Filter app for contacts - native and WhatsApp (Android)

Feature Requests
#1

Hi

One of the many reasons why I love Sailfish as opposed to Android is that I can save my contacts locally and that I do not have to sync them with my Google account.

This means that when I use Whatsapp I only share the contacts on the device and not all the contacts I have gathered over the years in my Gmail account.

I would like to live a Whatsapp-free life, but unfortunately it’s so omnipresent that I cannot completely avoid it.

But this local contacts approach complicates my email handling, because I use Gmail with two-factor authentication (and I do not want to change that) and I cannot use the native mail app if I do not add Google as a complete account (mail, contacts, calendar) as opposed to email only. But if I would do that Whatsapp would see all my contacts and that I do not want.

I have installed the opensource Android application K-9 mail as a workaround, which actually is really good, but I would like to use the native mail app again.

So here comes my question: is there a way to add Google as a complete account, but filter which contacts Whatsapp gets to see/access? Install a filter app, so to speak.

I know I can use Whatsapp without granting it access to contacts, but that is not really workable.

Thanks for your input!

2 Likes
Make several contact address books possible
#2

Definitely agree!

#3

I always missed support for multiple contacts/people databases. These should be supported the same way as multiple calendars are supported - by superimposing selectable DBs.
I always used separate users/accounts (on android, and nowadays on sailfish too, since it’s been supported), but switching just for looking into seperate contacts-realm is impractical.
Each secondary DB should be de-/selectable to show up in People app.
One DB should be selectable as the android-shared DB (also a empty one!).
User should be able to provide arbitrary path for each secondary DB (so databases can be shared/superimposed by different users).
I think this should cover all needs while still relatively easy to implement.
Hope Jolla still considers privacy protection as important and outstading feature of Sailfish and listen to user’s needs and maybe adopts user’s proposals.

EDIT:
Having the possibility to protect secondary contact-DBs by optionally encrypt them using a custom PIN was a nice feature too, once we can share secondary DBs among seperate users.

2 Likes