monday CRM cannot import a VCF file. Its contact import takes CSV or Excel only, so you convert the vCard to CSV first, then import that CSV into the Contacts board through New Contact and Import Contacts. During import you map each CSV column to a board column, and you can use Skip matches or Update matches to handle duplicates by a column such as Email. Each contact lands as an item on the board, one row per contact and one column per field.
You exported contacts as a VCF file and want them in monday. The first thing to sort out is which monday you mean, because the base work management app has no contacts at all. The second is that monday CRM, the product that does hold contacts, will not read a VCF. It takes CSV or Excel. So the job is two steps. Convert the VCF to CSV, then import that CSV into the Contacts board.
We have run VCF to CSV migrations into monday CRM, Salesforce, HubSpot and Pipedrive since 2013 at Univik, and the same truth holds across all of them. The import itself is quick. The preparation decides whether contacts land in the right columns or the wrong ones.
monday.com vs monday CRM and Which One Holds Contacts
monday.com is a work management platform. It organises tasks, projects and timelines on visual boards, and it has no contacts module. monday CRM is a separate product built on the same infrastructure. It adds Contacts, Leads, Deals, Accounts and Activities boards along with pipeline tracking. If you want to import contacts, you need monday CRM, not the base monday.com plan.
Check which one you have before you start. Open your account and look at the left sidebar. A CRM section with Contacts, Leads and Deals boards means you have monday CRM. Only Work Management boards like Tasks and Projects means you are on the standard plan, and the contact import will not be there. monday’s own guide to managing contacts describes these entity boards in detail.
Why monday CRM Cannot Import a VCF File
monday CRM’s import accepts CSV and Excel. There is no VCF or vCard option on any plan. This is normal for a CRM. Salesforce, HubSpot, Freshsales and Pipedrive all take CSV rather than vCard, so the fix is always the same. Convert to CSV, then use the standard import.
One exception is worth knowing before you convert anything. If your contacts still live in Google or Microsoft 365 rather than in a file, monday CRM’s native integrations sync them directly and skip the CSV entirely. The catch is that a live sync pulls in everything, personal contacts included. For a VCF file you already hold, the convert then import route stays the clean path. One thing monday CRM does differently is where contacts live. They are not rows in a hidden database. They are items on a Contacts board. Each contact is a row, and each field is a column, whether that column is the name, an email, a phone or the company. The import maps your CSV columns to board columns, so getting the columns right is the whole game. If you also need the same file in another CRM, our guide on importing VCF to HubSpot follows the identical convert then import pattern.
Convert VCF to CSV for monday CRM
Convert the VCF to CSV on Windows with the Univik VCF Converter. Load the file, choose CSV as the output and export. It writes each vCard property to a CSV column with standard headers, so Name, Email, Phone and Company come out already labelled.
Clean duplicates first. If the same person sits twice in your VCF, that becomes two rows in the CSV and, unless you catch it, two items on the board. The Univik vCard Duplicate Remover strips repeats from the VCF before you convert, so you start with one record per contact. For the conversion itself in more depth, see our VCF to CSV guide.
How VCF Fields Map to monday CRM Columns
A monday CRM Contacts board ships with default columns for the standard contact fields. Here is how the common vCard properties, from the open vCard standard RFC 6350, line up with them. If you want the full picture of what a VCF holds, our guide to vCard file structure breaks down every property.
| vCard property | CSV column | monday CRM column | Column type |
|---|---|---|---|
| FN / N | Name | Name | Text, item name, mandatory |
| Email column | |||
| TEL | Phone | Phone | Phone column |
| ORG | Company | Company | Text column |
| TITLE | Title | Title | Text column |
| ADR | Address | Location | Location column |
| URL | Website | Website | Link column |
| NOTE | Notes | Notes | Long Text column |
Name is the only column that cannot be empty. Every item on a monday board needs a Name, and in the Contacts board that is the contact’s full name. Any CSV row with a blank Name fails on import, so filter for empty Name values first and either fill them or drop those rows.
Prepare the CSV Before You Import
The import runs on whatever the CSV gives it, so a few minutes of prep saves a longer cleanup later.
Match your headers to the board columns. monday CRM automaps columns by header name. A CSV header of Email Address will not map to a board column called Email on its own. Rename the headers to match the board, or plan to set them by hand in the preview.
Create custom columns first. If your contacts carry data with no home in the default columns, a second phone, a LinkedIn address, a deal tag, add those columns to the board before you import. monday CRM will take an unmatched column, but it adds it as a plain text column, which loses the behaviour of a real Phone or Email column. Building them first lets you set the right type.
Normalise phone numbers. The Phone column keeps whatever format your CSV feeds it, so mixed formats import without error but read as a mess. Pick one format, ideally E.164 like +1 555 867 5309, and apply it across the column. Our guide on standardising phone numbers in a VCF covers doing this at the source.
Keep one email per column. The Email column holds a single address per contact. If a contact has several, only the first maps in, and the rest need a second Email column created on the board before import.
Combine first and last names into one column. The board’s Name is a single field, the item name, so a CSV with separate First Name and Last Name columns imports with broken names. Merge them into one Name column before you upload. This trips up enough people that it fills its own thread on monday’s community forum.
Save as UTF-8. In Excel, choose Save As, then CSV UTF-8 Comma delimited. Plain CSV can corrupt accented names when monday CRM displays them.
Import the CSV into monday CRM
With the CSV ready, the import is short.
- Open the Contacts board. In the left sidebar, go to the CRM section and click Contacts.
- Start the import. Click the New Contact dropdown at the top of the board and choose Import Contacts.
- Upload the CSV. Browse to the file or drag it into the upload area. monday CRM reads it and shows a preview.
- Map the columns. monday CRM automaps by header name and shows the result. Check every row, and set any unmatched column with the dropdown or leave it for monday to add as a text column.
- Handle duplicates. Choose Skip matches to leave existing contacts untouched or Update matches to overwrite them, then pick the column to match on such as Email or Phone. Choose add as new to import everything regardless.
- Import. Click Import. monday CRM adds the contacts as items, shows a green banner at the top when it finishes and offers a CSV summary of the run to download.
Import Limits and Duplicate Handling
monday CRM sets hard limits on a contact import, and hitting one mid upload is a frustrating way to learn them. Per monday’s import documentation, a single file has to stay under 8,000 rows, 50 columns and 10 MB. You import one file at a time per board, and an account is capped at 100 uploads an hour. A large address book can cross the row limit once it becomes a CSV, so split it into batches under 8,000 rows before you import.
One more catch applies if you import into the Leads board instead. Active board automations flip every imported item to New Lead status, so pause the automation first if you do not want that. Duplicate handling happens during the import, not after it. The preview screen offers Skip matches and Update matches, each keyed to a column you choose. Skip leaves an existing contact alone when the match column, say Email, already appears on the board. Update overwrites the existing item with the incoming row. Cleaning the VCF first still helps, since it keeps the file smaller and the outcome predictable, but monday CRM will deduplicate on the way in once you tell it which column identifies a person.
After Importing Contacts into monday CRM
Imported contacts show up as rows on the Contacts board. Each row is one contact and each column one field. They open in a grid by default. A card view gives an address book feel, and a map view plots the contacts that carry location data.
monday CRM links accounts for you but not deals. With Item association on, which is the default, it reads each contact’s email domain, matches it to an account on the Accounts board and creates the account if none exists. Deals and leads stay manual, so open a contact and connect those from the record itself. There is also no one click undo for a bad import the way Pipedrive offers. If the mapping was wrong, you delete the affected items by hand or export the board, fix it in Excel and import again. That is why the preview step is worth a careful read before you confirm.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does monday CRM import VCF files directly?
No. monday CRM’s contact import accepts CSV and Excel files only, on every plan. A VCF has to be converted to CSV first, then imported through the Contacts board. There is no VCF or vCard option anywhere in the import tool.
What is the difference between monday.com and monday CRM?
monday.com is a work management platform for tasks, projects and workflows, and it has no contacts module. monday CRM is a separate product on the same infrastructure that adds Contacts, Leads and Deals boards with sales features. You need monday CRM to import and manage contacts, since the base monday.com plan does not include it.
Does monday CRM remove duplicates when I import contacts?
Yes. The import preview offers Skip matches and Update matches, each keyed to a column you pick such as Email or Phone. Skip leaves an existing contact untouched when the match already exists on the board, and Update overwrites it with the incoming row. Cleaning the VCF beforehand still helps, but monday CRM can deduplicate during the import once you tell it which column identifies a person.
What are the file limits for a monday CRM contact import?
A single import file must stay under 8,000 rows, 50 columns and 10 MB. You can upload one file at a time per board, and an account is limited to 100 uploads an hour. An address book past 8,000 contacts crosses the row limit as a CSV, so split it into batches before importing.
What happens if my CSV headers do not match the board columns?
monday CRM’s automapping will not match them, and they show as unmatched in the preview. You can map each one by hand from the dropdown, or let monday add it to the board as a new text column. To skip the manual step next time, rename your CSV headers to match the board column names exactly so automapping does the work.
Can I import several phone numbers or emails for one contact?
By default the Email and Phone columns hold one value per contact, so only the first maps in. To keep the rest, create a second Email or Phone column on the board before you import, then map the extra CSV columns to them. Plan this before conversion so the CSV carries each value in its own column.
The Bottom Line
Two steps get VCF contacts into monday CRM. Convert the vCard to CSV, then import through the Contacts board. The board model is the part that catches people. Contacts are items, fields are columns and the import writes your CSV into columns rather than into fixed CRM fields.
Spend the time on prep. Clean duplicates or set Skip matches. Match your headers to the board columns, build any custom columns first and keep each file under 8,000 rows. Do that and the import is the easy part.