ContactCafe opens the contact file you already have, lets you edit it properly, and saves it back exactly as it found it - keeping every detail your other apps put in there.
It is a document editor, not another address book to import into. Open a .vcf or a .csv, work on it, press Save. The file stays where it is, in the format it was, and nothing is copied into a library you then have to keep in sync.
Highlights
- Nothing is thrown away - photos, unique IDs, custom labels and any field written by an app you have never heard of all survive an edit untouched. Change one phone number and one line of the file changes.
- Reads the files you actually have - vCard 2.1, 3.0 and 4.0, exports from phones and old address books, and the CSV and TSV layouts that Google Contacts and Outlook produce, column names and all.
- A real contact form - separate first, middle and last name with prefix and suffix, nickname, organisation, department and job title, birthday and notes, plus as many labelled phones, emails, addresses and websites as a person needs.
- Groups that live in the file - a contact's groups are written into the file itself, so they travel with it to whatever you open it in next. Star anyone to put them in Favorites.
- Search that reaches everything - names, companies, job titles, numbers, addresses, notes and groups at once. Type two words and each can match a different field, so "ada london" finds the Ada whose address is in London.
- Convert between formats, on purpose - Save As with the other extension turns a vCard into a spreadsheet or a spreadsheet into vCards. You are told what the new format cannot carry before anything is written, and the original file is never touched.
- Safe saves - every save is written beside your file and swapped into place, so a crash or a disconnected drive can never leave you with half a contact file. If a save fails, the original is exactly as it was.
- One window per file - open two address books side by side. Each window remembers its own file, shows the name in its title bar, and marks it Edited until you save.
- Double-click to open - contact files get their own icon and open straight into ContactCafe, whether the app is already running or not.
- Entirely offline - no account, no sync, no upload. It reads the file you point it at and writes it back, and that is all it does.
How it works
Open a file from the welcome screen, from the Open command, or by double-clicking it in your file browser. Groups run down the left, the contacts in the file run down the middle, and whoever you pick opens in a full form on the right. Edits are held in the window until you save, so you can change your mind, and the title bar says "Edited" until you do.
Add someone from the bottom of the list, jump to the search field to find anyone in the file, and use Save As to write it somewhere else or in the other format. Closing a window with unsaved changes asks first. There is no library and no database - your contacts live in your file, wherever you keep it.
Perfect for
- Cleaning up an export - you pulled your contacts out of a phone or a webmail account and the .vcf needs real work before it goes anywhere else.
- Moving between services - turn a Google or Outlook CSV into vCards, or the other way round, without a website in the middle holding everyone's phone numbers.
- A list that is not your personal address book - a club roster, a client list, a team directory: one file you can edit, hand over, and keep in version control.
- Anyone who wants their contacts as a file - kept in a folder they chose, backed up the way they back everything else up, and readable by every other contacts app.
