> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.switchbord.ai/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Contacts

> Contact and CRM management overview — profiles, tags, segmentation, import, and avatars.

The Contacts page is Switchbord's lightweight CRM: every WhatsApp contact your workspace has exchanged messages with (or imported) gets a persistent record with a display name, phone number, tags, and any custom fields your workspace tracks. It's forward-only, append-friendly state — contact history isn't rewritten, it accumulates.

## The contact record

Each contact carries:

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="Identity" icon="id-card">
    Display name and E.164 phone number — the two required fields for any contact, whether created manually, via API, or through a CSV import.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Tags" icon="tag">
    Free-form segmentation labels (`vip`, `newsletter`, `2026-winter`). Tags are the shared primitive across Inbox, Contacts, and Campaigns — tag a contact once and it's usable as an audience filter everywhere.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Avatar" icon="circle-user">
    An initials-based fallback by default, or an operator-uploaded photo. See [Contact avatars](/features/contact-avatars) for why WhatsApp itself never supplies one.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Consent state" icon="shield-check">
    Marketing opt-out status, set automatically when a contact replies `STOP` (or a localized equivalent) to a marketing template — excluded from future campaign audiences by default.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>

## Finding and filtering contacts

The Contacts list supports search and filtering by tag and other attributes, backed by server-side queries so it scales past the initial page of results. From an open conversation in the [Inbox](/features/inbox), the same contact record is visible in the sidebar — updates made from either surface are immediately reflected in the other.

## Creating contacts

Contacts are created in three ways:

1. **Automatically** — the first time someone messages your WhatsApp number.
2. **Manually** — add a single contact by name, phone, and tags directly from the Contacts page.
3. **Bulk import** — upload a CSV of contacts in one pass. See [Contacts CSV import](/features/contacts-import) for the exact column format, phone normalization rules, and troubleshooting.

## Segmentation for campaigns and journeys

Tags (and any combined filter criteria) built here become the audience definition for [Campaigns](/features/campaigns) and entry conditions for [Journeys](/features/journeys). There's no separate "audience" data model — a campaign audience is just a contact query.

## Margaret and contacts

[Margaret](/features/margaret) has direct, approval-gated access to contact data: she can find a contact by name, phone, or email, pull up recent conversations and tags, and — with your approval — update fields or add/remove tags for segmentation. Ask her "find contacts tagged `vip` who haven't had an inbound in 60 days" instead of building the filter by hand.

## See also

* [Contacts CSV import](/features/contacts-import) — bulk import format, limits, and troubleshooting.
* [Contact avatars](/features/contact-avatars) — how profile pictures are rendered and uploaded.
* [Campaigns](/features/campaigns) — using tags as a broadcast audience.
* [Data Model](/platform/data-model#channel-and-contact-plane) — the underlying `contacts`, `tags`, and `contact_tag_links` tables.