Transfer Contacts Using Bluetooth

Bluetooth is reliable, and it saves you the trouble of looking for the appropriate cable and proprietary software. The phone book records will be transferred in the vCard or *.vcf format. To manage vCard records, there is usually an ‘Import’ function for vCard format in your contacts or email program/app, and often the native application in the operating system will be sufficient.

Bluetooth modules on both cellphone and computer

To pair Bluetooth device for the first-time use, you can make one of the devices visible, and use the other to connect. On both Windows and Android (likely other systems as well), this is done through the Settings app >> Devices, and from there choose to either add a device or search for devices, then follow prompt to verify a random code.

For subsequent uses, devices can be connected directly as long both of them have Bluetooth turned on. After establishing a connection, Bluetooth can perform a lot of tasks, for example, transferring files, hands free speaker, and making phone calls on computer, but we will only use the transferring files feature.

To 'send' from an Android phone:
The contact is sent through the 'Share' feature of the Contacts app menu (accessed by the 3-dot icon), and Bluetooth is one of the share targets.

To 'send' from phone but initiate it on a Windows computer:

First, locate the phone or device appeared in Control Panel >> Hardware and Sound >> Devices and Printers. From the phone, open the Bluetooth operation window, select the advanced operation, and choose to save contacts as *.pbo format. The *.pbo is essentially a combined vCard *.vcf file for multiple people. In most cases, you can rename the extension from *.pbo to *.vcf and use it where *.vcf is accepted.

To 'send' from a Windows computer:

Click on the Bluetooth icon in the lower right corner of the taskbar, and choose to send the *.vcf as a regular file. The Bluetooth icon appears once Bluetooth is enabled. Alternatively, you can open the Bluetooth operation window as shown above, and send the file from there.

The *.vcf file will be received in a certain folder automatically, but how it is processed after being received will depend on the operating system.

For Android, you may import contacts, either using the settings menu of the Contacts app, or just by tapping on the downloaded *.vcf file to let Android open the app linked to this extension.

For Windows, most email and contacts client program have an import/export feature that can handle *.vcf file.