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Contact Book: the alternative to Google Contacts
What moving from Google Contacts to Contact Book actually looks like in 2026.
Contact Book is what people use when Google Contacts stops fitting. Below is the honest side-by-side - same product surface, different posture: hosted in Germany, no third-party trackers, one honest price - plus the migration mechanics that decide whether the switch lands in an evening or in a quarter.
At a glance
Google Contacts is excellent at what it does: keeping a phone-shaped address book in sync across your devices. Contact Book is built for the next layer up - logging conversations, gifts, life events, and follow-ups so the relationships you care about don't quietly drift apart. If you only need names + numbers on your phone, stick with Google. If you find yourself opening a contact card and asking what did we last talk about, you'll outgrow Google Contacts the same week you try us.
Switching
What moving from Google Contacts actually looks like
The switch goes in three rough phases: export from Google Contacts, import into Contact Book, and reorganise what came over. Most people allocate an evening for it. The export side is where the time goes - Google Contacts hands you a CSV/JSON dump and the field mapping isn't always obvious; once that's resolved the import is a couple of minutes. We don't paywall the import path or pretend it's a pro-only feature, and you can run both side-by-side while you decide.
Contact Book vs Google Contacts: feature comparison
When to pick which
Pick Contact Book when
Pick Google Contacts when
What Google Contacts is actually for
Google Contacts started as the contact list for Gmail and Android, and it has stayed exactly that. Its job is to keep names + numbers + emails synchronised across your devices so when you tap a name in the dialer, it works. That's a real job, and it does it well. It is the canonical address book on roughly half the phones in the world.
What it isn't: a place to remember the texture of a relationship. There's no field for what we last talked about. There's no place for a gift idea. There's no follow-up nudge two weeks before your friend's birthday saying "you mentioned wanting to send flowers". The phonebook does not care whether you've spoken in three months.
What Contact Book adds
Contact Book sits on top of your address book and adds the parts a real personal CRM needs. Each contact has a conversation log, a notes thread, an activity timeline, life events with reminders, gifts given and received, relationships ("brother of", "boss at"), pets, and a stay-in-touch cadence that surfaces the right person when it's time to reach out.
None of this is exotic. People with strong relationships have always done it - they kept a paper diary, or a notebook by the phone, or a private spreadsheet that they were vaguely embarrassed about. We just made it pleasant to keep, fast to log, and live across your devices.
Migration is one CSV
Google Contacts exports a Google CSV directly from the web app. Drop the file into the Contact Book import dialog and every name, email, phone, address and birthday lands as a contact - including the notes field, which becomes the seed of the conversation log. We never touch the upstream Google account; what's on your phone keeps working unchanged.
Export from Google Contacts
Find the export option in Google Contacts's account settings. Most tools provide a CSV or JSON download. Save the dump locally - that's the source of truth for the next step.
Map fields in Contact Book
Open the import tool in Contact Book. Google Contacts's field names rarely match Contact Book' 1:1; the import flags any unmapped columns so you can pair them up before anything commits.
Run the import
Run the import. Contact Book shows a preview of the first parsed rows in the import dialog so you can sanity-check the column mapping + a sample of records before anything commits. If you're nervous about a large dump, import a small subset first, verify it landed the way you expected, then run the full file.
Re-create your views, tags, saved searches
Google Contacts-specific UI metadata (custom views, saved filters, in-app annotations) doesn't transfer with the data export. Spend an evening rebuilding the views you used most - usually a 30-minute job once you've done it once.
Cancel Google Contacts when you're confident
Run both side-by-side for a couple of weeks if you want to be sure. When you're confident, cancel the Google Contacts subscription from their side. Contact Book keeps your export option self-serve in account settings - no lock-in either direction.
Switching from Google Contacts
The five questions we get most often before someone moves their data over.
Start with Contact Book
Free plan, no credit card. We host in Germany. Export + delete are self-serve.
Written by
Julia Yukovich
Co-Founder + CEO
Julia is one of the Co-Founders. She handles design, product direction, and most of the support replies that arrive in the morning.
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