Url for entries in Contacts app

iOS
1

i’m struggling with getting the url for individual entries in the Contacts app in iOS. Can anyone help?

2

I don’t know if there is one in iOS. On t Mac, the address book: scheme… works, but Irrc, you have to use the contact’s unique identifier to retrieve a particular record.

I have some Keyboard Maestros scripts that use the identifiers, but I think via AppleScript, since it’s much more versatile. Shortcuts can also do some things with Contacts (and Scriptable does as well, but I haven’t used it). On iOS, that might be your best bet.

3

Thanks, I’m trying to put a link in Obsidian. I figured out how to use links between OmniFocus, DEVONthink, Excel, and others. You’d think it would be more easily done for Contacts.

4

Are you on the phone or Mac? This is how I link to contacts in plain text (using nvUltra — I’m still just dabbling with obsidian right now):

[First Last](addressbook://7EFCE406-7969-4182-83ED-5A88D124CB710:ABPerson)

(I changed some random digits, and that’s a unique identifier, so it won’t work, but it gives you an idea of the format.)

No idea how you’d do this on the phone, because I don’t have obsidian mobile. But the original link I copied, despite referring to a card in my contacts, does NOT work on my iPhone.

If your use case is purely iOS, why not make a shortcut that does it, and use the shortcuts URL scheme to run it. Would that work? Just thinking out loud.

5

Thanks for your input. I’ll try the shortcut route. Apple shouldn’t make it so difficult.

6

If you have Keyboard Maestro, check out Copy as Markdown Link. If you want to convert these markdown links to a rich links, the you might also like Create Rich Link from Markdown Link.

I just tested both for an address book entry – they worked as expected.

7

It is worth noting that Contact identifiers on both iOS and Mac are not stable. They are created for a contact locally when it is synced to your device, so will not be the same for the same contact between your devices, or if they are ever re-synced…so I would not rely on them as permanent links to a contact.

1 Like
8

Yikes — I had no idea about that. I wrote my contact actions to use with a folder of markdown notes that I use on two machines. But I guess I haven’t relied on it enough to run into problems. (It turns out it’s more intuitive to hit a key combination to search Contacts by name when I need to, than to click a link in my notes…)

9

If you have Cardhop by flexibits, they have a url scheme that allows access to individual entries.

flexibits url scheme support page

This allows such links as show a contact, but also call, message and mail

For example:

x-cardhop://show?contact=John%20Appleseed

Hope this helps.

2 Likes
10

I don’t know about any URLs for this, but what are you hoping to achieve when you have the URL…?

11

I use Obsidian and would like to use a URL link to add a iOS Contacts link to notes about people I interact with.

I do this with links for DEVONthink files, iOS Books, Omnifocus tasks, emails, etc. I don’t understand why there aren’t URL links for Apple Contacts.

12

ah - ok, there is a way to create a shortcut to the contact ‘card’ but it seems to be a slightly reduced version and doesn’t include the notes / any ability to add to them…sorry

13

I’m interested, how does it work?

14

if you create a new shortcut with a ‘Contacts’ action (you can then pick the specific contact you want to target), followed by a ‘Quick Look’ action. When you run it you’ll get a card pop up with the contact details - where you can trigger a call, message, email etc…