Location can be a useful way to find people. You might want to remember whom you met at a workshop venue, identify friends in a city before a trip, or find a colleague's workplace.
Those are different questions. A useful location system preserves what each place means.
Dextr is our first pick on Apple devices for keeping people connected to the places and occasions you want to remember. Preserve what a location means, such as a first meeting or a workplace, rather than treating every place as a current address.
This guide is published by Dextr. The recommendation reflects the workflow described here.
Choose the kind of location you need
Start by distinguishing:
- A current home or work address.
- A city someone has told you they live in.
- The place you first met.
- A venue for a later event.
- The setting of a recorded conversation.
A single location tag can blur these meanings. Someone you met in Chicago may live elsewhere, and a workplace may change.
Choose a label or field whose meaning you can explain consistently.
Use contact addresses for actual addresses
Keep a work or home address in the appropriate contact field when the person has shared it and it is useful to retain.
If you need a city-level category rather than a full address, make that clear. A tag such as “Based in Chicago” has a different meaning from “Met in Chicago.”
Review location information when you learn that it has changed. Do not infer a current address from an old event.
Preserve meeting places separately
Dextr on iPhone: remember the meeting and introducer
First Met context explains where the relationship began. A later coffee or workshop should appear in the history without replacing that origin.
The guide to remembering where you met someone explains a simple recording habit.
In Dextr, Places can connect locations with first meetings, addresses, events, and interactions. Use the relevant association for the question you want to answer.
Dark-mode app examples below use fictional demonstration contacts.
On iPhone, First Met keeps a meeting venue, date, and note beside the contact.
Dextr on iPad: explore the place
On iPad, a Place detail view shows the map, address, and associated contacts. A saved place association is context, not live location tracking.
Reuse the same venue
Before adding a Place, check whether the correct venue is already present. Verify the address when several locations share a name.
Reuse that Place for separate events and conversations. This lets a library remain one recognizable venue while its workshops retain their own dates and attendees.
Avoid creating a new Place for every spelling variation. A consistent name makes later searches easier.
Use tags for broad travel planning
If your tool supports tags, a broad city category can help you prepare for a trip. Keep its meaning explicit and update it as you learn new information.
You might use “Chicago contacts” for a working list, but record whether each person lives there, works there, or only visited.
Dextr's tagging guide covers overlapping groups. Tags can supplement the location record rather than substitute for its meaning.
Find people through the context you remember
If you remember the venue first, open the Place and review the associated people or occasions.
If you remember a city, search the relevant addresses or categories supported by your tool. Check the contact's current details before arranging a visit.
Dextr's Places walkthrough shows its First Met Here, Contacts, Events, and Interactions views.
A count of people linked to a place may include different kinds of associations. Read the section you are viewing.
A practical location cleanup
- Pick one city or frequently used venue.
- Review the people connected to it.
- Separate current addresses from meeting history.
- Correct duplicate venue records where your tool supports it.
- Add only location categories you will use.
- Check outdated information before making plans.
You can organize a small portion of your address book at a time. There is no need to map every contact.
Common questions
Does location organization show where people are now?
A saved address or meeting place is recorded context. It is not a live location.
Should I store a full address for everyone?
Use the level of detail you need and have been given. City-level context can be enough for some planning.
Can one contact belong to several places?
Yes, when the places describe different facts or occasions. Keep those associations clear.
What if someone moved?
Update the current address or city information while preserving a past event's location as history.
Choose the question first, then keep the location information that helps answer it. That makes places useful without confusing where someone lives with where you happened to meet.
Start with Dextr
Remember the people, places, and occasions that connect them with Dextr. Install Dextr from the App Store.