I switched my self hosted baikal and previous nextcloud to icloud. I need redundancy and persistence if I pass away for my family that uses iPhone. I manage it with emclient and my android phone (sync'd via davx5). I find I am able to edit what I need to between those.
Ask HN: In 2024 what's the best way to manage contacts?
21–30 of 62 posts
Re: Ask HN: In 2024 what's the best way to manage contacts?
#22I have a master sqlite file with an arbitrary schema that is constantly evolving. I go hard with the constraints and primary keys - so hard, in fact, it's nigh-impossible to add a new contact without cascading changes. I'm always eager to keep my contacts, so this has kept my pretty sharp with sqlite.
Re: Ask HN: In 2024 what's the best way to manage contacts?
#23I use a personal version of Monica administered by a friend.
Re: Ask HN: In 2024 what's the best way to manage contacts?
#24csv
Re: Ask HN: In 2024 what's the best way to manage contacts?
#25I have a master sqlite file with an arbitrary schema that is constantly evolving. I go hard with the constraints and primary keys - so hard, in fact, it's nigh-impossible to add a new contact without cascading changes. I'm always eager to keep my contacts, so this has kept my pretty sharp with sqlite.
I can't tell if you're joking or not, but I sympathize regardless.
Re: Ask HN: In 2024 what's the best way to manage contacts?
#26Here is my setup. It is always in progress, and I keep tinkering. I treat most of my approaches as an Onion Layer of abstraction, from security to privacy to contacts. My final decision factor is to answer YES to my question, “Can I walk out of this?”
Let’s do contacts for this discussion thread.
I’m still in the Apple ecosystem, so I let the OSes (macOS, iOS, etc.) handle that. The sync is almost seamless, or rather, this is the best of all the devils. My personal and work are intertwined; thus, it is more of a tag-ish layer of friends, acquaintances, etc. Yes, sometimes I mix the joke of friend Archetype-A with friend Archetype-B and vice versa. ;-)
Last time I checked, my Contacts had almost 5,000 entries in there and I don’t mind this part growing. I’ve tried Dex[1] for about a year+ but found it slow. Their work seems to have slowed and stalled, while you expect them to “move beyond a tool that seems to be still in beta.” This was a few years ago, and hence I’ve no idea about their current situation.
I also tried Monica,[2] but she do not know how to keep things in sync. The developer/team also seems to be focussing on an office suite that has been “Coming Soon in 2002” since 2021.[3] If you want to try out Monica and see if this fits, I suggest spinning one quickly with PikaPods[4] for less than $2 a month.
Now, I’m trying out Clay[5] for broader outreach and staying in touch with people with whom I’ve interacted or connected via the networks that I was and am part of.
For the closer and final few inner layers of my Onion of Contacts, I use a simple spreadsheet inspired by Derek Sivers[6] and Jakob Greenfeld.[7] This is where I have the people with whom I can be in touch regularly (monthly, quarterly, half-yearly, and yearly). This is not very strict, and I tend to have these as recurring tasks in my calendar, along with my usual digital chores. The spreadsheet's contact list will ideally be between 20-100 at max. These are the ones I call/write/text regularly, wish/attend birthdays, parties, remember anecdotes, their family, etc.
Re: Ask HN: In 2024 what's the best way to manage contacts?
#27Google may be a privacy issue... So I would love to have the possibility to prevent anyone putting my info in their contacts in Google. I personally use a paid E-Mail service (mailbox.org) and a self hosted nextcloud. The APP myphoneexplorer can be used to sync offline.
> Google may be a privacy issue... So I would love to have the possibility to prevent anyone putting my info in their contacts in Google.
This can be quite difficult to achieve. The moment your contact information is given to someone using Android, it will be synced up with Google (and known by most Google properties).
> I personally use a paid E-Mail service (mailbox.org)
May I know how long you’ve been using it and how the experience has been? Are you using it with a custom domain?
Re: Ask HN: In 2024 what's the best way to manage contacts?
#28"""DAIRY""" with attached Sticky Notes, Bussiness cards
Manual Bookkeeping far better
For digital JSON Structure better rather than csv or spreadsheets
Jsons are plain text, on shell can parse with jq, can parse inside browser devtools manipulate add edit delete
Re: Ask HN: In 2024 what's the best way to manage contacts?
#29Since other people are recommending home-brewed solutions, I will mention my platform WebWidgets.io, which allows you to create lightweight webapps using vanilla JS and sync the data to SQLite DBs. It would be very easy to create a simple contact DB that has all the features you need and none of the bells+whistles that you don't care about.
Re: Ask HN: In 2024 what's the best way to manage contacts?
#30I plan to use MonicaHQ , I failed to self host behind a reverse proxy and the effort was no longer prioritized but I would be interested if anyone else is using it. https://www.monicahq.com/blog
You might be able to run it behind / between a simple Tailscale app installation instead on your devices to connect them privately. I'm a recent user and it's been a little sublime.