Quick help
Contacts do not appear: Open System Settings → Privacy & Security → Contacts and allow Compact Contacts, then return to the app.
Explore without Contacts permission: Click Continue, make your choice in the native macOS permission dialog, then choose View Sample Contacts on the denied or restricted access screen. With an authorized real address book, Help → View Sample Contacts… remains available, and an empty real address book also offers the same action.
About Sample Contacts: The 26 sample records are fictional and temporary. Editing, importing, grouping, favoriting, or saving views there never changes the macOS Contacts database. Use Reset Sample Contacts to restore the catalog or Use My Contacts to leave it. Email, phone, Messages, FaceTime, Maps, website, and Apple Contacts handoffs are disabled for sample records.
A contact cannot be edited: Some directory, Exchange, CardDAV, or linked records may be read-only. Compact Contacts shows editing only when the owning account exposes a writable record.
Purchase or feature access: Compact Contacts is a paid app. Every Standard feature is available immediately after download; there is no trial, subscription, in-app purchase, restore screen, or Pro tier.
Duplicate contacts: Choose Contact → Find Potential Duplicates… and review the possible matches, matching reasons, and account ownership. This review is read-only; use Open Apple Contacts if you decide to edit, link, merge, or delete records.
Import or export: vCard operations always use a macOS open/save panel. Compact Contacts never uploads the selected file.
Diagnostics
Settings → Advanced → Export Redacted Diagnostics… creates a redacted JSON report on your Mac. It is designed to exclude contact names, addresses, email addresses, phone numbers, notes, search text, and contact identifiers. Review any file before sharing it.
Contact support
Email wedontneed@gmail.com. Include your macOS version, Compact Contacts version, the account type involved, and steps to reproduce. Do not send an address-book export or real contact data.