Compact Contacts 1.1 for Mac — a table-first contact manager

[wedontneed]

Hi, I’m Çağlar, the developer of Compact Contacts.

I built it for people who manage larger address books and want to scan, sort and update contacts without opening one card at a time.

The Mac version includes:
• a dense, configurable table with local search
• Favorites, Recents and reusable Saved Views
• previewed Bulk Edit for organization, department and job title
• vCard import and export
• a guided duplicate-review workflow

It works with the contacts already configured on your Mac, while macOS continues to handle iCloud, Google, Exchange and CardDAV syncing. There’s no account, subscription, advertising or third-party analytics.

Compact Contacts 1.1 is $12.99 as a one-time purchase and requires macOS 15 or later:

Compact Contacts App - App Store

Download Compact Contacts by CAGLAR SERDAR on the App Store. See screenshots, ratings and reviews, user tips, and more apps like Compact Contacts.

apps.apple.com

A separate iPad version is now available too, with a layout designed for touch, keyboard, pointer and multitasking:

Compact Contacts Manager App - App Store

Download Compact Contacts Manager by CAGLAR SERDAR on the App Store. See screenshots, ratings and reviews, user tips, and more apps like Compact Contacts…

apps.apple.com

I’d especially like to hear from people who manage client or business contacts: which sorting, filtering or cleanup workflow matters most to you?

 

[poocat]

Checking this out!

 

[wedontneed]

A quick update since I started this thread: Compact Contacts 1.2 is now available for both Mac and iPad.

The main additions in this release are:

• read, search and edit long contact Notes, with a Notes-focused detail layout
• new Recently Edited, Missing Phone and Missing Company views
• a Command Palette for quickly reaching contacts, groups, accounts, Saved Views and actions
• direct vCard export from any Saved View, with Notes excluded unless you explicitly include them
• CSV and vCard export previews, plus a review step before vCard import writes anything
• more selectable contact fields and custom labels as table columns
• customization, duplication, hiding and restoration of built-in Saved Views
• full localization in English, Turkish, German, French, Spanish, Simplified Chinese and Arabic

The app still works directly with the system Contacts database, so macOS and iPadOS continue handling synchronization for your configured accounts. There’s no separate account, contact cloud, advertising or third-party analytics.

Mac: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/compact-contacts/id6790129187?mt=12
iPad: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/compact-contacts-manager/id6795653671

If anyone here works with long Notes or a larger address book, I’d be interested to hear how the new workflow holds up for you.

 

[Jakimo]

I've searched for a way to clean up my contacts for quite some time. For example, convert all phone numbers from +1 (212) 555-1212 to 212.555.1212 - so they can all have an identical format

Can your app help with this?

 

[wedontneed]

I've searched for a way to clean up my contacts for quite some time. For example, convert all phone numbers from +1 (212) 555-1212 to 212.555.1212 - so they can all have an identical format

Can your app help with this?

Not yet, unfortunately. Compact Contacts can help audit and filter your contacts, but it doesn’t currently transform phone-number formats in bulk.

A preview-based cleanup tool where you choose a format and review every change before applying it would be a great fit, though. I’ve noted your example thanks for being so specific.

 

[wedontneed]

I've searched for a way to clean up my contacts for quite some time. For example, convert all phone numbers from +1 (212) 555-1212 to 212.555.1212 - so they can all have an identical format

Can your app help with this?

Jakimo, the phone-number cleanup example you gave is now supported in Compact Contacts 1.3.

Bulk Edit can apply literal or regular-expression transformations to labeled phone fields, and Review Changes shows every before-and-after value and skipped record before anything is saved. This makes workflows such as changing +1 (212) 555-1212 to 212.555.1212 possible without editing contacts one by one.

Version 1.3 also expands Bulk Edit to more contact fields, adds Merge Studio on Mac with field-by-field value selection, destination-account choice and encrypted on-device undo history, and reduces repeated work during Notes indexing, large-table updates and CSV export. Merge previews now load automatically, and pane resizing and table-column stability have also been improved.

Thanks for the concrete example. It directly helped shape this update. If you try the formatter with your contacts, I would be interested to hear whether the preview and result match the workflow you had in mind.

 

[wedontneed]

I’ve put together a single six-minute walkthrough that shows the main Compact Contacts workflows in one place browsing and sorting large lists, Search and the Command Palette, Notes, Saved Views, reviewed Bulk Edit, Merge Studio, vCard import, and CSV export.

The entire demo uses fictional Sample Contacts; no personal address-book data appears in the video.

 

[poocat]

Thanks for this! 1.3 looks like a good update, I'm excited to use this going forward. Will post feedback once I've done some editing.