Reference a contact in notes

You can do it with a script.

See these instructions to install the script in the menu bar. It describes Numbers but is adaptable to Contacts.

Open this in Script Editor and adapt it to your needs if you are a bit familiar with AppleScript.

-- This script produces a link to access a specific contact in the application Contacts
-- Recycleur, discussions.apple.com
-- https://discussions.apple.com/thread/255333548
-- 2023-12-09

tell application "Contacts"
	
	set theContacts to selection
	
	set theLink to "addressbook://" & id of item 1 of theContacts
	set the clipboard to theLink
	
	display dialog "This is the link for the current contact (in clipboard): " & return & theLink buttons {"Continue"}
	
end tell

The script will take the selected contact and show you the link to use for direct access to the contact. The link is also already copied to the clipboard for your convenience, so all you have to do is paste it in Notes.

To open the link in Notes, right-click on it and select Open Link in the pop-up menu. You can also try to click on it but strangely it only works if the cursor is on very small and specific spots that are hard to target, so the menu is more reliable.

You can edit the visible text (the name) of the link using Edit Link from the same pop-up menu.

If you use the Cardhop contacts app (from Flexibits), you can “Share” a contact and it provides an app URL to the Contact in Cardhop. Cardhop syncs with Apple Contacts. Copy the Cardhop link in to your Apple Notes and you have an hyperlink to the Contact record… 👍

Hi @markfromlandolakes,

I found that while you can't link to the contact, you can add an interactive card to your notes app from the contacts on a MacBook:

• The contact card is an exact copy of the contact from the moment you added it to the note.
• If you update your contact, you'll want to re-add it to your note as the information will not be replicated. To your point it would be great if @apple created a link to a contact (would be so much more reliable)
• The card is interactive and let's me choose how I want to contact the user when I click on it.

In most cases once you add a contact's number or email, it won't change. So for your short term practice, this might work for you. I tested adding a contact card to a note and accessing it from my phone and it worked great! It was totally interactive.

Instructions to add a contact card to a Note:

1. Open Contacts.
2. Find the contact you want to add to your Note.
3. Press the share button in the bottom-right of your selected contact (see fig. 1).
4. In the pop-up menu Select Notes (see fig. 2).
5. Choose a particular note (or a new note) (see fig.3)
6. Click Save
7. Navigate into the notes app, and the note you selected.
8. You'll find a contact card at the bottom of the note for quick access.
9. Drag it to whatever location you want the contact to exist.
10. Open the note on your iphone for quick, interactive access to that contact.

Fig. 1

Fig. 2

Fig. 3

I have never used Apple scripts before and I was able to copy, create, and run this script and get back a link which opens the contact that I have open when I run the script. So it works for me too but it just seems so awkward. It seems like something simpler and more intuitive, like just creating a link with

addressbook://Contact_Name

or some similar format. I guess there could be two contacts with the same name but that could just error or return both/all.

Btw, I want to paste links to contacts in Freeform boards where I have for example all my medical stuff and providers in one board and I want to add links that when i click on Dr.'s name, it just opens the right contact card on my Mac. So I am doing this all within Apple apps and it seems to me there should be some simpler way!

Anyway, thank you for this solution for now!

David