Relatable

Import your phone's address book

Turn on a setting in the mobile app to bring your phone's contacts into Relatable as an uncategorized list.

2 min readLast checked Aug 30, 2026

The people already saved on your phone are often the people you talk to most. Bringing them into Relatable means all of that organization applies to them too.

Why it matters

You've probably built up years of contacts in your phone: friends, family, people from old jobs, whoever you saved a number for once. None of that history connects to Relatable until it's actually in Relatable. Importing your address book gets those people in without retyping a single one.

How it works

Turn on the setting, and Relatable reads your device's contacts, meaning names, phone numbers, and emails. Each one gets checked against your existing network by email and phone before anything happens, so people you already have in Relatable get matched up rather than doubled. Only genuinely new people land as a fresh uncategorized contact; it doesn't sort anyone into a sphere for you automatically. After the first import, it keeps checking for changes, but only sends over contacts you've actually added or edited on your phone, not your whole address book every time.

How to use it

  1. In the mobile app, go to Settings.
  2. Turn on Import phone contacts.
  3. Approve the permissions prompt. Your phone will ask for access to your contacts. Allow it, or the import can't run.
  4. Come back to Relatable. Newly imported people land as uncategorized contacts, not straight into a sphere.
  5. Review them: head to your uncategorized queue to sort the ones worth keeping into a sphere. See Review the contacts Relatable found for you.

Good to know

  • Importing shouldn't flood your network with duplicates: Relatable matches each phone contact against people you already have, by email or phone, before deciding whether to create someone new.
  • Imported contacts come in as uncategorized, not sorted into a sphere. You decide what happens to each one.
  • After the first import, only contacts that changed on your phone sync again, not your whole address book each time.
  • Turning this off doesn't remove people you've already imported. It just stops the ongoing sync.
  • This only brings contacts in one direction, phone into Relatable. To send your Relatable contacts back out to your phone, see Keep your phone's contacts updated from Relatable.

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