Apple Contacts

Query Contacts.app via AppleScript.

Quick Lookups

bash
# By phone (name only)
osascript -e 'tell application "Contacts" to get name of every person whose value of phones contains "+1XXXXXXXXXX"'

# By name
osascript -e 'tell application "Contacts" to get name of every person whose name contains "John"'

# List all
osascript -e 'tell application "Contacts" to get name of every person'

Full Contact Info

⚠️ Don't use first person whose — buggy. Use this pattern:

bash
# By phone
osascript -e 'tell application "Contacts"
  set matches to every person whose value of phones contains "+1XXXXXXXXXX"
  if length of matches > 0 then
    set p to item 1 of matches
    return {name of p, value of phones of p, value of emails of p}
  end if
end tell'

# By name
osascript -e 'tell application "Contacts"
  set matches to every person whose name contains "John"
  if length of matches > 0 then
    set p to item 1 of matches
    return {name of p, value of phones of p, value of emails of p}
  end if
end tell'

Phone Lookup

⚠️ Exact string match required — must match stored format exactly.

| Stored | Search | Works? | |--------|--------|--------| | +1XXXXXXXXXX | +1XXXXXXXXXX | ✅ | | +1XXXXXXXXXX | XXXXXXXXXX | ❌ |

Try with +1 prefix first. If fails, search by name instead.

Name Search

• Case-insensitive
• Partial match with contains
• Exact match: use is instead of contains

Output

Returns comma-separated: name, phone1, [phone2...], email1, [email2...]

No match = empty output (not an error).