Provide a way to synchronise the database with other devices

[olistik]

Some people (like me 😄) don't want to (or can't) rely on a Google account to sync their contact list between multiple mobile/desktop devices.

One opt-in feature could be to enable the creation of a replica of the database that gets updated each time the primary database receives an update, storing that replica into a path chosen by the user.

This feature allows the use of file sharing apps like Syncthing, that performs end-to-end encryption.

If this feature is active then the Contacts app could check at startup if the replica contains updated records, performing an update on the primary database.

The format of the replica could be either vcf or sqlite3.

[floppymonster]

This would be great. Im really looking for a way to both get acces to my local contacts in third party apps and to sync them, without Google!!

[michaelof]

If you might want to read about CardDAV, and CardDAV/CalDAV/WebDAV enabled server software with groupware aspects like (my favourite) Nextcloud, Owncloud, SOGo,... many out there, you'll see that you'll be set up in appr. 2 hours. E.g. rent a hosted Nextcloud instance, or host your own, on a VPS or a device at home like a raspberry pi, get DavDroid now called DAVx5 and you're done. SimpleContacts works very smooth with CalDAV servers.

I've seen (never used myself) on F-Droid that for Calendars there's a CalDAV tool called ICSdroid, which is able to handle "subscriptions" to ICS etc. file based calendars, maybe there's also already an existing solution to "subscribe" via CardDAV to a VCF file

[hockeymikey]

I already use DavDroid with my Nextcloud instance to sync my contacts. This isn't needed, just setup some groupware (like @michaelof mentioned) and transfer them over.

[JohnVeness]

I suggest using DecSync CC as a contacts provider, with its folder synced via Syncthing.