1. Fastmail
  2. Contacts
  3. Contacts basics

Using Contacts

Adding and deleting contacts

Contacts can be added directly on your Contacts screen. Here, click New contact, and enter as many details as you'd like.

When composing an email and typing a recipient's address, we will show a list of matching contacts. If a contact has multiple email addresses set, the default address will show at the top.

You can also add a contact from within an email address. When viewing a message, click Show details, click the sender's email address. This will open a menu where you can click Add to contacts. From that same menu, you can also copy the address to your clipboard, copy the name and address, compose a message to them, invite them to an event, and search your mail for correspondence with that address. These actions can also be done from the People tab of the sidebar.

To delete a contact, select or open the contact from the Contacts screen, click the More menu, and click the Delete button. The contact will be deleted immediately.

Contacts cannot be deleted using the sidebar.

Contact avatars

Custom images can be uploaded as avatars for each contact. Find the contact in your Contacts screen, then click the Edit button. Click the circle icon at the top, then upload the desired image and click Save. Images must be .jpg, .pdf, .gif, or .svg files. We also support the widely-used Gravatar service. If you have not uploaded your own custom avatar, we'll display Gravatar images when available.

Searching for contacts

When trying to find a particular contact, use our search functionality. You can access it in the menu bar, or via the / shortcut.

You can search for a contact by these fields: email addresses, phone numbers, online contact (website, social media handle, etc.), notes, nickname, company, or title. Searching isn't case sensitive (searching for a matches a, A, and any accented versions such as Ǻ).

All contacts who match will be shown instantly, narrowing down the results as you continue to type. As an example, if these are your contacts:

Bloggs, Jim
Bloggs, Joe
Bloggs, Mary

If you type j in the search bar, then Jim Bloggs and Joe Bloggs will be shown. If you keep typing jo, then just Joe Bloggs will match.

Sorting contacts

Change how your contact list displays by using the sorting selector. This lets you choose whether your contacts are shown ordered by first name, last name, company name, or nickname.

sortdropdown2.png

Changing the sorting order also changes the display. If you sort by last name, your contacts will be shown as <last name> <first name>. If you sort by first name, company, or nickname, your contacts will be shown as <first name> <last name>.

VIP contacts

You can mark certain contacts in your address book as VIP contacts. You can choose special settings for your VIP contact group, including receiving notifications for messages from these contacts only.

To mark a contact as a VIP, open the contact in your address book and click the star icon next to the Edit button. VIP contacts will be displayed with a star icon next to their name, and messages from these contacts will appear with a star icon in your mailbox. You can remove them from your VIP contacts by clicking the star again.

contactlist.png

You can view your VIP contacts by clicking on the VIPs group under All contacts.

Notifications can be enabled for VIP contacts only. For more information, please see our help page on notifications.

Auto-save new contacts

You can automatically save email addresses to your contacts any time you send a message to a new address. This is useful if you want to make sure that emails from people you've previously corresponded with are whitelisted and not marked as Spam.

  1. Open Settings → Signature & Compose.
  2. Click the Compose options tab.
  3. In the Compose section, find the Auto-save contacts section.
  4. Select the option that says When I email a new person, save the address to my contacts so that it will auto-complete next time.

Once this has been done, new email addresses you send messages to will automatically be added to your Autosaved contact group.

View contacts in sidebar

When viewing your email in the Fastmail web interface, the sidebar lets you quickly view your calendars and contacts, or see events, people, and attachments related to the message you're reading. The sidebar can be opened by clicking the icon on the top right corner of the web interface, or by pressing Shift+Command+i (Mac) or Ctrl+Shift+i (Windows).

When viewing a message, click People to view details for the sender(s) in the message. If a message is addressed to multiple people, they will be displayed as a list.

Clicking on a contact in the sidebar allows you to see their contact details, all previous email conversations with this contact, and any calendar events that you have with this contact.

Click the Call or Message icons to call or message this contact using your device's default calling or messaging programs. Click the Compose or Invite icons to compose an email or send a calendar invitation to this contact.

If the contact is not already in your address book, click the Add to contacts button to add them. If they are already in your address book, click the Edit button to edit the contact's details. Click the star icon beside the Edit button to add this contact to your VIP list.

Click Open contact in new tab in the bottom right corner to view the contact in your address book in a new browser tab.

For more information on using the sidebar, click here.

Merging contacts

Merging will combine all of the contacts' details. If the names or nicknames for the selected contacts are different, the name for the first contact selected will be used. If any of the selected contacts are a VIP, the merged contact will be a VIP.

If you have two or more contacts that you would like to merge into a single contact, this can be done by following these steps:

  1. Find the contacts in your Contacts screen.
  2. Select the contacts by clicking the checkboxes next to them.
  3. Click the More from the top toolbar, then click Merge.

Information for Pobox users

If you are a former Pobox user, you may be familiar with adding addresses or your domains to your Trusted Senders list to ensure that their mail is not held as spam.

Fastmail does not have a Trusted Senders list. Instead, you can whitelist senders by adding them to your contacts.

If a legitimate message is caught in your Spam folder, but you do not want to add the sender to your contacts, use the Not spam button to automatically move the message out of your Spam folder and improve how your account filters spam for you in the future. 

Other information

See separate pages for information on:

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