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How to import iPhone contacts into Freshsales
Moving your iPhone contacts into Freshsales is straightforward once the CSV is in the right shape. The hard part is producing that CSV from iOS, where there's no built-in 'export to CSV' button. This guide covers both halves: getting the file out of iPhone, and getting it into Freshsales without losing fields.
This is one of the most common reasons people hit a wall with iOS contacts. The address book on your phone is a goldmine for any sales pipeline, but iOS hides the export behind iCloud.com or a third-party app. Pluck handles the export side; this guide covers the Freshsales-side import.
Step 1. Get your contacts out of iPhone
On a Mac, you can drag-export from Mac Contacts. From an iPhone alone, you need either iCloud.com on a desktop or an app like Pluck. Pluck reads your iOS Contacts permission directly, normalizes phone numbers to E.164, and writes a CSV in Freshsales's expected shape.
Pluck's CSV export gives you CSV with First name, Last name, Mobile number columns. Pick CSV in the Configure Export screen, choose the fields you want (name, phone, email at minimum), and tap Generate Export. The file lands in the iOS share sheet.
Step 2. Import into Freshsales
In Freshsales, go to Contacts > Import Contacts > Choose file. Pick the CSV you just generated, confirm the column mapping (most field names auto-detect), and run the import. Expect 5-10 seconds per 1,000 rows depending on the size of your workspace.
Freshsales auto-detects column types. The Mobile number column expects E.164; local-format numbers import but won't trigger click-to-call.
Common pitfalls
The two failure modes that come up most often when importing into Freshsales: phone number formatting and duplicate detection. Phone format is the bigger one. iPhone stores numbers in whatever format you typed them in, which means you'll see (415) 555-2671 and +14155552671 and 415.555.2671 in the same address book. Freshsales treats those as three different numbers.
Pluck normalizes everything to E.164 (+14155552671) before exporting. Freshsales's deduplication then catches the actual duplicates correctly. The same fix applies to landline-vs-mobile distinctions: Pluck preserves the iOS phone-label field, so Freshsales knows which is which.
What about ongoing sync?
This is a one-time CSV import, not a live sync. If you add a contact in iPhone after the import, it won't appear in Freshsales automatically. For ongoing sync, look at Freshsales's native iOS integration if it has one, or a tool like Zapier.
Most teams do a quarterly bulk re-export instead. It's simpler, doesn't require giving Freshsales ongoing access to your contacts, and avoids the sync conflicts that pop up when both sides edit the same contact.
Related reading
More on phone formatting: How to format phone numbers for a CRM import. More on the export step itself: How to export iPhone contacts to CSV. For deduplication before import: How to find duplicate contacts on iPhone.
Get Pluck for iPhone
Pluck does the steps in this guide on your iPhone, with no server, no account, and no analytics. Group your contacts by country, find duplicates the iOS tool misses, and export to CSV, Excel, TXT, or vCard.