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Ask HN: What software do you use to manage contacts?

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Re: Ask HN: What software do you use to manage contacts?

#3
I keep an excel spreadsheet with all my contacts I have made over the years with notes and categories. I usually try to go through it once or twice a year and update old records.

I’ve used this to populate a couple of different CRMs I had but I always keep the excel updated. This lets me always be able to maintain my contacts and update any device or system I need to.

Yea this is kinda low tech but it has proven super easy to manage and has allowed me to keep my contacts even after I leave a position. And I am never held hostage to any specific software system as I also export a CSV backup after I do a cleanup too.

Re: Ask HN: What software do you use to manage contacts?

#4

I keep an excel spreadsheet with all my contacts I have made over the years with notes and categories. I usually try to go through it once or twice a year and update old records. I’ve used this to populate a couple of different CRMs I had but I always keep the excel updated. This lets me always be able to maintain my contacts and update any device or system I need to. Yea this is kinda low tech but it has proven supe…

Consider checking out https://www.monicahq.com/

Re: Ask HN: What software do you use to manage contacts?

#5
Simple Contacts via F-Droid. Export to vcf once in a while and backup local and remote. Keep in mind, as soon as you integrate with anything you don't control (including caller id), you're right back to the privacy problems, so make sure your expectations of power account for that. Under-powered is a hard-to-find feature as far as I'm concerned.

Re: Ask HN: What software do you use to manage contacts?

#8
I'm currently using a mix of MonicaHQ[1], Nextcloud[2], and Fastmail[3]. Obviously Fastmail isn't self-hosted, but monicahq/nextcloud are. I find it hard to use a webmail client without also having my contacts available to that mail client.

I really want to use MonicaHQ more, but it just feels like a lot of work whenever I log in to it so it gets pretty neglected. My alternative is to store notes about contacts in random spreadsheets, text files, or something like Joplin[4].

On Android, I'm syncing my contacts (and calendars) using davx5[5] with Nextcloud as the server. Nextcloud is already my tool for syncing files, so it having a carddav/caldav server built-in is just a convenient bonus. However, I'm considering moving to EteSync[6] in the near-future for end-to-end encrypted carddav/caldav server.

For moving contacts between different accounts, de-duping, and some other maintenance tasks I'm using an android app called "Contacts Optimizer"[7].

I guess I should also mention that this is just for my personal contacts. I do have to use google contacts for my work gsuite account.

[1] https://www.monicahq.com/ [2] https://nextcloud.com/ [3] https://www.fastmail.com [4] https://joplinapp.org/ [5] https://www.davx5.com/ [6] https://www.etesync.com/ [7] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.compelson....

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