How to download your contacts from Google on a computer or Android device

Getting a copy of your Google contacts is always a good practice to maintain.

Switching between phones can be confusing and tiresome for non-techies. Apple makes the whole process flawless with tight integration of iCloud. Google is also making progress with Google Drive backup and sync service.

While moving to a new device, the top priority for almost everyone is backing up and restoring contacts and messages. It should appear when a user signs in to a new device.

Android offers multiple ways to backup and export contacts. In this post, I will guide you through the easy ways to do that.

Major Android-based phone makers like Samsung and Xiaomi offer native cloud solution to backup data, but I won’t advise you to opt for that. It only works among their devices, and you won’t be able to access the backup data on the other OEM’s device.

The methods mentioned below are quite useful to backup contacts work on all the Android devices. I have covered both online and offline ways to do the task. I will also include some third-party alternatives if you don’t want to go through Google’s way. Let’s get started.

GOOGLE SYNC AND BACKUP
By default, Google offers the ability to sync the contacts to your Gmail ID. It’s accessible on Gmail Web, Calendar, and the major Google services.

It’s switched on by default. To perform manually, you can go to Settings > About Phone > Google Account > Account Sync > and Switch on Contacts tab.

You can check the data in the Google Drive app to make sure that you have taken a backup of all the important information. Navigate through this path: Google Drive > tap on hamburger menu > Backup > Device Backup > App data > and you will find Contacts data in it.

You can also download all the contacts with relevant data using the default Export option in the Google Contacts app.

Open Google Contacts app, go to Settings, and choose the Export option. The app will generate a .vcf file on the device for offline access. You can keep it safe somewhere and open it on a new phone to restore the contacts.