A privacy-first directory. Nothing about you is listed until you list it yourself, and nothing is shown to anyone beyond what you specifically choose to share with them.
During the beta, a few features rely on services we are still connecting: payments, and distances in Browse. Where one isn't connected yet, the page says so or leaves it out. Everything else in this manual works today.
Part 1 — Personal Listings
Part 2 — Organization Listings
Part 3 — Everyone
Go to Get listed from the homepage. You'll need:
You must be 18 or older to join (19 in those seven provinces and territories); the date of birth you give is checked. phonebook.directory isn't available in Quebec yet: signup and purchases from Quebec are refused until the site can serve Quebec in French.
The steps are Basic info, Verify phone and Build your listing. Verifying your phone with the code we text you is required: you can't use the rest of the app until it's done. Then you'll see a welcome screen, where Finish your listing takes you to your new listing.
A phone you share. Each phone number can be on only one account. If you share a phone with someone who already has an account, sign up with it anyway: after you enter the code, choose Verify my ID instead. Your listing stays hidden until Didit checks your ID. After that it works like anyone's, except that you sign in with your email and password only.
Choosing how your name displays. Your legal name is what's on record, but you can choose to display a preferred name instead — useful if you go by a nickname or a different name than your legal one. You can show your legal name as it is, your legal name with your preferred name as a nickname, or your preferred first name with your legal last name; your last name always shows. This is a display choice only; your legal name is still what's on file. You can change your preferred name any time from Your listing. A middle name is optional: add it at signup, or later from Your listing → Name, and choose how your listing shows it, in full ("Mary Ellen"), as initials ("M. E.") or not at all. It goes after your first name, or your preferred first name, and before a nickname: Mary Ellen "Beth" Rivers. Once saved it is part of your legal name and can't be changed from your settings (write to privacy@phonebook.directory to correct it); how it shows can change any time. People find you by your middle name only when it shows in full. The identity check compares only your first and last name.
Only one listing per account. Each verified account holds exactly one Personal Listing. There's no way to create a second listing under a different name. If you're known publicly by another name, as a performer, creator or public figure, that public side is a business: give it an Organization Listing.
Joining through a directory's link. An organization may give out a link or QR code to its Member Directory, in a bulletin or on a card. Open it, sign in (or list yourself first, for free), and press Ask to join; you're in once the organization approves you, and the directory then appears in Your phonebook beside your own list. Members see your name and whatever you've chosen to share with that directory. Until then, Withdraw my request takes it back, and you can leave a directory any time. No link? List yourself first, then ask the group for theirs.
Your listing is your entry in the directory. Anyone searching for you by name can always see your display name, the fact that you have a listing, the year you joined, and a ✓ Verified badge if you've verified your identity. The year helps people tell apart two people with the same name. Nothing else is shown unless you specifically choose to share it. In rare cases, for someone's safety, we can take a listing out of search. It still works for its owner and their connections, and a link to it still opens; if yours is, Settings says so. Search engines such as Google are asked not to show people's listings, so people are found by searching here.
From Your listing, you can add any of the following, each with its own visibility setting:
Your listing is laid out in the same sections your listing shows: Top of your listing (your name, photo, location, aliases and bio), Contact, On the web and Custom fields. Top of your listing is always there; the others appear once they have a field in them. + Add a field, under Top of your listing, lists every field under the section it appears in. A section that's showing also ends with its own add button (for example + Add a way to contact you), which lists only the fields that go there, with Something else? See every field for the rest. Whichever button you started from, a field always goes where your listing shows it, and the editor scrolls to it and highlights it for a moment. Choose the field, fill it in, and choose who can see it. You can edit or remove any field at any time. Delete field removes it for good, and a photo in it is erased from our storage in the next nightly clean-up. To hide a field but keep it, switch it off instead; switching it back on restores it exactly as it was.
How many fields you can add: up to 12 in total on the free plan and 60 on Personal Plus. Most kinds of field (phone numbers, emails, links, messaging apps, aliases) can be added as many times as you like within that total — every alias shows under your name, below your location; a bio, a location, a home address and a listing photo are one each; custom fields are 1 on free and 3 on Plus. On Plus, up to 10 fields can be websites and up to 20 social links. If you hit a limit, the field picker tells you before you fill anything in.
A short bio can be up to 500 characters, and most other fields up to 200.
If you move from Plus back to free, nothing is deleted: fields over the new limits are switched off, newest first, and you can choose which to turn back on.
The House Rules. Whatever you show others is checked against the House Rules when you save it: your names, fields at Public or Connections, and your vanity URL. Private fields are never checked. If something breaks a rule, it isn't saved, and a line under it says why. Unless it falls under rule 1 or 2, This is wrong sends it to a person, who emails you. Now and then the check can't answer straight away: the field is saved, and only you see it until it has been checked, usually within a few minutes.
Photos. You can upload a photo to any photo field on Personal and Organization Listings. Your browser resizes it and removes hidden location data before it is sent, and it is stored privately: only people the field's visibility setting allows can see it. When you add or edit a photo, it appears in its frame the way your listing will show it: drag it to choose what shows. The whole photo is kept, so you can move it again any time, or choose Center.
Your photo, name, location, aliases and bio come first. Any web address in an alias (for example @King (mysite.com)) is a link. Below them, everything else sits in the same few sections on every listing, so people always know where to look:
Labels and your preferred way to be reached. When you add or edit a phone, email or messaging app, you can give it a label: pick one of the common ones (for a phone, Mobile, Home or Work; for an email, Personal, Work or School; for a messaging app, Personal or Work), or press Other… and type your own, up to 30 characters. Press the chosen label again to remove it. You can also tick My preferred way to be reached on one of them; your listing then marks it Preferred. Both are optional, and only one field can be your preferred one: ticking it on another moves it there. A label and the Preferred mark are seen only by people who can see that field, so someone who can't see your work phone never learns it exists, or that it's the one you prefer.
Inside each section, fields appear in the order you've arranged them on Your listing: press Reorder on a section, move rows with the arrow buttons (or drag them on a computer), then Save order. At the top, only your aliases can be reordered; your photo, location and bio always sit in the same places. A section someone can't see anything in simply isn't shown. Someone who isn't connected to you also sees Connections may see more than this., whether or not you've kept anything to Connections, so it never gives anything away.
When someone signed in looks at your listing, a band at the bottom marked Only you see this holds their own tags and note for you, and Report and Block. Nobody else sees it, and you never see one on your own listing.
Phone, email, and messaging-app fields can be set to Public — but because that's a meaningful decision (anyone, including people who aren't logged in, will be able to see and use it), you'll be asked to confirm before it takes effect.
Every field on your listing gets one of three settings, chosen field by field:
You're never locked into one setting for your whole listing. A phone number can be Connections-only while your bio is Public, and you can change either at any time.
Seeing your listing as someone else does. On Your listing, choose Preview. Pick Public (anyone who isn't connected with you), Untagged (a connection with no tag), one of your tags, or one connection from the list under Or one connection — a person, or an organization you're connected with. You see your listing exactly as they do, and under it the fields hidden from them. With one person picked, Show to them opens a hidden field to that person alone, and Shared with lists what they see beyond your Public fields, each with Hide from them. Nobody else's view changes.
Your listing's QR code. On the Invite page, under your invite link, View QR code shows a code that opens your listing when someone scans it with their phone's camera, showing what you've made Public. Show it from your phone, or download it: a PNG for sharing, or an SVG, which stays sharp at any size, for printing on a card. It always points to your listing's own address, so it keeps working if you change your vanity URL. It isn't an invite, and it never expires. An organization has the same on its own Invite page, for a card, a sign or a flyer.
Blocking one person from one field. If a field is visible to a group — everyone you're connected to, or everyone a privacy template shows it to — you can still keep one specific person from seeing it, without changing it for anyone else: everyone in Family sees your phone, say, except your cousin. In Preview, pick them under Or one connection and press Hide from them beside the field. Or scroll down to Field visibility audit and pick the field. You'll see everyone who can see it, and why. Press 🚫 next to a person to block them from that field; press ↺ to undo it. Before you switch a field on, you can do the same: the audit lists your switched-off fields too, marked Off, with everyone who would see each one once it's on. Block the few who shouldn't, then switch it on; nobody sees it while it's off.
The search bar at the top of the page has a People / Organizations toggle. Search by name for a person, or by name, category, or city for an organization.
Limits on searching. Signed out, a search needs at least 3 letters and shows the first 10 results; sign in to see the rest. Signed in, 2 letters are enough (for names like Al or Ng). To stop anyone copying the directory, a network that runs a great many searches in a few minutes is asked to wait a few minutes. We count the searches, never the words.
How people are matched and ordered. A person matches when each word you type is the start of a word in their name, in any order: "Tom" finds Tom Li, Tom Richardson and Tommy Lee Jones, and "Rich Tom" finds Tom Richardson. Close misspellings of a whole name are found too. People whose name contains your word exactly come first, then names that start with it, then near-misspellings; within each, by last name, A to Z. Nobody is ranked higher for any other reason.
Narrowing people by place. On a people search, type a city and state into Near (for example Dayton, OH), choose how far around it, and press Apply. Spelling doesn't have to be perfect, and a state on its own (Ohio) works too. You'll see the people whose location is within that distance first (the count above the list is just these), then, below a line, the people whose location you can't see or that isn't a place we recognize; people whose location is somewhere else are left out. Only a location you could already see on someone's listing is used, so someone who keeps theirs to Connections is placed only for their connections. Like the name, the place you type is never put in the web address. Place names and positions come from GeoNames.
You can also browse organizations by category without searching — from the homepage or the Browse Organizations page, pick a category to see organizations that match, with filters for things like amenities.
Your searches stay private. The name you search for is never put in the page's web address, and neither is a city or ZIP code you type into Browse's "near" box, or a city or state you type into its filter. One consequence: if you copy the address of a results page and open it somewhere else, the search isn't carried with it — search again there.
Search results only ever show what the listing owner has made visible to you. A private field simply doesn't appear — there's no indication that anything is being withheld.
A Connection is a mutual, approved relationship — the gate that unlocks Connections-tier visibility and, between two people or two organizations, the ability to message at all.
Sending a request. Find the listing, and tap Connect. You can attach an optional short message (up to 160 characters) that the other person sees while deciding whether to approve.
Connecting with organizations works a little differently:
Approving or declining. Requests you've received are listed under Connection requests, linked from the top of your inbox. Approve or decline them there. If someone has asked you and you open their listing, its button says Accept their request instead of Connect, and tapping it approves their request. When you accept a request from a person, or an organization accepts one from another organization, the note becomes the first message of the conversation. An organization's note to a person doesn't carry over. If you decline, the note isn't sent anywhere.
The phonebook name at the top left of every page brings you here once you're signed in, and the app on your phone's Home Screen opens here. The home page is Home, at the bottom of every page.
Everyone you're connected with appears in Your phonebook — your personal, private list of saved people and organizations. You can also save a person or an organization without connecting, with + Add to phonebook on their listing. From here you can:
Nobody else sees your tags or how you've organized your phonebook. A tag on its own shares nothing, but a privacy template can show fields to a tag: then everyone you give that tag can see them, and taking the tag off someone takes that away.
A group's directory. A Member Directory you've joined appears in Your phonebook beside your own list. How to join one: Joining a group's directory.
Between two people: you need an approved Connection first. There's no preview or limited messaging before that — the only thing you can send beforehand is the optional short message attached to a connection request itself.
To an organization: no approval step required. An organization's whole purpose is to be reachable, so first contact doesn't need their approval — you do still need your own Personal Listing to send one, though.
Between two organizations: the same as between two people. You need an approved Connection first, and the only thing you can send before that is the short note attached to the request.
From an organization to you: an organization can message you once you're connected, or reply in a conversation you started with it. If you delete that conversation, or block the organization, it can't write to you again unless you connect.
Limits. A message can be up to 5,000 characters. To stop spam, each account can start up to 10 new conversations an hour and 30 a day; replies within a conversation don't count toward that.
Long conversations open at their most recent 200 messages. Show earlier messages, at the top, brings in 200 more at a time, up to 2,000; older ones than that are in your data export (Settings → Export your data).
Long lists. Your inbox lists your 200 most recent conversations, and your phonebook its first 200 entries in the order chosen; Show more, at the bottom, brings in 200 more each time. Find by name, above your phonebook, looks through all of it, with the filters and sort still applying. An organization's inbox and phonebook work the same way.
Message forwarding. By default, once your email address is verified, we email you when a new message arrives (New-message notification, free for everyone). The email says who it's from, not what they wrote. Under Message forwarding in Settings you can switch that Off, or choose:
If your paid plan ends, Instant forward and Digest go back to the New-message notification.
These go to the email you sign in with, unless you enter another address under Email and Save. We first send that address a confirmation link, good for 7 days, and nothing else goes there until you click it; until then, everything keeps going to your sign-in email. Missed it? Send the link again is under the address.
Requests and alerts by email. Message forwarding covers messages only. Requests and alerts have their own row beside it in Settings: we email you when someone sends you a connection request or asks to join your Member Directory, and when you're approved to join one, whatever Message forwarding is set to. Turn off there, and you'll see them only in your inbox on the site. They go to the same address as your messages, and only once that address is confirmed; until then the row says so.
Notifications on your phone or computer. In Settings, Notifications on this device → Turn on, then allow it when your browser asks. You'll get a notification when a message or connection request arrives: who it's from, not what they wrote. Tap it to open the conversation. It's set for each device separately, and signing out of a device stops its notifications. Free for everyone.
On an iPhone, Apple allows notifications only from a site on your Home Screen: in Safari, tap Share, then Add to Home Screen, open phonebook from the new icon, sign in, and turn notifications on there.
Blocking someone stops messages in both directions — see Blocking and reporting.
If someone you want to connect with isn't on phonebook.directory yet, make an invite link to share yourself: tap Invite in the top navigation, choose your options, then Get my link. We don't collect their contact information — the link is yours to send however you like. On a phone, Share opens your phone's own share menu, so you can send it by text, email or any app; we never see who you send it to. Elsewhere, Copy it and paste it wherever you like. Include your name lets the link say who invited them. Each link works for 90 days.
Show QR code, under the link, shows it as a code to scan, for when the person is right in front of you: they point their phone's camera at your screen. Like the link, it works once.
Connecting automatically, an optional per-link choice. By default, an invite link just gets the new person into the signup flow — you still connect with them the normal way afterward. If you turn on Connect automatically once they join for a link, whoever signs up through it becomes an approved Connection immediately.
The person joining gets their own say in this too: the invite page shows them a checkbox, already ticked to match your choice, which is genuinely theirs to untick. If they untick it, the invite still works (they're signed up), it just doesn't create a Connection.
Everything here lives under Settings:
Age check in Tennessee and Mississippi. Those states' laws require us to verify the age of members who live there. We place an account there by the state on your listing, your phone's area code, or, at signup only, the state your connection comes from. Until Didit confirms your age, your listing is hidden from search and other members; you can still sign in, edit it and use your phonebook. Members already listed have 14 days.
Internet phone numbers. A personal listing can use an internet phone number, one you can get online without a phone (Google Voice, TextNow and the like), only once your identity is verified. Mobile and home numbers, including a cable company's phone service, work as always; any other kind (a toll-free number, a pager, one that can't be identified) is treated as an internet number; organizations can use any number. When you press Continue at signup with one, signup stops before your account is made and asks you to choose: Use a different number, or Keep this number and verify my ID. If you keep it, your account is made and your listing stays hidden from everyone else until Didit checks your ID; the same check covers the age check in Tennessee and Mississippi. Until then you can edit your listing, verify, use Settings, export your data, delete your account, search and browse (seeing what anyone signed out sees), block and report, but you can't send or accept a connection request, send a message, join a directory or accept an invitation, make an invite link, or create an organization except through a setup link we sent you. If you came through a directory's invite link or QR code, or an invite link that connects you, that request is kept and goes through as soon as Didit approves. You have 30 days to verify; we email you on day 7 and 3 days before the end, with the date. If your identity isn't verified by then, your account is deleted the usual way: signing in within 30 days restores it, still hidden, with 7 more days to verify. Once your identity is verified, you can change to any number. We ask Twilio what kind of line a number is and don't keep the answer.
Accessibility. What the site meets, and how to tell us when something doesn't work for you, is on the Accessibility page.
Forgot your password? Use the reset link from the login page — it's single-use and expires after an hour.
A paid upgrade for your Personal Listing. It unlocks:
To compare plans or upgrade, go to Settings, find Plan under Plan & Billing, and tap View plans; Upgrade to Personal Plus is at the bottom of that page, or a line saying payments aren't open yet.
Free during the beta. While the offer is on, a new account has Personal Plus free for 3 months from the day it signs up. You don't need a card, and nothing renews. Settings → Plan shows the date it ends, and we email you 14 days before and on the day. After that your account is on the free plan: fields over the free limits are switched off, newest first (nothing is deleted, and you choose which to turn back on), and your theme goes back to the standard look. Tags, templates and private notes you made stay; adding more past the free limits, or editing notes, needs Plus. Free Personal Plus doesn't include a vanity URL or creating an Organization Listing.
Vanity URLs. If your plan includes one, set it from Vanity URL under Plan & Billing in Settings. Pick 3–30 characters: lowercase letters, numbers, hyphens and underscores, starting and ending with a letter or number. Some addresses are reserved because they'd collide with parts of the site. Once claimed it's yours — including if your plan later changes, so a printed card keeps working. You can change it once, while you have Personal Plus or Organization Pro, on either term: the old address keeps redirecting to you for 30 days, and becomes available to someone else after six months. If you give up your address with Release (it asks first), it doesn't redirect anywhere, nobody can claim it for six months, you included, and a new address afterward counts as your one change.
An Organization Listing is for any group that isn't one individual person. That means a business, a nonprofit, a church or a government office, and just as much a car club, a cosplay group, a book club, a fraternal lodge or a neighborhood association. If people know it by a name and it isn't a single person, it can have a listing.
You'll need a paid Personal Plus plan, a verified identity, or a setup link we sent for your organization. From Settings → Create an Organization listing, you'll work through three steps: Organization details, Verify phone and Build your listing. Creating the organization signs you out of your Personal account and into the new organization's account.
With a setup link. Open the link and follow it: your own account first, then the organization's form with its name and type filled in. A link works once and expires; if yours has, write to support@phonebook.directory.
Which type fits?
Not sure? Most clubs and interest groups are a Community group. A school picks whichever type fits how it's run. Your category decides the labels you're offered first (a restaurant's list of offerings starts as Menu highlights, a law firm's as Practice areas) and your type a few fields and words of its own. If you choose the wrong one, write to support@phonebook.directory and we'll change it.
The individual who creates an organization is permanently recorded for accountability — but once created, the organization account operates independently. It isn't a sub-account of your Personal Listing. You start out as its linked account (see linked roles), and while you hold that role your Personal account can't be deleted; hand the role to someone else first.
If its name is close to an organization we've invited. When we invite an organization to list itself, we send it a setup link. While that link is open, a new organization with a name close to it, or one that renames itself to such a name, waits for us to look, which usually takes less than a day. Until then only you can see it, and its member directory can't send invitations; its listing says so while it waits. An organization set up through its own link doesn't wait, unless it takes a name close to another one we've invited.
Already have an organization? Sign in at phonebook.directory/organizations/login with the organization's own email and password, or from the usual sign-in page under Signing in for an organization? Organization sign-in. It's a separate login from your Personal one.
From Your listing, add and manage:
Your organization's listing is checked against the House Rules the same way, and so are your member directories' names and your staff titles. While a new organization's name waits for that check, usually a few minutes, it can't invite anyone or send a connection request.
Every field gets the same three-tier visibility choice (Public / Connections / Private) that Personal Listings use — you choose what's shown and to whom, field by field.
Your listing is laid out in the sections your listing shows, in the same order: Top of your listing (name, logo and description), Visit, Contact, On the web and About. As on a Personal Listing, Top of your listing is always there with + Add a field, and the others appear once they have a field in them, each with its own add button and its own Reorder. On Organization Pro, + Add a banner sits at the end. Your address, hours, amenities, service area and accessibility notes always sit in that order under Visit. A field is called on your listing what it's called in your editor: a business's Size reads Team size, a church's Congregation size.
How your listing looks to others. The same fixed sections as a Personal Listing, in this order:
Linked locations. If your organization has more than one place, each with its own listing, link them under Locations → Manage locations: search for the other location's listing by name and choose Send request. Linking is a request: the other organization is told (a notification on its devices, an email if its message settings send one, and a line in its Inbox) and accepts or declines on its own Manage locations page. Decline asks first, and a request you declined stays there with an Accept button, so you can still change your mind until either side removes it. Once it accepts, each listing shows the other under Locations. Either side can remove the link later. Requests to link locations count toward your organization's 20 requests a day, together with its connection requests.
Verifying your organization adds a public ✓ Verified badge to your listing: it tells people the organization was checked to be who it says it is.
Organization verification isn't open yet. It will open in stages, one type of organization at a time. Your organization's Settings → Status page says whether yours can apply. When it can:
If your organization is listed as "Other" but is really a nonprofit, religious or community group, write to support@phonebook.directory and the fee can be waived without changing your listed type.
After you apply, your organization shows Pending until the check is complete.
Your organization's public Roster lists the people who run it, work for it or belong to it.
Its heading. Unless you choose one, the heading depends on your organization's type: Staff for a business, Staff & Leadership for a nonprofit, Leadership for a religious organization or community group, Staff & Officials for government, and Team for Other; anything in the Education & Training category uses Faculty & Staff. To call it something else, choose a Heading on Manage roster: Members, Officers, Board, Volunteers, Crew, Cast & Crew, Coaches & Staff, Organizers and more. It changes only the heading.
Adding someone: send an invitation from Manage roster on your listing, optionally with a title. The person you're inviting sees it as a roster invitation and has to accept it themselves before they're added — you can't add someone to your Roster unilaterally.
About titles: a title is fixed to whatever the individual actually consented to when they accepted the invite. To change it, remove the link and send a new invitation with the new title — the individual accepts (or doesn't) again. Whether titles show publicly on your Roster at all is a separate, off-by-default toggle you control.
If someone leaves, they can remove themselves from your Roster at any time, or you can remove them.
A Member Directory is a private, invite-only space for a specific group tied to your organization — an alumni network, a congregation, an employer's own staff — distinct from your public Roster.
How it works: invite someone to a directory; once they accept, other members of that same directory can see whatever fields that member has chosen to share with it — governed by the member's own privacy settings, the same as everything else. Joining a directory doesn't create a Connection with your organization or with any other member.
Making your directory. An organization's last setup step offers Make your Member Directory, and so does the bottom of its Invite page until it has one: it makes a directory called "Members" (rename it any time), turns on its invite link and opens the directory's page with the QR code ready. Once you have a directory, its QR code and link are at the bottom of the Invite page, under your organization's own QR code. With more than one, choose the directory from the list there; one with no link yet has Make an invite link, which makes it on the spot. The Invite one person link at the top works once, for one person; your organization's QR code opens your listing and doesn't join anyone to a directory.
An invite link for a directory. Under the search to invite, Make an invite link gives the directory a link and a QR code anyone can use to ask to join it: put it in a bulletin, a newsletter, or on a card at a sign-up table (Download SVG (for print) stays sharp at any size). Someone who uses it signs in, or lists themselves for free first, and asks to join; nobody is in until you approve them. Someone who signed up with an internet phone number and hasn't verified their identity yet reaches you only once they have: their request arrives then. Their requests wait under Asking to join, oldest first, with Approve and Decline (200 at a time; Show more brings the rest), and your Inbox says when someone is waiting. Make a new link replaces it (the old link and its QR code stop working), and Turn off this link ends it; each asks you to confirm first, since neither can be undone. Turning it off doesn't touch anyone already in or waiting under Asking to join, and Make an invite link then starts a fresh one. Organizations are still invited by name.
Being told when someone asks. When people ask to join through the link, we email the address your messages already go to — your sign-in email once it's confirmed, or a confirmed forwarding address — at most once a day for each directory, saying how many are waiting and never who. If you've turned off Requests and alerts by email in Settings, or your email isn't confirmed yet, no email is sent and the Inbox line is how you hear, as with a connection request. On a device where you've turned on phone alerts, an alert comes too, at most once every 15 minutes for each directory.
When you're approved, as a member. We email you (unless you've turned off Requests and alerts by email) and send an alert if you've turned them on. Until you choose, the directory's other members see only your name and what you've made Public. Choose what [directory] sees opens one question: a box for each of your fields, ticked for what the directory's members and the organization may see. Your home address isn't offered; share it with one person at a time, from their listing. Saving makes, or updates, a privacy template named for the directory and the organization, so it stays your own rule and you can change it any time in Templates. The directory's page reminds you until you've saved once.
Inviting from a person's listing. On someone's listing, More → Invite to a directory… lists your directories and where they stand in each: Member, Invited, or Asking to join (through your link) with Approve. Invite sends them the invitation, which they accept themselves. It's the way to invite exactly the person whose listing you're on, such as someone who showed you their QR code, without searching their name.
Sharing your organization's own fields with a directory. You can show a directory's members something you don't show the public, such as a members-only phone line. In your listing editor, open a field set to Private and check the directory under Share with a directory. Its members then see that field; nobody else does. Uncheck it to stop. A directory's page lists what's shared with it, under Manage what's shared.
How many directories you can have: every Organization Listing includes one Member Directory free. Additional directories are a one-time purchase — a permanent add-on attached to your organization's account, not a subscription. It has no recurring charge, no activity requirement, and can't be lost by canceling Organization Pro or letting it lapse. It also can't be transferred to a different organization. Manage your directories, and buy another, from Settings → Member directory → Manage.
When another organization invites yours. Organizations can join each other's directories. An invitation appears as a notice in your organization's inbox; open it to see what joining means, then Join directory or Decline. A directory you've joined is listed in your phonebook's directory list, and you can leave it from the directory's own page with Leave directory.
Every organization appears as a row in search results and category browse, showing its name, category, ✓ Verified badge if it has one, its city and state (if its address is Public), a short description, its amenities, and an Open now or Closed badge if its hours are Public. Distance appears when someone browses near a place. People can also filter Browse to organizations that are open now. Your organization's listing can also appear in search engines such as Google; people's listings are not offered to them.
Everything here lives under Settings, mirroring what a Personal account has available (see Account settings & security):
Linked account & backup contact — two roles, each held by a person through their own Personal account:
Naming someone else to either role needs that person's own acceptance; neither role can be assigned to anyone unilaterally. While someone holds either role, their Personal account can't be deleted.
If nobody can sign in to the organization any more, its linked account or backup contact can recover it. Sign in to your own Personal account and go to phonebook.directory/organizations/recover (also linked from the organization sign-in page). We email the organization and both contacts, and any of them can cancel. After a 7-day wait, the person who started it sets a new password, every device signed in to the organization is signed out, and a change of email still waiting is canceled. Only one recovery can run at a time.
A paid upgrade for your Organization Listing. It currently includes:
Not part of Pro: extra Member Directories are a separate one-time purchase, and your first one is free either way.
Settings → Insights shows counts for your listing, never who.
The monthly history covers the last three months. We never record who viewed, searched, browsed, tapped or saved — no identity, no network address — only the counts.
To compare plans or upgrade, go to Settings, find Plan under Plan & Billing, tap View plans, then Upgrade.
Free during the beta. While the offer is on, a new organization has Organization Pro free for 3 months from the day it is created, with no card and no renewal. Its Settings → Plan shows the end date. After that it is on the free plan: fields over 24 are switched off, not deleted, its banner is hidden, its theme goes back to the standard look, and listing insights stop.
Personal Plus, Organization Pro, the one-time organization verification fee, and a Member Directory add-on are all purchased through a secure, hosted checkout page. Your card details go directly to our payment processor and are never sent to or stored on our own servers. Payment is by card, which includes Apple Pay and Google Pay.
Prices and terms. Personal Plus and Organization Pro are sold for one year or three years; the Plans page, the payment page and the public Pricing page (linked at the foot of every page) all show the price of each, in US dollars. A three-year term also lets you claim a vanity URL. An extra Member Directory shows its price on its Buy another directory button.
Renewal. A plan renews automatically at the end of its term, for one year at the one-year price, whether the term was one year or three, until you cancel. Before you pay, the payment page shows exactly how your chosen term renews and asks you to tick a box confirming you understand it — the Continue to payment button stays off until you do. We email you about 35 days before any renewal and again about 21 days before, and once a year during a three-year term.
Canceling. Go to Settings → Renewal and payment → Manage or cancel. Canceling stops the next renewal; you keep the plan until the end of the term you paid for, and the Renewal and payment row then shows the date it ends. Payments are not refundable unless something you paid for can't be delivered, with one more exception: after a plan renews, Settings → End now and refund the unused part ends it at once and refunds the unused days of that renewal. After every purchase you get an email confirming it, with the renewal terms and a copy of the Terms of Service. Prices are in US dollars.
Changing your card or seeing invoices. The same button, under Settings → Renewal and payment, opens the secure billing page where your card and receipts are.
A privacy template shows the fields you choose to the people you choose, as one rule: for example, show my mobile, personal email and calendar link to everyone tagged Family. Make one under Privacy templates on Your listing, with + New template. It reads as a sentence:
The line under it says in words what the template does, and the same line is on the template's card. When there are more than a few fields or tags to choose from, the list has a search box.
A template works from the moment you press Save, and it's checked each time someone looks, so it always matches what's true now:
A template shows its fields whatever their own setting says: a Connections field in a Family template is seen by everyone tagged Family, whether you're connected or not. It never hides anything: a Public field stays Public, and a Connections field stays visible to all your connections. Two things still win over a template: Hide from them, for one person and one field (section 3), and a block.
Tags on their own share nothing; they're labels for your phonebook until a template uses them. New accounts start with three tags and no templates. An organization has templates the same way, for its own tags and for the directories it runs or belongs to, and can also share a Private field straight with a directory it runs, from the field itself (section 15).
Blocking another account is mutual and immediate. Neither of you can message the other or send the other an invitation, any connection between you ends (and a pending request is declined), and you stop seeing each other anywhere on the site: in search, in a Member Directory you're both in (you both stay in it; the organization that runs it still sees everyone), on an organization's Roster, in your phonebooks, and the other's listing no longer opens for you. Removing the block later doesn't bring the connection back; you'd need to connect again, and anything you'd saved comes back to your phonebook. Blocking also takes your tags off them, so unblocking shares nothing a template showed to those tags; tag them again if you want it to. Signed out, anyone can still see a listing's Public information. A conversation you already had stays where it is, though neither of you can write in it. Your block list is in Settings, where you can Unblock someone or Report them.
Reporting. While signed in, use Report this listing on any listing, or Report this conversation from the ⋮ menu in a conversation. Reporting a conversation sends us a copy of the whole conversation, including what the other person wrote, so we can read what happened; the copy is deleted a year after the report is closed. We don't tell anyone who filed a report. To report an image or anything else without an account, email takedown@phonebook.directory.
Someone listed your organization. If a listing here uses your organization's name and isn't yours, report it with Pretending to be another organization. Without an account, write to support@phonebook.directory from the email address your organization publishes, with a link to the listing (Someone listed my organization, at the bottom of any page, says the same). We look within a day, weekends included, and hide the listing while we check if it's clearly not yours.
An intimate image of you. If someone has posted an intimate image of you without your consent, whether it is real or was made or altered with software or AI, use Report an intimate image at the bottom of any page, or choose An intimate image of me, shared without consent under Report this listing. You don't need an account, and someone you have authorized can ask for you. We remove it within 48 hours of a complete request, remove copies of it elsewhere on the site, and keep it from being posted here again. You get a reference number and an email saying what we did; the person who posted it is never told who asked.
We may also restrict messaging on any account showing patterns of abuse or spam — including an Organization Listing, despite its normally open-messaging default.
Exporting. From Settings → Export your data, download a JSON file containing your account details (including your legal name and date of birth), all your listing fields (regardless of visibility), your saved phonebook entries, your connections, your tags, your privacy templates, your private notes, your block list, a record of which fields you've shared with what kind of audience (one person, a tag or a directory) and when, your invites, and your messages. An Organization account's Export organization data gives the same kinds of records for the organization, plus its roster, its Member Directories (each one's name and how many members it has), its linked locations, and who holds its linked-account and backup-contact roles.
Deleting your account. Requires your current password and a typed confirmation. For an Organization account, we also email a confirmation link to its linked account, which works for one hour. Deletion:
If your account is suspended, your listing is hidden from search, browsing and messaging while we review it. You can still sign in to see the suspension notice, download your data, manage or cancel a paid plan, and appeal at appeals@phonebook.directory, but you can't use or change anything else, or delete the account, until the suspension is resolved. A suspension that isn't resolved within 90 days becomes a closure; we email you 14 days before, with the date.
Consider exporting your data first. After the 30 days, deletion can't be undone.
What we text. Only one-time codes you ask for: when you sign up, when you change the phone number on your account, and when you sign in, if you've turned on two-step sign-in. One message each time you ask for a code. We never send marketing texts. Message and data rates may apply.
Calls instead. On any screen where you type a code, Call me instead has us call your number, and a recorded voice reads the code three times. If your number is a home phone, we call it straight away. Press 9 during a call and we won't call or text that number again.
Stopping and starting. Reply STOP to any of our texts and they stop; you'll get one confirmation. Reply START to receive codes again, and HELP for help, or write to support@phonebook.directory. While texts are stopped, signing up and changing your account's phone number can't be finished, because both need a code; signing in with your email and password still works, unless you've turned on two-step sign-in, which needs a code too: reply START first.
A code that doesn't arrive. Wait a minute, check the number on screen, then ask for a new one. Codes go to mobile and home phones in the United States and Canada; a home phone gets a call. If you replied STOP in the past, reply START first.
The full terms are in our Text Message Terms.
Can I have more than one Personal Listing? No — one verified account, one listing.
Can someone see that I searched for them? No. What you search for isn't recorded or shared with anyone, including the person you searched for.
Does verifying my identity make my listing more visible, or change who can see my private fields? No — it only adds the ✓ Verified badge. It has no effect on your visibility settings.
If I decline auto-connect on an invite link, did I still sign up? Yes. Declining only skips the automatic Connection — your account and listing are created normally either way.
Can an organization see who's viewed its listing? No, even on Organization Pro. Insights are aggregate counts only — never a name, an account, or any other identifying detail — and the phonebook and Member Directory counts say only "fewer than 5" below 5.
What happens to a Member Directory add-on if I cancel Organization Pro? Nothing — it's permanent, independent of any subscription, and stays with your organization's account for as long as that account exists.
Where can I get a flyer, the logo or a QR code for phonebook.directory? On Spread the word: a flyer and table cards ready to print, the logo and a QR code to put on your own flyer or bulletin, words to paste, and how to find your organization's own QR codes. Thank you for telling people.
Can I change my legal name after signup? Not from your settings. You can display a different preferred name instead; see Creating your account. If your legal name is wrong, write to privacy@phonebook.directory and we'll correct it.
What happens when my message storage is full? (5,000 messages for a person on the free plan and 50,000 on Personal Plus; 10,000 for an organization on the free plan and 100,000 on Organization Pro.) You'll see a warning in your inbox when it's 90% full. Your oldest conversation is cleared from your inbox to make room. This only ever affects your own copy — the other person keeps theirs, and nobody else's inbox is touched. Export your data if there's anything you want to keep.
If I delete my account, can I sign up again with the same email or phone? Yes. Deleting releases both, so you can start fresh later. (If you change your mind within 30 days, sign in to your old account with its email and password instead, as long as you haven't already used that email or phone number for a new account. After 30 days it's gone for good.) An account closed by us for breaking the rules is different: its email and phone can't be used to sign up again. Phone numbers are sometimes reassigned, so if you were given a number that used to belong to someone else and signup refuses it, or you think it's a mistake, write to appeals@phonebook.directory and a person will look at it.
Questions not answered here? Write to support@phonebook.directory. Something not working? Use Report a bug at the bottom of any page.