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Wondering out loud:

Does anyone know if there is a vCard utility for Gmail / Google Apps?

For those who don’t know, vCard (.vcf) is a file format standard for business cards used in lots of apps, both desktop and web-based.

For example, if you’re using LinkedIn, you’ll see an an icon that lets you easily download a vCard for the contact that you’re looking at:

 

If you click on the icon, the vCard file downloads to your computer:

 

In the olden-days when I used Outlook (RIP), I’d double-click to open this file, click Save, and the contact would be added to my Address Book.

These days I use Gmail (well, to be precise, “Google Apps for Business“), and this vCard is basically useless to me.  The only way I can see to get a vCard into my Gmail contacts is to use the Gmail “import” feature:

  1. Download the vCard
  2. Go to Gmail Contacts
  3. Click Import
  4. Locate the file
  5. Click OK

Has someone created a utility to make this easier?  Has someone created a simple Windows app that creates an association between .VCF files and Gmail so that I can just click on a vCard file and, voila, it is automatically added to my contacts in Gmail?

OR, a Browser plugin/extension (Chrome please!) that does something similar?

While I believe that this would be useful to lots of folks out there, I would expect that a utility like this would be especially valuable to all of the corporate customers that are moving to Gmail (from Outlook/Exchange, Lotus Notes, and other “legacy” e-mail systems where vCards are first-class citizens).