The .contact file is an XML-based data file primarily used by Windows Contacts to store personal and business contact information. Introduced in Windows Vista to replace the older WAB (Windows Address Book) format, these files store details like names, phone numbers, email addresses, and physical addresses. A smaller percentage of .contact files are JSON-based phone contact list backups generated by the Truecaller mobile application.
The main disadvantage of the .contact format is its proprietary nature and lack of cross-platform compatibility. It is strictly tied to the Windows ecosystem. Users moving to macOS, Linux, or mobile devices (iOS/Android) cannot natively open these files. Furthermore, modern webmail clients and CRM systems do not accept .contact files for direct imports, making them essentially useless outside of legacy Windows environments.
To make the data usable, you must convert .contact files to universal formats. The best targets are CSV (Comma Separated Values) for spreadsheet viewing and CRM imports, or VCF (vCard) for importing contacts into mobile phones, Apple Contacts, or Google Contacts. Converting to CSV usually drops embedded contact photos, while VCF retains them.
Because .contact files are tightly integrated into the Windows OS, standard online converters often struggle to parse their specific XML schema. Emphasize that often only the original software can properly read or export the data. Since the underlying format is usually standard XML or JSON, our analysis can often extract the raw contact data for you to read manually.
Convert.Guru analyzes your CONTACT file, detects the exact format, and lets you read the text inside.
Users also converted VCF, CSV, JSON, XLSX, WAB, LIST, 3UC, DB, HTML, ENC, XML, DAT and XLS files.
If you want to convert CONTACT file to VCF, CSV, JSON, XML, YAML, YML, TOML, INI, CFG, CONF, DAT or DB, you can use Windows Contacts or similar software from the "Individual Contact Data Storage" category. In the File menu, look for Save As… or Export….
To convert DBF, XML, SQLITE, XLSX, SQL, TSV, ACCDB, YAML, MDB, CSV, ODS or JSON files to CONTACT, try Windows Contacts or another comparable tool in the "Individual Contact Data Storage" category.
The history of Convert.Guru began over 25 years ago in California with Tom Simondi’s file-format database. A former contributor to Space Shuttle development and a software pioneer of the 1980s, Simondi established a trusted resource for file type analysis that was even referenced by Microsoft Windows XP. Today, we use modern technology to process and convert thousands of file formats while continually improving our CONTACT converter.