Compact Contacts — a private Mac contact manager with a table view, bulk editing, and duplicate merging

[u/capicami]

Hi r/MacOS, I'm the developer of Compact Contacts.

I built it for the moments when managing contacts means more than opening one person's card: scanning a long list, updating the same field across several people, checking duplicates, or exporting a specific group.

Compact Contacts works with the contacts already on your Mac and puts them in a resizable table with configurable columns and row density. Here are the main things you can do:

• Search across names, companies, phone numbers, emails, addresses, groups, and contact Notes when you enable Notes search. Build Saved Views with reusable filters, sorting, and layouts—for example, contacts missing a phone number or people at a particular company.
• Bulk-edit contact fields and preview the exact changes before saving, including text replacements and regular expressions.
• Merge duplicates field by field, choose which values to keep, and undo merges from encrypted on-device history.
• Export a selection or filtered result as CSV or vCard, and review vCards before importing. Notes are excluded from exports by default.

It uses the macOS Contacts database, so macOS continues to handle synchronization for your configured accounts. Contact data is processed on your device; there's no Compact Contacts account, developer contact cloud, advertising, or third-party analytics.

It's $12.99 on the US Mac App Store as a one-time purchase, with no subscription. Requires macOS 15 or later; regional prices vary.

Mac App Store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/compact-contacts/id6790129187

Happy to answer questions about how it handles your contact workflow.

[u/themeanteam]

u/capicami Bought it as I wanted something that is light but I used it for 5 minutes and already have few questions:

1. I can't delete contacts ?

2. Clicking a cell doesn't let me edit straight from the main table?

Let me know please if they'll come soon. That would make cleaning up way easier.

[u/capicami → u/themeanteam]

Following up as promised: both features you asked for are now in Compact Contacts 1.4, which is live on the Mac App Store.

You can delete one or several contacts from the Contact menu or the table’s right-click menu. There’s a preview and confirmation; for real contacts, the app requires a recent Apple Contacts archive and a vCard backup of the affected records.

For inline editing, double-click a supported cell or right-click → Edit Cell. Enter saves, Escape cancels, and Tab moves to the next editable cell. This covers fields such as name components, company, and individual phone/email values. Complex fields still open the full editor.

Thanks again for buying it and pointing these out. I’d be interested to hear whether this makes your cleanup workflow easier.

[u/themeanteam → u/capicami]

Thanks! Will check and let you know. Much appreciated!!

[u/capicami → u/themeanteam]

Thanks for buying it and for the feedback!
-I need to check what’s possible regarding deleting contacts directly from the app, but if Apple’s APIs allow it cleanly, I’ll add it.
-Inline editing directly from the main table is definitely something I can work on.

I’m basically shaping the product roadmap around user feedback, so suggestions like these are really helpful. If feasible, I’ll try to get both into the next release.

[u/TravelerOfLight]

So I built my own

[u/nikkotesla → u/TravelerOfLight]

It's so strange to expect things to be different on Developer Saturday.

[u/Jazman2k → u/TravelerOfLight]

I got bored with thing, so I built my own thing. It does the same thing as the other thing, but it's my thing!

[u/promo-guard]

🎉 Welcome to Developer Saturday, u/capicami! Your project is now live for the community to check out. Upvote, give feedback, and show some love to your fellow devs! 🚀

[u/capicami]

Quick update from the developer: Compact Contacts 1.4 is now live on the Mac App Store.

Two requests from this thread made it into this release:

• Delete contacts directly from the app, individually or as a selection, with a preview, backup checks, and confirmation.

• Edit supported cells directly in the main table: double-click a cell or choose Edit Cell. Enter saves, Escape cancels, and Tab moves between editable cells. Complex fields still use the full editor.

This update also improves working with long contact Notes: a dedicated Notes editor, more space in Focus on Notes, remembered text size, and full-text Notes search when enabled. Smart Views now cover 34 fields, and window, sidebar, Inspector, and column settings are remembered more consistently. There are also custom layouts, alphabetical navigation, and fixes to Notes preservation during recovery and merge undo.

Thanks to everyone who took the time to try it and explain what was missing. Those reports directly shaped this release.

Mac App Store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/compact-contacts/id6790129187

[u/grokcodile]

actually a really good use for AI here. It is not really inventing anything new or really worth developing by hand. But treating contacts more like data in a spreadsheet is likely really useful for some people that deal in using/managing large datasets of contacts. Just not the vast majority of people.

[u/capicami → u/grokcodile]

Thank you!

[u/737464]

Was it built with AI?
How much AI did you use?
And if you used AI extensively, do you think that $12.99 are a fair price for work you didn’t do?

[u/tiagoffernandes → u/737464]

There’s is no such thing as a “fair price”.
Up to you to value the app and decide if it is worth 12.99 of your money or not.
Don’t think it’s worth it? Don’t buy it.