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MECARD contact code

MECARD is the older, smaller cousin of vCard: one line of text that carries a name, a number and a few extras. It saves space on small printed items, and it costs compatibility.

Create a MECARD code

Name, phone, email

Editorial teamLast reviewed: 29 October 2026Editorial standards

Short answer

MECARD is worth using when the printed area is tiny and the fields are few: name, phone, email. For anything with an address, a company, a job title or a note, use vCard 3.0 instead, because phone address books read it more consistently.

Both formats do the same job, which is to open a contact dialog with fields filled in. The difference is how much they can carry and how reliably phones agree on what they read.

MECARD is shorter: it is a single text line, semicolon separated, which makes the QR pattern noticeably sparser at the same data. That is its only real advantage.

What goes in the code

One line beginning with MECARD:, followed by field pairs such as N: for the name, TEL: for a number, EMAIL:, ADR:, ORG:, URL: and NOTE:. Values are separated by semicolons and the whole thing ends with a double semicolon.

Because it is one line, there is no room for the structure vCard offers: no multiple phone numbers with types, no separate first and last name fields, no photo. Each field is a single value in a fixed position.

  • Keep to N, TEL and EMAIL, everything else is where compatibility gets worse
  • Phone numbers in international format, with the plus and country code
  • No semicolons inside values, they end the field
  • Test on both iOS and Android before printing

Why its size matters more than it sounds

A MECARD with four fields is a fraction of the payload of the equivalent vCard block, which means fewer modules in the pattern, which means the same square prints with larger dots. On a business card, a badge or a label the size of a stamp, that difference is the difference between scanning and not scanning.

The tradeoff is symmetrical: the moment you add a company, a title, an address and a note, MECARD has grown to the size of a vCard and kept the worse compatibility.

Where phones disagree

vCard is an international standard with defined versions. MECARD is a convention that grew out of a Japanese mobile service and was adopted widely without a formal specification. The result is that phones parse it with different assumptions: some import only the name and number, some import everything, and a few treat an unexpected field as the end of the record.

The practical rule: the fewer fields, the more likely it works everywhere. A name and a number work on almost every phone. A name, two numbers, a company, a title, an address and a note is where things start to arrive in the wrong field or not at all.

When to use vCard instead

Use vCard 3.0 whenever the contact has more than three fields, whenever the card is a business card with a company and a title, and whenever you cannot test on both platforms yourself. It is longer, the pattern is denser, and it imports more predictably.

Use MECARD when the printed item is very small, when the contact really is just a name and a number, and when you have tested the finished print on both an iPhone and an Android device.

Questions about contact codes

Is MECARD better than vCard?

It is smaller, not better. Fewer fields fit and phones parse it less consistently. For anything beyond name, phone and email, vCard is the safer choice.

Which phones read MECARD?

Most do, but with different assumptions about fields. Test the finished print on iOS and Android rather than trusting the format.

Can I include a photo?

No. MECARD has no photo field. A photo also inflates the payload, which is the opposite of the reason to use this format.

Does the code send my contact to someone automatically?

No. It opens the contact dialog and the reader decides whether to save. Nothing leaves the phone through a scan alone.

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