How to Reduce VCF File Size with 3 Best Methods?

  author
Rollins Duke   
Published: May 23rd, 2024 • 6 Min Read

Even though VCF files are helpful when storing multiple user’s contact data, they are also susceptible to data storage problems. This blog post explores the best solutions to reduce VCF file size besides the reasons to decrease vCard contact file size.

A Virtual Contact File (vCard file with .vcf extension) is a file format used for storing contact information on mobile phones, computers, and email applications. A VCF file saves everything – name, contact number, residential address, email address, birthday, and other relevant data – and stores it in a single .vcf file. It is also known as a vCard (Virtual Card).

Reasons to Decrease vCard Contact File Size

This section explores some reasons that necessitate decreasing the size of VCF data files:

  • Seamless Data Storage: The first reason for lowering the size of VCF files is to ensure efficient contact data space. Smaller-sized VCF files take minimum space on your devices (mobiles and computers) and data servers. Moreover, having lower-sized VCF files becomes crucial if making a cloud backup.
  • Redundant Data Elimination: No one saves birthdays, residential addresses, and other additional details in VCF files. If you have stored these details for every person, deleting them will help you reduce VCF file size and ensure necessary data retention.
  • Faster Performance: Another reason for reducing VCF file size is to ensure swift operation of the devices handling contact information, especially your mobiles having processing power limitations.
  • Easy Data Sharing: Small-sized VCF files are easily shareable through emails, social media channels, and file-sharing apps. Hence, reducing the size of VCF files becomes significant.

These reasons have shown us the necessity to reduce VCF file size. The following sections mention the solutions for size reduction, so keep reading!

Read Similar: Ways to Merge Multiple VCF Files into One

How to Reduce VCF File Size Manually?

We will now explore a solution to reduce VCF file size manually with the help of the Notepad application on your computer. The following points describe the process:

  1. Open the VCF file folder on your computer.
  2. Right-click on a VCF file and select Open with Notepad.
  3. Remove unnecessary values from the VCF file.
  4. Go to File menu and select Save (CTRL+S) option.
  5. Replicate the entire process with other VCF files.

This method of compressing VCF files finds users due to the simplicity of editing the details. But this solution has certain limitations, and the next section discusses them.

Drawbacks of the Manual Solution

The manual method to reduce vCard file size looks easy. But it has many issues. The following points mention some of them:

  • This process is highly technical since it involves many properties, and mistakenly removing crucial elements like VERSION (file version) may lead to data corruption.
  • This method is time-consuming since you have to reduce the size of every VCF file individually.
  • The manual solution works when you have to lower the size of a few VCF files.

These limitations prove the manual method isn’t viable for bulk contact size decrement. The upcoming sections mention the best solutions for lowering the size of multiple VCF files.

First Pro Solution to Reduce vCard File Size

Since the manual solution isn’t suitable for decreasing VCF file size, we present an excellent option for size reduction – automated software. The BitRecover vCard Duplicate Remover helps you deduplicate your contact database by removing similar contacts. You can use this software for all VCF file versions, i.e., VCF 2.1, 3.0, and 4.0. Another benefit of this software is it makes separate files for deduplicate contacts besides merging all contacts into a single VCF format file.

How to Compress vCard File Size?

  1. Install and open the automated software on your laptop/computer.
    Start software
  2. Next, click Select Files or Select Folders to add the entire VCF file collection and click the Next button.
    Add VCF contacts
  3. The software view panel on the left side will display the selected VCF files and subfolders. You can uncheck the boxes for unrequired VCF data files.
    Select VCF files
  4. Proceed ahead by clicking the Next button and deciding the location for deduplicated VCF files using the folder icon under Destination Path.
    Destination path
  5. The next step involves selecting the Create Single VCF option for merging all contacts under a single VCF file. You can ignore this option for saving individual deduplicated files.
    Single VCF
  6. At last, click the Extract button to reduce VCF file size.
    Reduce VCF file size

Second Pro Solution to Compress VCF Files

You can also decrease VCF file size with the BitRecover vCard Manager Wizard. This automated software is the best choice for reducing the size of your VCF files by removing unnecessary data. This software is compatible with all Windows OS computers and ensures data security. Technical and non-technical people will find this utility easy to work with as it has a simple interface for seamless operations.

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How to Reduce VCF File Size?

  1. Download and start the automated utility on your machine.
    Launch software
  2. Click on the Add Files or Add Folders option based on your choice.
    Add vCard files
  3. Select the VCF files from the software view panel on the left side.
    Preview mode
  4. The Attachments column will display an asterisk (*) icon opposite the contacts having photographs.
    Preview attachments
  5. Click the Save button to display the options to reduce vCard file size.
    Click Save
  6. Next, enable an option to remove attachments from vCard as shown.
    decrease vCard contact file
  7. Click the Change button to select the destination for saving the resultant low-sized VCF files.
    Compress vCard file
  8. Finally, begin decreasing VCF file size by clicking the Start button.
    Compress VCF file

Conclusion

This blog explored the solutions to reduce VCF file size besides the reasons for VCF data file size decreasing. The reasons listed here highlight the importance of having low-sized VCF files. The manual solution explained in this post looks simple, but the drawbacks hinder its usage. Therefore, the automated utilities mentioned here are excellent methods to lower VCF data file size with total data security.