←back to thread

Ask HN: In 2024 what's the best way to manage contacts?

60 points raleighm | 3 comments | 19 Oct 24 04:41 UTC | HN request time: 0.614s | source

How do people sync and manage contacts across so many apps and contexts?

--

UPDATE: Thanks for the comments so far. To clarify my situation:

My main use cases are: Gmail (personal): For personal contacts. Gmail (work): For professional contacts related to my role. Outlook (work): For internal and external business communication. LinkedIn: Managing professional connections. Messaging apps (WhatsApp, Messenger, etc.): Keeping in touch with a wide range of contacts.

I’ve tried syncing across these platforms using Google Contacts, vCard exports, and a few automation tools, but the results have been inconsistent. Either the syncing doesn't work as expected, or there’s a lot of manual cleanup involved—especially when contacts change roles or details across different apps.

I’m wondering if anyone has found a more seamless way to manage contacts across all these different contexts? I’d love to hear any recommendations for more advanced tools, automations, or strategies that have worked for you.

Show context
LinuxBender ◴[19 Oct 24 14:32 UTC] No.41887963[source]▶
I can not speak for others or the consensus but since the 90's I have always just used a plain text file with simple delimiters in a format that I understand so that I can massage the output format to match whatever needs the information. This has worked great for me and is simple to back up and newer versions make this easy to get a good compression ratio of a single tarball of every version. Multiple files as many people have passed away and a few people are no longer friends but I keep older versions to remind me of them.
replies(1): >>41911243 #
1. westcort ◴[22 Oct 24 04:38 UTC] No.41911243[source]▶
Seconding a text file. I keep addresses this way, too. So does my father. So did my grandfather. I have their files, as well.
replies(1): >>41911510 #
2. enasterosophes ◴[22 Oct 24 05:42 UTC] No.41911510[source]▶
Do you mind if I ask what format you've settled on? Having a system evolve over multiple generations means you must have pruned out all the bad ways to do it.

I've got this vision of a Neal Stephenson story which will never be written about a family in the 22nd century that has kept all their personal contacts in Git for over 100 years ...

replies(1): >>41911732 #
3. froggerexpert ◴[22 Oct 24 06:28 UTC] No.41911732[source]▶
Consider https://www.gnu.org/software/recutils/

Plain text, but with querying, and likely exporters/importers into calendars.