How to Transfer Blackberry Contacts to an iPhone

By Ricky, RickySays |  Mobile & Wireless, BlackBerry, iPhone 23 comments

Editor's note: this article was published in 2009 and is now somewhat dated. For an updated take on the subject, check out "Transfer your contacts from BlackBerry to iPhone or Android."

Here's how to transfer contacts from a Blackberry to an iPhone.

We'll do this in two main steps:

1. Transfer contacts from the Blackberry address book to Outlook on your computer (or Windows Mail).
2. Sync your iPhone with your computer using iTunes, which will transfer the contacts from Outlook to your iPhone.

Make sure that both the Blackberry Desktop Manager and iTunes are installed on your system, and that your Blackberry is connected to your computer with a usb data cable.

Part1. Transfer contacts from a Blackberry to Outlook
Run the Blackberry Desktop Manager program and click "Synchronize" from the main menu screen. Select "Synchronization" below the Configuration menu option to get to the Synchronization Configuration screen.

There you'll click the "Synchronization" button to configure the synchronization settings. You'll be asked to choose the device applications to synchronize. Choose "Address Book", and then choose "Outlook". If you don't have Outlook on your system, then you can choose "Windows Mail" instead.

Next you'll configure how you want to sync your contacts, either bi-directionally or just from your blackberry to Outlook (which is the option I chose):

Click "Next" and then "Finish" to complete the synchronization settings. This will take you back to the synchronization screen. Make sure you check the option to "Synchronize organizer data". This is the setting that tells the program to sync your contacts.

Click the "Synchronize" button to copy the contacts from your Blackberry to your Outlook contacts. You can open Outlook after the sync has completed, and you should see your Blackberry addresses in your Outlook contacts folder.

Part2. Transfer contacts from Outlook to an iPhone
You can import Outlook contacts to your iPhone by syncing your iPhone with iTunes. Plug your iPhone into your computer and wait for iTunes to automatically launch (or run iTunes from the Start menu if necessary). Select your iPhone in iTunes, select the Info tab, and then click the checkboxes to sync your contacts. Choose Outlook as the application to sync with. Click Apply, then click Sync.

This will copy the contacts from Outlook over to your iPhone. Remember however, that you can only sync your iPhone with one computer at a time. If you later decide to sync with another computer, your contacts will be erased. Our work here is finished, and your Blackberry contacts will now be copied over to your iPhone.

http://www.rickysays.com/copy-contacts-from-blackberry-to-iphone

23 comments

    Anonymous 46 weeks ago
    Thanks for the great post...detailed instructions and EVEN Pictures lol... but you think considering how many BB customers there are switching to iPhone they would make a simple one step migration software...if you were Apple wouldnt you want to make it as easy as possible to bring over the "other" guys? Jess Panic Away
    Anonymous 1 year ago
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    Anonymous 1 year ago
    Thanks so much for your help! Now I have all my contacts from my BB on my iPhone... Have a good evening!
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    Anonymous 1 year ago
    Thank you for posting this information. I have succeeded but wouldn't have had I not found this on here. It was most helpful.
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    Anonymous 1 year ago
    I am actually switching from a BlackBerry to an iPhone pretty soon and was going to start looking for a solution. I figured there would be a ton of iphone apps for this problem, but it is nice to see a way to address this outside of that, so I can prepare for it before I go through with the iPhone purchase.
    Anonymous 1 year ago
    Thank you, you made it so easy.
    Anonymous 1 year ago
    That's a good guide, thanks for the tutorial. And a reverse tutorial will be good, in order to save iphone contacts on computer.Word Scrabble
    Anonymous 1 year ago
    It worked great! thanks
    Anonymous 1 year ago
    Brillian!!!!! What a guide, should be top of the search engines. Saved me a lot of time. Many Thanks
    Surevin
    Surevin 1 year ago
    Thanks for the guide. And I just found this info about how to backup and transfer windows mobile contacts to iPhone.http://imobiletool.com/how-to-backup-and-transfer-windows-mobile-contacts-to-iphone.htmlHope it can help.
    Anonymous 2 years ago
    Outstanding. Tried with some the help with other sites and they didn't work. This one did and the pictures helped a lot. Thanks for posting this.
    Anonymous 2 years ago
    Thank you very much!
    Anonymous 2 years ago
    is there a reverse for this i want a back up my contacts for my iphone. since i might be changing to verizon.
    Anonymous 2 years ago
    Using the same steps that are illustrated here, you can choose Yahoo, instead of Outlook.Then you can sync your iphone to Yahoo (just at first if you only need to copy the contacts in).This does allow you to get all the data from all the contact fields.
    Anonymous 2 years ago
    Helpful. I also found a good demo on youtube, introduced how to convert dvd to blackberry in detail:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UkLPZ0iER4s
    Anonymous 2 years ago
    i have one problem i don't have the blackberry anymore so what do i do now i did back up all the contacts to the computer using the blackberry destop manager
    Anonymous 3 years ago
    ...but why would you want to?
    Anonymous 1 year ago in reply to Anonymous
    Many people who work on Macs either at work or at home find it much easier to integrate hardware and software that is all Apple brand. They follow the golden rule of "KIAA" which of course means, "Keep It All Apple." Plus, let's be honest, Apple stuff just looks better :)

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