Free online tool
Clean a contacts file before you share it
Drop a .vcf contacts file and choose which fields to remove — photos, notes, birthdays, addresses, organisations and custom X- fields. Names, phone numbers and email addresses stay by default, so the cleaned file still identifies each person and still reaches them. Everything runs in your browser: the file is never uploaded, and the report shows exactly what was removed.
Quick answer
Quick answer
Drop a .vcf contacts file and choose which fields to remove — photos, notes, birthdays, addresses, organisations and custom X- fields. Names, phone numbers and email addresses stay by default. The cleaned file downloads straight from your browser, nothing is uploaded, and the report shows exactly what was removed from each contact.
Open the interactive VCF Contact Scrubber
The interactive tool loads in the page. Enable JavaScript to enter data, process content, and download results.
Worked example — sample contacts file
The built-in sample (Ada Lovelace, Grace Hopper, Alan Turing), scrubbed with the default toggles.
| File | sample-contacts.vcf |
|---|---|
| Contacts | 3 contacts — all kept |
| Fields removed | 7 — 2 photos, 3 notes, 2 birthdays |
| Still in the file | 4 phone numbers, 3 email addresses |
What each field holds — and why you might remove it
| Field | What it holds | Remove when |
|---|---|---|
| PHOTO | A base64-encoded portrait of the person | Sharing publicly — it is a face, and the largest field |
| NOTE | Free text: reminders, private remarks, addresses | The note was never meant for anyone else |
| BDAY | Date of birth | A birthday plus a name is an identity check |
| ADR | Home or work address | The list should not reveal where someone lives or works |
| ORG | Employer or company name | The employer is not part of the handover |
| X- fields | App-specific extras: nicknames, social profiles | They carry data from the exporting app, not the contact |
| TEL / EMAIL | Phone numbers and email addresses | Never removed — the card still has to reach the person |
Before and after — the sample file
| Item | Before scrubbing | After scrubbing (default) |
|---|---|---|
| Contacts | 3 | 3 — all kept |
| Photos (PHOTO) | 2 | 0 |
| Notes (NOTE) | 3 | 0 |
| Birthdays (BDAY) | 2 | 0 |
| Phone numbers (TEL) | 4 | 4 |
| Email addresses (EMAIL) | 3 | 3 |
About this tool
About the VCF Contact Scrubber
Drop a .vcf contacts file and choose which fields to remove — photos, notes, birthdays, addresses, organisations and custom X- fields. Names, phone numbers and email addresses stay by default, so the cleaned file still identifies each person and still reaches them. Everything runs in your browser: the file is never uploaded, and the report shows exactly what was removed.
Detailed guide
How to get useful results from VCF Contact Scrubber
What a .vcf file carries
A .vcf file — a vCard — is a plain-text list of contact cards. Each card starts with BEGIN:VCARD and ends with END:VCARD, and between them sit one field per line: FN for the display name, N for the structured name, TEL for phone numbers, EMAIL for addresses, and then the fields people forget about — PHOTO, NOTE, BDAY, ADR, ORG, and custom X- fields added by whatever app exported the file.
That is the risk. A contact list you export to share with a colleague, a mailing list, or a public directory carries every field the exporting app decided to include. A photo is a face. A birthday plus a name is an identity check. A note can hold a home address, a private remark, or a reminder never meant for anyone else. The card looks like just a name and a number, but the file is much more than that.
How the scrubber reads a contacts file
The tool reads the file with the File API and never sends it anywhere. It first unfolds the file: vCard lines are limited to 75 characters, so long lines are wrapped, with each continuation line starting with a single space. The scrubber joins those wrapped lines back together before it reads anything, so a photo split across three lines is still recognised as one PHOTO field.
Then it splits the file into cards at BEGIN:VCARD and END:VCARD, and splits each card into fields at the first colon on each line — the part before the colon is the field name plus its parameters, such as TEL;TYPE=CELL, and the part after it is the value. Both vCard 3.0 and vCard 4.0 cards are handled the same way, and a card that never ends, or a file with no cards at all, is refused with an explanation instead of a half-cleaned download.
Choosing which fields to remove
Six field categories can be toggled on or off before you scrub. Photos, notes and birthdays are removed by default, because they are the most identifying fields and the least needed when all you want to share is a way to reach someone. Addresses, organisations and custom X- fields are kept by default, because a work address or an employer name is often part of why the contact is being shared at all.
Turn a toggle on and every field in that category is dropped from every card; turn it off and the field survives untouched. Names, phone numbers and email addresses are never offered for removal — a cleaned card with no name and no way to reach the person is not a contact, it is a blank. The toggle row shows the vCard field name for each category, so you can match it against what your own export contains.
What stays in the cleaned file
Everything you did not select stays exactly as it was: the same names, the same phone numbers and email addresses, the same version line on each card. The only change to kept fields is folding — any kept line longer than 75 characters is re-wrapped at 75 characters with a leading space on each continuation line, as the vCard specification requires, so the file stays valid for the apps that will read it.
The cleaned file is re-parsed before the download appears. The check confirms two things: every contact from the original file is still present, and no field from a removed category survived. If either check fails, you get an error instead of a download. The report lists the count per removed field, the total fields removed, and how many fields were kept, so you can see the whole result before you share the file.
The sample file, worked through
The built-in sample holds three contacts: Ada Lovelace, Grace Hopper and Alan Turing. Together they carry 28 fields, including two PHOTO base64 blobs, three NOTEs, two birthdays, one address, two organisations and two custom X- fields. With the default toggles — photos, notes and birthdays removed — the scrubber removes 7 fields and keeps 21, including all 4 phone numbers and all 3 email addresses.
Turn every toggle on and 12 fields go: the 7 defaults plus the address, both organisations and both custom fields, leaving 16 fields — names, phone numbers, emails and version lines only. Turn every toggle off and nothing is removed, which is a useful check: it proves the tool read your file correctly, because the report will show the full field count and the untouched file will still download.
What scrubbing cannot do
Scrubbing removes fields, not meaning. A nickname in an X- field is gone if you remove custom fields, but an organisation name you kept can still identify someone, and a phone number is itself identifying — that is the point of sharing it. Read the kept fields before you share, especially if the list is going somewhere public rather than to one trusted person.
Removing fields can also break a card in some apps. A contact with no phone number and no email may import as a bare name, and some apps complain about cards that lose a field they expect. The honest fix is to check the cleaned file where it will be used: import it once into a test account or a fresh address book before you send it to the people who actually need it.
Who shares a contacts file this way
The most common case is a team handing over a client or supplier list: the names and numbers are the handover, and the photos, birthdays and private notes are not. Event organisers share attendee contacts with vendors, community groups publish a members directory, and small businesses pass a supplier list to a new hire — in each case the file that leaves the building should carry less than the file that stays in it.
It also fits the rest of this site's privacy tools. The Email File Scrubber cleans a saved email before you forward it, the Data Anonymizer redacts text before you paste it, and this scrubber cleans a contacts file before you share it. None of them uploads anything, which matters most exactly when the file is the thing you do not want copied anywhere else.
Quick guide
How to use this tool
- 01Drop a .vcf contacts file onto the upload area, or browse to choose one — up to 5 MB.
- 02Check the contacts listed: each card shows its name and every field it contains.
- 03Toggle the field categories to remove — photos, notes and birthdays are removed by default.
- 04Press Scrub contacts and read the report: how many contacts were kept and how many of each field was removed.
- 05Download the cleaned .vcf and check it imports before you share it.
Capabilities
Features and supported formats
- Strips photos, notes, birthdays, addresses, organisations and custom X- fields from a .vcf file, category by category.
- Keeps names, phone numbers and email addresses by default, so every cleaned card still identifies the person and still reaches them.
- Unfolds wrapped vCard lines before reading, and re-folds long lines at 75 characters, as the vCard spec requires.
- Handles both vCard 3.0 and 4.0 cards, and lists every contact with every field before you scrub.
- Re-parses the cleaned file before download — no removed field may survive, and no contact may go missing.
- Runs 100% in your browser; the file is never uploaded, stored, or sent anywhere.
Supported formats
Input: one .vcf (vCard) file, up to 5 MB, vCard 3.0 or 4.0. Output: a cleaned .vcf file with the selected field categories removed, plus an on-screen report of contacts kept and fields removed per category.
Answers
Frequently asked questions
Does the VCF Contact Scrubber upload my contacts?
No. The file is read with the File API and processed only in your browser tab. Nothing is sent to a server, and the contacts never leave your device.
What is a .vcf or vCard file?
It is the standard contacts format: a plain-text file where each contact is a card between BEGIN:VCARD and END:VCARD, with one field per line — FN for name, TEL for phone, EMAIL for email, and so on. Most phones and mail apps can export and import it.
Which fields are removed by default?
Photos (PHOTO), notes (NOTE) and birthdays (BDAY). Those are the most identifying fields and the least needed when you only want to share a way to reach someone. Addresses, organisations and custom X- fields are kept unless you toggle them on.
Can I keep addresses and organisations?
Yes. Addresses (ADR), organisations (ORG) and custom X- fields are kept by default. Toggle them on only when you want them removed too — the report will show exactly how many of each were dropped.
What happens to phone numbers and email addresses?
They are always kept. A cleaned card still has its names, phone numbers and email addresses, so it still identifies the person and still reaches them. They are never offered for removal.
Why is the photo the biggest privacy item?
A PHOTO field is a base64-encoded portrait, usually the largest field in the file, and it identifies a face at a glance. Stripping it also shrinks most files dramatically — it is the single most useful field to remove before sharing.
Will the cleaned file still open in my contacts app?
It should: kept fields are written back unchanged and long lines are re-folded at 75 characters, as the vCard spec requires, for both vCard 3.0 and 4.0. But removing fields can break a card in some apps, so import the cleaned file once into a test account before you share it widely.
What is the difference between vCard 3.0 and 4.0?
Mostly small details: 4.0 prefers PHOTO:data URIs and drops some 3.0 parameters like ENCODING=b, but the card structure — BEGIN:VCARD, one field per line, END:VCARD — is the same. This tool reads both versions the same way and keeps each card's version line untouched.
What is the file size limit?
One .vcf file at a time, up to 5 MB. That covers contact lists of thousands of cards — a 5 MB text file holds roughly 20,000 to 50,000 contacts. Larger files are refused before any reading starts.
Does it handle folded (wrapped) lines?
Yes. vCard lines are limited to 75 characters, so long lines — especially PHOTO blobs — are wrapped, with each continuation line starting with a space. The tool unfolds those lines before reading, so a wrapped photo is still recognised as one field, and re-folds kept lines at 75 characters on output.
Can I scrub a file with hundreds of contacts?
Yes. The tool parses every card in the file, applies the same field rules to all of them, and reports the total per field. The per-contact list on screen shows each card's name and fields, so you can spot-check a large file before downloading.
A NOTE field mentions something sensitive — is removing it enough?
Removing the NOTE deletes that text from the file, which is the right start. But check the kept fields too: a nickname, an organisation, or even a phone number can still identify someone. Read the cleaned file before sharing it, especially if it is going somewhere public.