# Export Contacts to Markdown

Alto Index writes every contact card as a Markdown file, phones, emails, addresses and dates in its front matter, kept in sync. Free, with no limit.

Export your contacts with all details and notes.

## What you get

- One Markdown file per card, named after the person or the company
- Phones, emails, addresses, websites, social profiles, dates, relationships and groups in its front matter, then the job and company, and the card's note
- With Messages connected, each card links to its conversations
- An `addressbook://` link opens the card in Contacts
- After each sync, a page per person in `people` links their messages, calls and events

## Where the files go

```
alto-index/contacts/Alba Ashdown.md
alto-index/contacts/groups/<group>/<name>.md
alto-index/contacts/companies/<company>/<name>.md
```

## What you choose

- Tick the cards to export
- One folder, by group or by company; the files move on the next sync

## Left out

- Contact photos
- Gmail's entries that are only an email address

## Free

Contacts is free, with no limit.

## With Claude

`/altoindex:contacts` in the [Claude plugin](/claude-plugin) looks up a person, and the [MCP server](/mcp) lets Claude Desktop search your contacts.

Source: https://altoindex.com/contacts