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We realized that we have addressed almost all the alternatives to Google but we left one in particular aside. It may seem strange but alternatives to Google Contacts they are not so easy to evaluate due to a whole series of factors that we will now look at together.
First of all, for example, we must ask ourselves one thing: do we want the contacts in the cloud and synchronized or not? Because if the answer is no then things are much simpler than expected.
Without cloud or sync
If you already have one degoogled smartphone in fact, you just need to use theContacts system application And that's it. If you still have a Google account on your Android, make sure your contacts are not synchronized by going to Settings/Accounts/Google and from there remove contact syncing.
This way you will have your contacts but they will not be synchronized in any way with other devices. Nor will you find them if you change your smartphone or reset yours. If you use the standard Contacts application, you will almost certainly find the option in the settings export. From here you can export all your contacts and then import them manually in the event of a reset or mobile phone change.
SD Contacts
Open source
That by SD Contacts It's an interesting idea. If you don't want your contacts synced and you have a smartphone with an SD card thanks to this application you will have a continuous backup of your contacts on your card. This way, even if you change your cell phone or have to reset it, you will have all your contacts backed up on the SD card. You can only find it on F-Droid.
• •Connect You
Open source
Excellent alternative application to Google Contacts. Graphically it follows the Material Design 3 (You) style, hence the name. It allows you to have contacts locally (separate from the contact book) and can create a daily backup (only on the device and not in the cloud). Few other settings, it is a very simple but effective application, available only on IzzyOnDroid and GitHub.
• •OpenContacts
Open source
We have already talked about this application here. Unlike all the others, this one will not be seen as a contacts application and therefore no application will be able to 'look inside' it, not even if you authorize it to look at your contacts. Therefore useful for those applications where it is It is mandatory to allow access to contacts but you don't really want to give it to him. You can only find it on F-Droid.
• •Alternatives to Google Contacts, in the cloud
If your idea is instead to have your contacts in the cloud and always synchronized, as normally happens with Google, then you may find the following alternatives to Google Contacts interesting. Bear in mind that the vast majority of the services proposed here generally offer contacts+calendar so you can also evaluate them as alternative to Google Calendar.
Simple Contacts Pro
Open source
If you don't like the Contacts application on your smartphone you can try installing Simple Contacts Pro from the Play Store or from F-Droid. The contacts are on your device but you can also synchronize them with Google or Nextcloud (via DAVx⁵). You will have to do automatic backups manually. The application also has other settings that you might find interesting.
• • • •Nextcloud
Open source
It seems almost useless to repeat it, but Nextcloud it's an almost perfect suite. If you already have one like alternative to Google Drive you can already use it to synchronize your contacts. To do this, simply use the Nextcloud application (Play Store And F-Droid) and put the address you find in the contact section 1. If you don't already have a Nextcloud suite you can sign up for free to one of those you find here. We suggest you Oops One, Woelkli, Webo.Hosting And The Good Cloud.
• • • • •EteSync
Open source
An excellent service, end-to-end encrypted and which respects your privacy. It is not free but only costs 2$ per month. The service is very easy to use and you can find the applications everywhere: on web, on Play Store, on F-Droid and on theApp Store. It's the perfect solution to keep your contacts and calendar always in sync and safe.
• • • •DecSync CC
Open source
DecSync CC creates a backup folder for contacts, calendars and tasks so it has the advantage of managing more things than SD Contacts but has the disadvantage of requiring the installation of the app to recover the data. Synchronization can occur using Syncthing, Google Drive, Dropbox or any other file synchronization service.
• •Infomaniak
Open source
The Infomaniak company offers a free email address with an ik.me domain and 20GB available. Along with email, synchronization of contacts and calendars is supported using their application 2 kSync available on Play Store come on F-Droid.
• • •Fruux
Take this option with a grain of salt and only if the previous ones don't completely convince you. Let's explain why for a moment: Fruux is probably the best alternative you can find: free for up to two people and two devices, multi-platform 3 and the team working on it is the same one behind the project sabre/dav 4. Lately, however, its application has disappeared from the Play Store and from F-Droid 5 although you can continue to use with DAVx⁵ (available on Play Store come on F-Droid). Finally, they don't seem to respond to support emails (they never responded to us). So, to summarize: the project still works, you can still sign up and use their services even for a fee. However, in our opinion, this prolonged silence is not entirely reassuring.
• • •Other alternatives
As you may have noticed we have excluded larger services such as for example Kolab Now which offers all services, including emails, for around €5 per month because if you are only looking alternatives to Google Contacts It's probably because you've already found it alternatives to Gmail or in any case you don't want to spend so much just to synchronize contacts.
About this: you can also use ProtonMail or Tutanota but their contacts are not synchronized with those of Android (because they are end-to-end encrypted).
We also avoided solutions Self-hosting as always, not because we consider them unsafe but because as you know our blog is aimed at another type of audience. If you know of other alternatives, please let us know!
- Nextcloud app (recommended)[↩]
- Is synchronization of contacts and calendars supported?[↩]
- Supported Devices & Apps[↩]
- sabre/dav and the other sabre.io projects are developed by fruux[↩]
- Fruux up F-Droid[↩]
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