Deets Support

What Deets is

A fast, name-first reader for the address book you already have. It does not store your contacts itself — it reads Apple Contacts, the same database Contacts.app uses, so an edit in one shows up in the other.

Pricing and purchases

iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch: free, with every feature. There is nothing to buy.

Mac: free for 14 days, then a one-time $9.99 (or the local equivalent) keeps it. No subscription. The first time you open the search window, choose Start Free Trial; the menu-bar item shows how many days are left.

• When the trial ends, the search window shows the purchase options instead of the search field. Your contacts are not locked away: they were always in Apple Contacts, and the window has an Open Contacts button. Settings keeps working.
• Already had Deets on your Mac? If you downloaded it before version 1.1, it stays yours for free. There is nothing to do.
• Restore. A purchase follows your Apple Account to your other Macs by itself. If one does not show up, choose Restore in the search window or in Settings › Deets for Mac.
• Codes. If you have been given a code, choose Redeem Code in the same places.
• Family Sharing is on, so one purchase covers your family's Macs.
• Refunds are handled by Apple, at reportaproblem.apple.com. The developer cannot issue them and never sees your payment details.

Requirements

macOS 26, iOS 26, iPadOS 26 or watchOS 26 or later. Contacts permission, which the app asks for on first run.

First run

On the Mac

Deets lives in the menu bar rather than the Dock. Press ⌥C anywhere to summon the search field, and Escape to dismiss it. Two other shortcuts: ⌥⇧C opens your own card directly, and ⌥V opens the importer. All three can be changed in Settings.

The search window opens by itself the first time you launch Deets, and again whenever you open the app from Finder or Spotlight while it is already running. To have it ready after a restart, turn on Open at login in Settings.

The window opens with just the search field in it. Press Tab to reveal your favourites, or ↓ to reveal them and move straight into the list. Typing skips them.

On the iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch

A list you can search and browse, and a card in the detail view. The watch app is read-only by design — it is for finding a number, not editing one.

Setting your own card

Deets asks once, as a row in the list rather than a modal, which of your contacts is you. You can also set or change it any time from the toolbar button. Your card gets its own shortcut and its own share sheet, because handing someone your details is a different job from looking someone up.

Favourites, field order and pins

Star anyone to make them a favourite; favourites are what the widget shows, and what Tab reveals under the search field on the Mac.

Field order is set globally in Settings and can be overridden on any individual contact. You can also hide a field you never use, or pin a specific value — one particular number on one particular person — so it sits at the top of their card.

Adding a contact

On iPhone and iPad, the + menu offers four ways in: scan a card with the camera, choose a photo, paste text, or open a vCard file. On the Mac, press ⌥V and then paste, or drag a photo of a card or a vCard file onto the window — ⌥V keeps the window from dismissing when you pick the file up.

Everything is read on your device. You always see the parsed result before anything is saved, and any line the parser could not place is listed underneath rather than dropped silently — so you can see what it missed.

If the card belongs to someone already in your book, Deets says so and offers to merge instead of making a duplicate.

A vCard file containing more than one person is refused rather than partly imported. Reading them in sequence put everybody's numbers on the last name in the file, so it now declines and asks for one card at a time.

Sync between devices

Your favourites, field preferences, own-card pointer and accent colour follow you through your own iCloud account. Contacts themselves do not sync through Deets — they sync the way they always did, through whatever account your Contacts app uses.

If a favourite will not cross to another device, the usual cause is two contact cards sharing an email address. Deets deliberately refuses to sync a favourite it cannot confidently tell apart from a duplicate, because the alternative is starring the wrong person. Merging the duplicate cards in Contacts.app fixes it.

Troubleshooting

Nothing comes up when I search

Check Contacts permission in System Settings › Privacy & Security › Contacts (macOS) or Settings › Privacy & Security › Contacts (iOS). If access was granted as limited, Deets can only see the contacts you shared.

An edit will not save

The usual cause is an account that does not accept changes — some work directories and shared address books are read-only. Deets says which, rather than reporting a raw error, and editing the same contact in Contacts.app will fail the same way. A contact with something in its Notes field saves normally; Deets leaves the note untouched.

A contact I changed elsewhere still looks old

Deets refreshes when Contacts tells it something changed, and again when you bring the app forward. If a card was already open, close and reopen it.

The watch complication shows the wrong person, or none

Long-press the watch face, edit the complication, and pick the contact again. A complication shows one person, because a complication has exactly one tap target.

Privacy, briefly

Deets collects nothing, sends nothing, and contains no networking code. Purchases on the Mac are handled entirely by Apple. Card scanning happens entirely on your device. Your settings sync through your own iCloud as one-way digests, so no email address or phone number is in what syncs. The full text is on the privacy policy page.