Simply Export iPhone Contacts to a csv or any flat file!

isn't there a way without iTunes?

What's wrong with iTunes?

The MacBook was stolen, and replaced with empty everything.

The iPhone has the valid contact list.

iTunes keeps offering to erase all the contacts.

So we need another way!!!

zoftware, bad news, I believe mobileMe will ask you to sync either way, ie replace contacts from phone to mac, so you could get a trial. There is also MobileSyncBrowser which will let you see the contacts in the backup files,

zoftware, also check out IDrive Lite, runs on the iPhone and send all your details to their servers.

There is now an app in the app store that does this (I am the developer).

It is called Export Contacts: http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZ...

Just got to download your app but got a network time out. how do you go about it in these cases??!!

All you have to do is open itunes, connect your iphone. Once it appears you will see a sync window.
1. Click the INFO tab.
2. Under the Contacts section, check the box "Sync Contacts with Outlook"
3. Click sync

That's it!

I'm currently trying to export my contacts right now, however I'm using windows 7 which does not have Outlook. I don't want to sync with gmail since it adds every e-mail address in your gmail contacts, same for Yahoo. Why would I want 1000+ email addresses in my iphone contacts? That's just stupid. Syncing to Windows Contacts makes you either Merge or Replace info... I don't want to do either, what if the info on the phone is more up to date, or vise versa?

Why can't Apple wise up and add some EXTREMELY SIMPLE features, like exporting the contacts list as a csv file, or even a spreadsheet, for example, WITHOUT the use of Outlook or other services. So many steps for something that is generally so simple.

I despise Apple and in my opinion iTunes is a horrible program. I'm surprised more people out there aren't pissed off with those incompetent fools.

I am with Apple Sucks, i just want to back up the phone contacts not merge it with Outlook.

Instead of giving us what you want listen to your customers

I am also extremely unhappy with the crappy interface apple has forced us to use. I don;t want to synch with gmail or outlook. I just want to back up my phone contacts. I don;t want ALL my contacts in the iphone. THis is a simple request - a straightforward, easy way to back up data from the iphone should be easy. instead, it is quite painful. Come on, APple, get with the pprogram.

in syncing the iphone's contacts with another app, does this mean that the iphone contacts list will remain the same and add contacts that it didnt have from the other app and vice versa?

I am confused! how can Windows Media Player be compared with iTunes? There is no media software out there that offers the services of iTunes! Regardless, you should be able to "merge" contact if you follow these steps:
1. export your contacts from Outlook or Address Book to your desktop, then delete all the contacts, make sure you have an empty list! (IMPORTANT!)
2. then connect your iPhone but cancel syncing before it starts (if it is set to start automatically)
3. under the "Info" tab check "Contacts" and select your software to sync with
4. IMPORTANT! scroll further down the "Info" tab to the "Advanced" section and make sure that "replace contact info" is OFF or unchecked! (sorry don't remember the exact words of this option but it should be close)
5. sync your iPhone
6. now you have your iPhone contact in place of your empty contact list.
7. import the old contacts from the csv file that you exported earlier.
8. you are done!

NOTE: please note that based on my experience iTunes always merges any changes done to my contacts list either on my Mac or on my iPhone. But since some of you seem to have problems with that, I though of this simple way to go around your problem.

Regards,
Bill S.

Like I said before, based on my experience if the Address Book is empty iTunes treats it as a "new" address book and therefore all the contacts will be imported. But I understand your fear I had about 100+ contact on my phone when I decided I'm ganna format my mac, I didn't do backup because of the crap I had on the old drive. Anyways, what I did was I registered for MobileMe for free for 60 days. It is the coolest feature I have seen! My contacts and calander and everything was on my mac whithin 10 mins! If MobileMe was a bit cheaper I wud hve kept it... So hear it is, this shud answer this question for sure. Until Apple does a software that exports your contacts MobileMe is the best answer. Also I am not going to wait for Apple to make this app, I will start developing this iPhone app asap!

Hope that helps,
Bill S.

I HAVE a MobileMe account, which I PAY for. Unfortunately, I do not use it, as it deleted all of my contacts, while I was travelling. Since I don't drag my 2TB back up with me, then I was without contact the entire trip. I wrote MobileMe and they "fixed it", telling me that this is an "exception", as it is my responsibility to Back Up my information! Well, I have all of my info backed up, but when I am in Rio and my back-ups are in another country, where does that leave me?

Bottom line, I do not trust MobileMe, with my information. It gets lost, you wait a few days, then MAYBE it will show up again. Apple, of all companies, needs to understand how important your data is and accessing that information, without MobileMe screwing it up!

I'm glad it helped you, but it hosed me!

I figured out a way to do it that is so basic I fell over it after trying all the other stuff listed here. On the info screen, click sync contacts with WINDOWS ADDRESS BOOK. You can then click Start, All Programs, Accessories, Address Book. How freakin' easy is that?
Then to get the info out you go to File, Export, Address Book, and pick where you want to put it.
Today, I think I rock.
Samantha

I just experienced another "exception" to any rule you could ever think of. I've never had Apple anything until the iPhoneI just formatted my hard drive to add an additional 4GB of RAM and install Windows 7Ultimate. Of course, I backed up everything MS Outlook, My Music, etc. to my external HDD and after the install (which is AWESOME), I copied everything over and imported the .pst files which repopulated my email folders and calendar, but not my contacts. Hmmm, why not? The Contacts folder in Windows was populated, or so I thought! The names and businesses were there, but no phone numbers or email addresses. With no contact info, what was I to do! I had the contact info on my iPhone, but not where it counts since I rarely email from the phone. To make a longer story shorter, I futzed around too much and all of my iPhone contacts were deleted! Argggghhhhhhhh! After sitting back and calming myself I decided to, once again, import my personal folders into Outlook, but this time I imported directly into the contacts folder and *POOF*, there were my contacts. The point of my story is that it's not so much Apple's fault that their stuff isn't perfectly compatible with PCs, although they must accept part of the blame, Microsoft makes things way too complicated so to help you get around the incompatibility issues, iTunes gives you many opportunities to confirm your actions before executing your command and in times of conflict, we all overthink the situation which increases the chance that an incorrect move will be made. Either way, I thought that restoring the iPhone would restore it to the backup made when I updated the iPhone to the new software, but nope...it just wiped the phone of EVERYTHING so here I wait listening to Opeth while the phone is reconfigured.

I synched iPhone to Windows Contacts through iTunes, and exported to a csv file, but it doesn't export the "Other" phone number category. Help! Note, I do not have outlook.

Listen all of you there are some very basic facts to understand here - its a bit like betmax and vhs (for us oldies).
Iphone is great - apple sucks - that is it ! If ONLY they would accept that MOST of us in the real world use PC's and will ALWAYS use PC's the better off we will all be and the better their product will become.

Iphone user files do NOT interface to microsoft (and vica versa) because the 2 companiies refuse to talk to eachother ! So if you do a sync from iphone to outlook or oulook express - half your damn custom field and MOST of the standard iphone firled do not get ported across. Microsoft -do NOT allow rename of their standard name fields and of course and "user defined filed" created in Outlook do not get sync'd to the iphone !
Yes itunes sucks - big time !
Google are going the right way with a common interface for ALL - but of course all that will happen is microsoft will buy them out when they get threatened enough.
Mobile me is an unmitigated disaster - I know at least 3 people whose data was wiped from mobile me - and then - this beautiful piece of software then pushes all the empty data back to the iphone and wipes that out as well. Mobile me denies that this can happen but the facts are very different - just look at some of the forums and see how many people this has happened to.

I have lost all my data of my iphone twice now - I have spent hours researching a way round it - and failed. (I am a Sysadmin as well !!!!!). I have spent hours on the phone to mobileme and iphone - they are all completely useless as I end out teaching them !

At this moment in time - Dec 09 there is only ONE way of ensuring you have a backup - from apps on your iphone do a search for "contacts tool" - it is the ONLY app in existance that will half do what we all want at the moment. It will back up and email you a html page with all your contacts info in (and ALL the data as well !!!) - it will allow you to send that data to an ipod (for backup if you ever need to restore it back ti your iphone).

NEED HELP IN A BIG WAY!!!!
I laptop was corrupted and system crashed. Had it reformatted but the tech guy didnt save any of my contacts nor calendar.
Thank god I have everything stored in my iphone. But how to I export all the contacts and calendar to my laptop? Since my outlook is all wiped out, if I sync will my contacts get transferred to my outlook??
Please help!!

Thanks!