Shared contacts
Share contacts with your team
without emailing a spreadsheet
The moment you export contacts and send the file, it starts going out of date — and now there are two versions of the truth. A shared address book works the other way round: one list, everyone on it, updating for everyone the moment anybody changes something.
At a glance
ContactsPlus gives a team one shared address book across Google, iCloud and Outlook — so everyone works from the same contacts instead of separate, drifting copies.
- Anyone’s add or edit updates everyone’s view in real time
- Owner, Admin and Member roles control who can change what
- Shared notes and a contact owner keep the context on the record
- Works across Google, iCloud and Outlook accounts together
The reason it never stays fixed
Why sharing a contact list usually fails
Almost every team starts by exporting a CSV or forwarding a few contact cards. It works for about a week.
A file is a snapshot, not a list
The export is accurate the second you create it and wrong shortly after. Every phone number that changes afterwards changes in one person’s copy and nobody else’s.
Everyone edits their own copy
Two people fix the same wrong email in two places. Now there is no version anyone can trust, and no way to tell which one is newer.
The context stays in someone’s inbox
The spreadsheet carries the phone number but not what was agreed, who owns the relationship, or when anyone last spoke to them.
You share the duplicates too
If your own list has three versions of the same person, sharing it hands that problem to everybody at once and multiplies the cleanup.
Someone leaves and takes it with them
Contacts held in a personal account walk out of the door with the person. A shared address book belongs to the team, not to one login.
Different people, different providers
One person is on Google, another on Outlook, another on iCloud. Any solution that assumes one provider fails on contact with a real team.
How it works instead
One address book, shared by everyone
Sharing in ContactsPlus isn’t a send. It is a shared surface the whole team is already looking at.
A shared address book
One set of contacts for the whole team. An add or an edit by anyone updates everyone’s view in real time — there is no re-sending, and no duplicate list to reconcile.
Roles you control
Owner, Admin and Member roles decide who can manage the team, who can edit the shared contacts, and who can only view them. Sharing doesn’t have to mean everyone can change everything.
Shared notes and an owner
Add notes the whole team can see and assign a contact owner, so the reason behind a relationship travels with the record instead of sitting in one person’s inbox.
Across every provider
Connect Google, iCloud and Outlook accounts and keep them unified, so a team split across providers still works from one current list. See how contact sync works.
Clean before you share
Merge duplicates first so the team inherits one record per person, not three. See removing duplicate contacts.
It keeps improving itself
Enrichment fills in the details nobody typed, so the shared list gets more useful over time rather than slowly rotting. See contact enrichment.
By platform
Sharing from one place in particular?
The mechanics differ depending on where your contacts live today. These walk through each one.
Shared contacts for Gmail
What Google actually lets you share, where a Workspace directory stops being enough, and how to give a team one list instead.
Share contacts on iPhone
Sharing a contact card, sending several at once, and why AirDrop and Contact Posters solve a different problem from a team list.
Share a contact list in Outlook
Sharing a contacts folder in Outlook and Microsoft 365, what recipients can and can’t do with it, and the limits worth knowing first.
Step by step
How to share contacts with your team
Connect the accounts
Bring in the Google, iCloud and Outlook accounts the contacts already live in, so the shared list starts from everything you have rather than a partial export.
Clean up before you share
Merge duplicates before anyone else sees the list. Sharing three versions of the same person hands that problem to the whole team at once.
Invite the team and set roles
Give each person an Owner, Admin or Member role so you decide who can manage the team, edit shared contacts, or only view them.
Work from the shared list
From here, anyone’s change updates everyone’s view in real time, and shared notes keep the context attached to the record.
Which plan
Shared contacts come with Teams
The shared address book, roles, and shared notes are part of ContactsPlus Teams, which also includes everything in Premium for every member — enrichment, duplicate cleanup and business-card scanning. See the full pricing for current plan details.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
What does sharing contacts actually mean here?
Everyone on the team works from one shared address book instead of separate copies. Anyone’s add or edit updates everyone’s view in real time, so there is no re-sending and no version to reconcile later.
Can I control who is allowed to edit?
Yes. Owner, Admin and Member roles let you decide who can manage the team, who can edit shared contacts, and who can only view them.
Do we all need the same email provider?
No. ContactsPlus connects Google, iCloud and Outlook accounts together, so a team split across providers still works from one list.
What happens to duplicates when we share?
Merge them first. A shared list inherits whatever mess is already in it, so cleaning duplicates before you invite people saves the whole team from working around the same bad records.
Is sharing the same as exporting a spreadsheet?
No, and the difference is the point. An exported spreadsheet is a snapshot that starts going out of date the moment you send it. A shared address book stays current for everyone without anyone re-sending anything.
Which plan includes shared contacts?
The shared address book, roles, and shared notes are part of ContactsPlus Teams. See the pricing page for current plan details.
One list. Everyone on it.
Give the team one shared address book that stays current by itself.
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