Contacts

At a glance

Location	Sidebar → Contacts (Users icon)
Plan	All plans, including the free tier
Related features	3

View and manage all your WhatsApp contacts. Add custom fields, notes, and tags. Import/export contacts. The CSV import reads exports from Google Contacts, Outlook and iPhone as they come, with no column editing: it takes the name, every phone number and every email address the row carries, plus company, department, job title, birthday, address, website and notes, and keeps any column it does not recognise as an extra field on the contact (up to 30 of them per contact). The first phone and the first email become the contact's own; the rest are kept alongside the contact so nothing in the file is thrown away. Exporting produces the same picture in reverse: one CSV column per attribute (name, every phone and email you hold for the contact, WhatsApp name, WhatsApp status, language, status, company, job title, department, birthday, address, website, notes, labels, last message date and created date), plus one column per custom field name used anywhere in the organization, so a file you export and re-import elsewhere carries everything the contact record holds. When you re-import a file exported from Spun, the columns that describe the contact's state rather than details someone typed in (WhatsApp Name, Is WhatsApp, Language, Status, Last Message and Created) are skipped, so they never turn into extra fields. Before you import, the preview shows company, job title and birthday next to the phone and name, a "+N more" chip that opens whatever else the row carries, and a note on any row holding more than one phone or email. A row with neither a phone nor an email is shown greyed with the reason rather than disappearing. Large files are uploaded in batches automatically. The import dialog carries step-by-step export instructions for each source. A contact does not need a phone number: one saved with an email address only is kept, listed and filtered like any other. The contact list shows a second line under each name with the company and job title, or the email address when there is neither, and the search box matches company and job title as well as names and numbers. The contact list also has a "Not identified yet" group for WhatsApp contacts Spun added by itself because WhatsApp has not shared their phone number; they are kept out of the main list, the group can be searched like the rest, and once someone names or identifies a contact it joins the main list. A chat whose number WhatsApp has not shared is added to that group once a message is sent or received in it, or once you add a note, a task, a pipeline stage, a circle or details such as a company for the person; older chats from your WhatsApp history appear there only after one of these, and opening or reading a chat does not add it. A help button beside the group heading, and on the "Not identified yet" card, explains this. WhatsApp can hide the number of a group member in the same way. When Weave lists a group's members or reports on a group, such a member appears as a hidden-number member, usually under the profile name they set in WhatsApp, and is counted and labelled rather than silently dropped; no number is ever invented for them. To name one, link their own chat once from its "Not identified yet" card ("Link to a contact" or "Add as new"), and from then on reports use the contact's name for every past and future message from them. The card is shown at the end of the conversation itself, after the newest message, where it can be minimized to one line and goes away once the chat is identified, and also in the contact panel. The card also helps work out who the person is, without ever asking WhatsApp: "Have a phone number?" takes a number with its country code and looks it up in your workspace only (one contact becomes a "Link to" button, several are listed to choose from, a chat with that number but no contact offers "Add as new with this number", and a contact outside your sharing scope is reported without a name, with a note to ask a workspace manager); "Find by message" takes a phrase from a message in another chat that may belong to the same person and searches your other one-to-one chats of the last 6 months for those exact words in that order, showing each matching chat with the message and the ones around it, an "Open chat" button to check, and "Link to" the contact behind it, five chats at most (add a word to narrow it); and "Check on your phone" explains how to copy a message from the chat ("Copy a message" lists the chat's recent texts), search it in WhatsApp on the connected phone to see a saved name or number there, and come back to link by number or by name, with a ready question to copy and send when you would rather ask the person. "Add as new" can take a phone number too; a number another contact already holds is refused with a "Link to" that contact instead of a second record. The "Need help identifying this chat?" row can be collapsed, and stays collapsed in every chat until it is opened again. Nothing is linked until you confirm, and the search never contacts WhatsApp. On an ordinary chat whose number is known, the contact panel has a "Messages missing here?" line: enter a phrase from a message that seems to be missing and Spun searches the hidden-number chats for it, then "Link to this contact" attaches the hidden chat to the contact on screen; a hidden chat already linked to another contact can be moved here in one step when its own record is empty, and otherwise the card says to contact support rather than moving it. Starting a private message to a hidden member from a group is not possible, because there is no number to start it with; a message in the group reaches them like everyone else. An organization manager can also name a hidden member by telling Weave who they are and confirming the link, as described in Hidden-number members (docs.spun.com/guides/analyze-group-chats). If your phone has not sent its contacts to Spun yet after connecting, pulling contacts says so instead of reporting zero saved, and Spun keeps trying on its own. Add Contact asks for a name plus a phone number or an email address (a name alone is refused, with the reason shown inline), and a More fields section takes company, job title, department and a note; if the address you enter already belongs to another contact you are told so, and the contact is still saved. The contact card carries the email channel itself, so you can write to that person from the card with the same picker, the same checks and the same information dialog the conversation uses, and ask for suggested tasks from an email thread, without there being a WhatsApp conversation at all. An address you enter on the card counts as the record of how you know them in the same way as one typed in the composer, so you are not asked to vouch for it a second time. Actions that need a WhatsApp number are simply not offered on a contact that has none. The same contact details are also shown in the side panel of a conversation, so you do not have to leave the chat to read or change them. This section is shown to organization managers; other team members do not see it. If a teammate changes the contact while the section is open, it refreshes on its own unless you are in the middle of editing. That section lists the phone number and email address you hold for the person, marks an address they have actually replied from as verified, states that a WhatsApp conversation is linked, and lists any other numbers and addresses on record with a note of where each one came from. Below that are company, job title, department, birthday, website, address and a note about the person, plus any extra details you name yourself. A pencil turns the section into an editor and only the fields you actually changed are sent, so two people editing different fields do not overwrite each other. The editor covers the email address itself, so you can add one, correct it, or empty the box to take it off the contact, alongside the other details. If another contact already uses the address you enter, you are told so with a link to that contact instead of the save being refused. On a WhatsApp conversation that is not a saved contact yet, filling the section in and saving is what creates the contact. A team member with limited sharing sees only the contacts their shares reach, unless the share grants every contact of the inbox; when the shares reach no contact at all, the Contacts page explains which filters the access is limited to and whom to ask to widen it, instead of showing an empty list. An organization manager can delete a contact from Spun, either with Delete at the bottom of the contact card or by ticking several contacts in the list and choosing Delete in the bar above it (up to 500 at a time). You are asked to confirm first, and it cannot be undone. Deleting removes the contact record, its scheduled messages and its campaign history; the WhatsApp chats and messages stay, and the contacts on your phone are not touched. A contact you are not allowed to edit cannot be deleted either, and is reported as not deleted. When the Contacts page shows only contacts saved in your phone and none came through, it says WhatsApp shared only numbers and profile names, and offers "Show all contacts" or "How to bring in the names".

How to use

1. Open Contacts from the sidebar.
2. Search or browse contacts; the list shows company and job title under each name, and the search box matches them too.
3. Click a contact to view details, edit fields, or add notes, or use Add Contact to create one by hand with a name plus a phone number or an email address, and company, job title, department and a note under More fields.
4. Use the import button to bulk-import from CSV; a large file is split into batches and uploaded automatically, so there is nothing to prepare.
5. Inside the import dialog open "Where do I get a CSV file?" for the export steps for Gmail/Android, Outlook or iPhone.
6. Check the preview before importing: it shows the phone, name, email, company, job title and birthday, a "+N more" chip for the rest of what the row carries, and greys out any row that has neither a phone nor an email.
7. Contacts you already have are matched by phone number, or by email address when the row has no phone, and updated with the new details rather than duplicated, and an existing saved name is kept.
8. When the import finishes, the summary reports how many contacts were created and updated, how many details were filled in, how many extra phones and emails were kept, and how many rows shared an email with an existing contact or matched more than one.
9. To add someone you can only email, create the contact with an address and leave the phone empty, then use the Email row on the contact card to write to them.
10. To read or change these details without leaving a conversation, open the side panel of the chat: the Contact details section is under the name and phone number.
11. Press the pencil on that section to edit, fill in the email address, company, job title, department, birthday, website, address or a note, and press Save; emptying the email box takes the address off the contact.
12. Add your own named details at the bottom under "Other details", and remove one with the bin icon beside it.
13. In a WhatsApp conversation that is not a saved contact yet, the section starts open for editing and the first Save creates the contact.
14. To delete a contact, open its card and press Delete at the bottom, or tick several contacts in the list and press Delete in the bar above it, then confirm.

Related features

• Labels
• Campaigns / Broadcasts
• Contact Circles

FAQ

• How do I import contacts?
• Where can I see contact details?
• How to add notes to a contact?
• How do I import my Outlook contacts?
• How do I export contacts from Gmail or my iPhone?
• Will importing a CSV create duplicates of contacts I already have?
• Can I save a contact with only an email address?
• How do I email a contact who is not on WhatsApp?
• Where do I set a contact company, job title or birthday?
• Can I edit contact details without leaving the chat?
• How do I add or change a contact email address from the chat panel?
• How do I remove an email address from a contact?
• How do I add my own field to a contact?
• Why does it say another contact uses this email?
• What columns are in a contacts export?
• Does exporting my contacts include extra phone numbers and emails?
• Can I re-import a file I exported from Spun?
• Why can I not save a contact with only a name?
• Why do I not see Contact details in the chat panel?
• What is the Not identified yet group in Contacts?
• Why is a chat without a phone number not in the Not identified yet group?
• Can I minimize the Not identified yet card in a chat?
• How do I find out who a hidden-number chat is?
• Can I link a chat without a phone number by typing the number?
• Some messages from a customer are in a chat with no number. How do I join them to the contact?
• What does Find by message do?
• Does Find by message or Have a phone number ask WhatsApp anything?
• Why do some group members show as a hidden-number member?
• Why did re-importing my Spun export not add Status as a field?
• How do I delete a contact?
• Does deleting a contact delete its chat?