How To Manually Backup Iphone Contacts

Needless to say, backing up your iPhone contacts is very important, as it not only keeps your contacts safe but also means when switching to a new device, you're much less likely to lose any important contacts. To make a copy of iPhone contacts, here are some suggestions for you.

It's better to make two copies of your iPhone contacts: one in the cloud and one offsite. This not only ensures that you can access contacts from anywhere with an internet connection but also adds additional layers of security to your contacts if there's a data breach, a hack, or a malware threat happens to your device.
Regardless of what storage plan you have in place at this point - cloud or offsite, make sure that it has enough capacity to house your data.
Make a disaster contacts recovery plan. Thus, you don't have to worry about data loss.

It's a little more work to make two or multiple backups, but if you do it, you'll be glad to spend the extra time doing this when a disaster happens.

Part 1. How to Back up Contacts on iPhone to a Computer

Backing up contacts to a computer is a good way to keep your data safe. Currently, there are two options for this purpose: via iTunes or third-party software. Since iTunes doesn't allow you to back up contacts selectively, and the items you backed up with iTunes can't be accessed, we don't recommend this way. But if you stick with iTunes, we also list the steps below.

Option 1. How to Back up Contacts on iPhone without iTunes

EaseUS MobiMover is the tool we're going to recommend to you. As a professional iPhone data transfer tool, it both offers backup and functions iTunes doesn't have. These can include the ability to back up certain contacts, view items in backup, selectively recover certain items to your device, etc. More than that, you can also use it to download videos from any site and manage your WhatsApp data.

To backup contacts on iPhone:

Step 1. Connect your iPhone your PC with a USB cable, launch EaseUS MobiMover, then unlock your iDevice and click "Trust" in the prompt. To back up your iPhone, choose "Phone to PC" > "Next".

connect device and launch EaseUS MobiMover

Step 2. Select "Contacts" and click the default path to set a custom storage path if you need to. Afterward, click "Transfer".

select files and set custom path

Step 3. When the transfer process has finished, you can go to view the contacts on your computer. You can view the contacts you back up on your computer freely and transfer them back to your iDevice whenever you need to.

start transferring contacts from iPhone/iPad to computer

The contacts backed up to the PC or Mac will be saved as an HTML file, which you can view with a browser and transfer back to your iPhone from the computer.

Option 2. How to Back up iPhone Contacts with iTunes

You can create a backup of your iPhone contacts with iTunes. But bear in mind that the contacts you backed with iTunes can't be accessed unless they are restored to your device, which will erase your current data. If you don't mind that, follow the steps below to back up contacts on iPhone using iTunes.

Step 1. Connect your iPhone to the computer and launch iTunes.

Step 2. Unlock your iPhone and trust the computer.

Step 3. Tap on the Summary.

Step 4. Click on the "Back Up Now" from the right pane.

Part 2. How to Back up iPhone Contacts to Cloud

Backing up iPhone contacts to the cloud is another way to keep your data safe. For iOS users, the best cloud backup solution should be using iCloud since it is convenient and very easy to use. But if you want to try some different backup solutions, using Google is a good option. Whichever way you eventually decide to use it, follow the steps below to do it.

Option 1. How to Back up iPhone Contacts via iCloud

Before getting started, keep in mind that every iCloud account comes with 5GB of storage. If you have more than 5GB of contacts to back up, remember to upgrade your iCloud storage plan.

Step 1. Open Settings on your iPhone.

Step 2. Go to [your name] and select "iCloud."

Step 3. Tap on "Contacts" to turn it on.

Step 4. Then, your contacts will be backed up to iCloud.

Back up iPhone Contacts via iCloud

Note: when you delete a contact on your iPhone, it will also disappear in iCloud either. Thus, it's not a way for iPhone contact backup but data syncing.

Option 2. How to Backup iPhone Contacts to Google

To backup iPhone contacts to Google, you first need to export your iPhone contacts as a VCF file with the help of iCloud and then import it to Google. Here are the details:

To export iPhone contacts as a VCF file:

Step 1. On your iPhone, tap "Settings" > [your name] > "iCloud" and toggle on the "Contacts" option.

Step 2. On your computer, open a browser and visit iCloud.com.

Step 3. Enter your Apple ID and password as required and choose "Contacts."

Step 4. Select the items you want to backup and click the "Gear" icon, and tap "Export vCard" to export the contacts from your iPhone to vCard, which will be saved as the .vcf file.

How to export iPhone contacts

Then to import iPhone contacts to Google:

Step 1. Go to "Google Contacts" (https://www.google.com/contacts/) and sign in with your Google account.

Step 2. Choose "Import Contacts..." on the sidebar and click "Choose File" in the pop-up window.

Step 3. Find the exported contacts (.vcf) from your computer and import them to your Google Contacts.

How to import iPhone contacts to Google

By doing so, you can export your iPhone contacts to Google successfully. If your iPhone contacts are not syncing to Gmail, learn how to fix it from the related article's solutions or try other alternative ways to backup your iPhone contacts.

The Bottom Line

As we mentioned earlier, it is advisable to make two copies of your iPhone contacts in the cloud or in a local storage. Thus, you don't have to worry about data loss. Now, you can use any of the backup solutions we introduced above to get the job done.