You can use Contact Groups to create different categories of contacts. You can filter your data (including contacts list, Logs, ToDos, Maps pins) based on your selected group.
Private and Public Groups
There are some important differences between a "Private Group" and a "Public Group":
- Private Groups are saved and visible from within Contacts Journal only. You can select any contact you have imported into Contacts Journal
- Public Groups are saved and synced from your Contacts app directly, but there are some limitations:
- groups are added to only your default Contact account
- You can only add contacts that exist in the same account in which that Public Group exists. For e.g. if you sync contacts from iCloud and MS Exchange, and you try to add or edit an iCloud group, you will only be able to select contacts from the same iCloud account, and not the contacts that belong to the MS Exchange account.
- you can only select contacts that have been imported into Contacts Journal
- if your default contacts account is an Exchange account, you cannot create or edit a group at all.
Sync Groups With Contacts app
By default, your Public Groups that are in the Apple Contacts app will also be visible from the Contacts Journal app. Any changes you make in the Contacts Journal app will be synced to the Contacts app, and vice versa.
Please note that on the Mac, you cannot delete Public Groups from Contacts Journal; you can delete them from the Contacts app and the changes will sync over to Contacts Journal. On iOS, you can delete Public Groups straight from the Contacts Journal app.
Creating Groups
iOS: press the Groups button from the main Contacts list, then press Edit. Now, choose “Create Contact Group” or “Create Private Group”. Then, type in a name for the group, and on the next page, select the contacts you want to add to this group. You can also create a new Private Group from the main Contacts page. Press the Edit button, select your contacts and press the “New Private Group” button.
Mac: select the groups button from the toolbar at the top of the Contacts Journal window (by default, it should be titles "All Contacts"), then scroll down the list to the end, and select either "New Private Group" or "New Public Group". Then, type in a name, and on the next page, select the contacts you want to add to this group.
Filter By Group
iOS: from the main contacts list page, select the Groups button to bring up the Groups page, then select one of the groups from the list. You can also choose to “Filter by Active” (to see all the contacts that have some custom Contacts Journal data attached) or “Filter by Private Contacts” (to see a list of Private Contacts saved in Contacts Journal).
Mac: select the Groups button on the toolbar of the Contacts Journal window (by default, it will say "All Contacts"), and select from your existing groups from the list.
Updating Groups
You can change Groups in a couple of ways:
- You can go to a contact's Info page, and select either "Public Groups" or "Private Groups", and select/unselect groups for that contact
- You can select the contact group to filter; then press the Edit button, and add/remove contacts from that group