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vCard 4.0

vCard 4.0 (RFC 6350) is the current standard for contact data exchange. It improved on vCard 3.0 (RFC 2426) with better internationalization, structured data types, and enhanced security properties.

Key Features

Required FN Property

vCard 4.0 makes the FN (Formatted Name) property mandatory. Every vCard must have a displayable name, ensuring that applications can always present a meaningful label for a contact.

Structured Data Types

Property values use explicit data types:

  • DATE — Birthday, anniversary (ISO 8601 format: YYYY-MM-DD)
  • TIME — Time values
  • DATETIME — Combined date and time
  • URI — URLs for websites, social profiles, and photos
  • BOOLEAN — True/false values
  • INTEGER — Numeric values
  • FLOAT — Decimal numbers
  • UTC-OFFSET — Time zone offsets

Grouping

Properties can be grouped using a prefix:

ITEM1.EMAIL;TYPE=work:alice@example.com
ITEM1.TEL;TYPE=work:+1-555-0100

This associates related properties without creating a nested structure.

Security Properties

  • KEY — Public encryption keys (PGP, S/MIME) for secure communication.
  • EXPERTISE — Areas of professional expertise.

Internationalization

vCard 4.0 uses UTF-8 encoding by default, with full support for non-ASCII characters in names, addresses, and other properties. The LANGUAGE parameter can specify the language of a property value.

Property Parameters

vCard 4.0 standardized several parameters:

  • TYPE — Categorizes the property (e.g., TYPE=home, TYPE=work, TYPE=cell). Multiple types can be combined: TYPE=home,voice.
  • PREF — Preference ranking (1 = most preferred). Used when a contact has multiple values for the same property.
  • ALTID — Alternative representations of the same property (e.g., name in different scripts).
  • PID — Persistent identifier for cross-referencing properties across vCard versions.
  • CALSCALE — Calendar type (default: GREGORIAN).

Example

BEGIN:VCARD
VERSION:4.0
FN:Alice Smith
N:Smith;Alice;Marie;Dr.;PhD
EMAIL;TYPE=work;PREF=1:alice@example.com
EMAIL;TYPE=home;PREF=2:alice@personal.org
TEL;TYPE=work,voice;VALUE=uri;PREF=1:tel:+1-555-0100
TEL;TYPE=cell;VALUE=uri:tel:+1-555-0200
ADR;TYPE=work:;;123 Business Ave;Metropolis;NY;10001;USA
ORG:Example Corp;Engineering
TITLE:Senior Engineer
URL:https://example.com/~alice
KEY;TYPE=PGP:https://keys.example.com/alice.asc
BDAY:19850315
END:VCARD
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