Keep your phone's contacts updated from Relatable
Turn on a setting to write your Relatable contacts into your phone's address book, and keep them current.
When someone calls or texts and your phone doesn't recognize them, that's a small gap between what you've built in Relatable and what your phone actually knows.
Why it matters
Your phone's caller ID and Messages app can only recognize someone if they're actually in your address book. If you're managing relationships in Relatable but your phone's contacts haven't kept up, calls come in from strangers who aren't strangers, and texts show up as a bare phone number instead of a name. Syncing closes that gap, and keeps closing it as your Relatable contacts change.
How it works
Turn on the setting, and Relatable writes your contacts into your phone's address book: name, job title and company, email addresses, phone numbers, physical addresses, birthday, profile photo, and any social links you've saved, added as a note. If a contact already exists on your phone with a matching email, Relatable updates that record instead of creating a second one. On iOS, new contacts land in their own "Relatable" group, kept separate from the rest of your address book; on Android, they're added straight into your regular contacts, with no separate group. From there, it keeps everything updated in the background as things change in Relatable. Turn the setting off, and you can choose whether to also remove the synced contacts from your phone.
How to use it
- In the mobile app, go to Settings.
- Turn on the sync from Relatable to your phone's contacts. A dialog titled "Sync Relatable to your Contacts?" explains what gets written and confirms it'll update, not duplicate, any contact that already matches by email. Tap Enable Sync to confirm.
- Approve the permissions prompt. Your phone will ask for permission to write to your contacts. Allow it, or the sync can't run.
- On iOS, look for a group called "Relatable" in your Contacts app. That's where your newly synced contacts live; on Android they're added directly into your contact list.
- Turn it off any time. You'll be asked "Remove Relatable contacts?" with the choice to Keep them or Remove them from your phone.
Good to know
- This writes in one direction only: Relatable to your phone. To bring your phone's own contacts into Relatable, see Import your phone's address book.
- If a contact on your phone already shares an email with someone in Relatable, syncing updates that existing entry instead of creating a duplicate.
- On iOS, synced contacts live in their own "Relatable" group, separate from the rest of your address book. Android has no separate group; synced contacts sit alongside everyone else.
- Updates happen in the background, so a change you make in Relatable shows up on your phone without you doing anything else.
- Turning the sync off gives you the option to remove the synced contacts entirely, rather than leaving them behind.