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What khard does—and what it does not
The khard documentation describes it as “an address book for the Unix command line” and states that “Khard only works with a local store of vCard files.” In practice, khard handles contact records on your machine; companion software handles synchronization and communication. It is designed to fit alongside email clients, text editors, vdir synchronizers, and VoIP clients.
That division matters if you want contacts from a remote CardDAV account. Khard is not the service connection: a separate program synchronizes the remote address book into local files, which khard then reads and manages.
Install khard
Check your Unix distribution’s package manager first, since khard is packaged by some distributions but availability varies. If your distribution does not provide a suitable package, the official documentation describes installation from PyPI with pip. If you need a release tarball, khard’s documentation recommends the PyPI release rather than the GitHub release page.
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- Mr. Pen address book features a hardcover design in pink blush and includes 80 sheets with alphabetical A–Z tabs, providing a durable and organized way to record and access contacts.
- The address book is made with high-quality paper that is smooth and suitable for pen or pencil, ensuring clear, legible entries for all your contact details.
- This compact address book is portable and convenient to carry in a bag, desk drawer, or personal workspace without sacrificing writing space.
- The book includes an inner pocket for storing important notes, business cards, or additional reference materials, while the elastic band and pen loop keep everything secure and accessible.
- This address book is ideal for professionals, students, and families who want a reliable and organized solution to store addresses, phone numbers, emails, and other essential contact information.
Package names and installation commands depend on the distribution and can change. Check your distribution’s current package database and khard’s installation guidance before choosing a command. Also check the installed version’s help: the online command reference has appeared as a development build, so available commands and flags may differ by release.
Set up a local address book
Khard expects a local address-book store made up of individual vCard files, commonly with the .vcf extension. A basic workflow is to create or identify a directory containing one contact per vCard file, configure khard to use that directory as an address book, and then use khard’s commands to work with those contacts. The precise configuration keys and command options are version-sensitive; consult the documentation and the help for your installed version.
Rank #2
- Mr. Pen address book features a hardcover design in black and includes 80 sheets with alphabetical A–Z tabs, providing a durable and organized way to record and access contacts.
- The address book is made with high-quality paper that is smooth and suitable for pen or pencil, ensuring clear, legible entries for all your contact details.
- This compact address book is portable and convenient to carry in a bag, desk drawer, or personal workspace without sacrificing writing space.
- The book includes an inner pocket for storing important notes, business cards, or additional reference materials, while the elastic band and pen loop keep everything secure and accessible.
- This address book is ideal for professionals, students, and families who want a reliable and organized solution to store addresses, phone numbers, emails, and other essential contact information.
For remote contacts, first configure and run a separate synchronizer. Vdirsyncer’s documented workflow synchronizes a remote CardDAV collection with local filesystem storage, where address-book collections consist of individual .vcf files. Configure khard to use the resulting local directory. Khard’s synchronization integrations rely on that individual-file layout.
Manage contacts from the command line
Khard’s command set covers everyday address-book work and extracting contact details. Its documentation includes commands for:
Rank #3
- Mr. Pen address book features a hardcover design in sage green and includes 80 sheets with alphabetical A–Z tabs, providing a durable and organized way to record and access contacts.
- The address book is made with high-quality paper that is smooth and suitable for pen or pencil, ensuring clear, legible entries for all your contact details.
- This compact address book is portable and convenient to carry in a bag, desk drawer, or personal workspace without sacrificing writing space.
- The book includes an inner pocket for storing important notes, business cards, or additional reference materials, while the elastic band and pen loop keep everything secure and accessible.
- This address book is ideal for professionals, students, and families who want a reliable and organized solution to store addresses, phone numbers, emails, and other essential contact information.
- Listing contacts and filtering them with search terms or field-specific queries.
- Displaying a contact in pretty, YAML, or vCard form.
- Creating a contact from a template or supplied input, and editing an existing entry.
- Merging contacts, copying or moving entries between address books, and removing entries.
- Listing birthdays, email addresses, phone numbers, postal addresses, filenames, and address-book names.
Use the per-command help for exact syntax and options rather than relying on examples written for another release. The command reference documents these operations, but flags and behavior can change between versions.
Choose a vCard version for new contacts
The command-line guide says new contacts default to vCard 3.0. It documents an option or configuration setting for selecting vCard 4.0 when the other applications in your workflow support it. Changing the preferred version does not convert contacts that already exist; it affects the version used for new entries.
Rank #4
- PREMIUM HARDCOVER SPIRAL ADDRESS BOOK: This durable address book spiral bound design combines a rigid 5.8" x 8.5" hardcover with reinforced metal corners. Unlike flimsy address books, it resists bending, tearing, and daily wear, making it a reliable contact organizer for home, office, or travel.
- A–Z TABS WITH SPACE FOR 600+ CONTACTS: This address book with alphabetical tabs provides 6 pages for each letter and space for 4 contacts per page. Like practical address books with alphabet tabs, it keeps names, addresses, phone numbers, and emails easy to find. Also includes sections for emergency information, important dates, and notes.
- LARGE PRINT & 100GSM NO-BLEED PAPER: This large print address book features spacious writing areas and clearly labeled fields for comfortable reading and writing. Designed as a practical address book for seniors, it uses premium 100GSM paper to help reduce bleed-through and ghosting when writing with ballpoint or gel pens.
- ALL-IN-ONE TELEPHONE ADDRESS BOOK: More than a basic phone number book, this telephone address book organizes names, addresses, phone numbers, emails, birthdays, anniversaries, and reminders in one place. The indexed layout works like a convenient phone book with alphabet tabs, helping you locate important contacts quickly.
- THOUGHTFUL GIFT WITH POCKET & ELASTIC CLOSURE: This address book with tabs includes an inner pocket for stamps, business cards, and notes, plus an elastic band to keep pages secure. A useful alternative to ordinary telephone and address books, it makes a thoughtful gift for seniors, teachers, families, new homeowners, or anyone who prefers a classic telephone book.
Connect khard to CardDAV with vdirsyncer
- Choose the local address-book directory. Set up a directory in the individual-
.vcf-file format expected by khard’s synchronization integrations. - Configure vdirsyncer separately. Set it up to synchronize the desired CardDAV collection with local filesystem storage, following vdirsyncer’s own configuration instructions.
- Run the synchronizer. Let vdirsyncer populate or update the local contact files.
- Point khard at that local directory. Configure the address book in khard to use the synchronized files, then use khard for lookup or contact management.
This arrangement keeps the responsibilities clear: vdirsyncer moves data between CardDAV and local storage; khard works with the local vCards. Neither the existence of a CardDAV account nor khard alone supplies that synchronization.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Use khard for email address completion
Khard’s scripting guide documents tab-separated output from list-like commands with a parsable option. One example integrates khard with mutt: mutt’s query command calls khard email --parsable to provide email-address completion. The integration depends on mutt’s configuration and the khard version in use, so check each program’s own documentation and command help when adapting it.
Best Value
- Make Life Organized: This elegant book keeper holds all necessary information. Never forget any important information again. Address books can be opened and 180°lay flat.
- Address Book with Alphabetical Tabs: Our A-Z Tabs are upgraded, one section per letter. The others are two letters are grouped together. Because we have done a lot of market research and designed products that are more convenient for consumers to use.
- 100 GSM No-Bleed Paper: The pages of this contact book are made of very thick 100 gsm paper, no bleed through, much thicker than 80gsm paper. Measures 5.3 x 7.7inch, perfect size fits easily in a medium sized purse.
- Plenty of Room to Write：There are 132 pages (66 sheets ) of address and contact pages, for a total of 396 entries. Additional EMERGENCY PHONE NUMBERS 2 Pages, VERY IMPORTANT PASSWORDS 12 pages, BIRTHDAYS 4 pages, ANNIVERSARIES 4 pages, NOTES 4 pages. Keep everything organized in one place.
- Nice Gift: As a gift for your loved ones, family, friends, colleagues, neighbors, etc. Nice Thanksgiving, Christmas gift. It has an elastic strap to keep it closed, a elastic strap for a pen, and a ribbon, an accordion pocket to store bills, notes, etc.
The project names mutt, alot, and twinkle as compatible examples, and describes email clients, text editors, vdir synchronizers, and VoIP clients as intended companions. These are documented integration targets, not a guarantee that every version or configuration will work without adjustment.
Consider interoperability before editing synced contacts
Khard’s maintainers warn that vCard interoperability is inconsistent: applications may add their own extensions or produce non-standard output. Their README specifically cautions that creating or modifying contacts with khard can cause problems when those contacts are also synchronized with Android or iOS. The project characterizes reading contacts as the safer case. This is a warning about interoperability risk, not a claim that all synchronization fails.
If cross-device consistency is essential, be cautious about editing synced entries from multiple applications. A read-only lookup workflow may be preferable when you cannot verify how each application handles the same vCard fields and extensions.
Quick Recap
When khard is a good fit
- Use khard if you want a command-line interface for local vCard contacts, scripts, or integration with other Unix tools.
- Add a synchronizer if contacts live in a remote CardDAV address book and need to be mirrored to local files.
- Be cautious with edits if the same contacts are modified by khard and Android or iOS applications; the maintainers specifically flag that interoperability scenario.
- Check installed-version help before scripting commands, since the online references may describe a different development or release version.
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