# Probe existing email contacts upon installation for easy onboarding **URL:** \ **Category:** Feature Proposal\ **Tags:** open-standards\ **Created:** [February 3, 2026, 5:12pm UTC](https://forum.delta.chat/t/probe-existing-email-contacts-upon-installation-for-easy-onboarding/4677 "2026-02-03T17:12:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![ian](https://forum.delta.chat/user_avatar/forum.delta.chat/ian/32/3164_2.png) [@ian](https://forum.delta.chat/u/ian)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2026, 5:12pm UTC](https://forum.delta.chat/t/probe-existing-email-contacts-upon-installation-for-easy-onboarding/4677/1 "2026-02-03T17:12:58Z")
- A user would install DC - On first start, DC would scan for email addresses (along with fingerprints and public keys) in the device address book, the IMAP folder of the DC accounts of the user and possible further “external” IMAP accounts (not otherwise added to DC). If any entry has an email address not known to DC, DC would send a probe email to it. - If DC on the other side accepts this contact and proceeds with encrypted communication, extend the device address book entry with the public key and connect it to the contact profile within DC (a separate feature request?) - Otherwise mark this contact as ignored - Such a scan may be repeated periodically The following issue asked for something similar, but it was marked as solved without fixing the main request: > [@Propose contacts in the first installation](https://support.delta.chat/t/propose-contacts-in-the-first-installation/1180): > > I think it would be very comfortable, more social and intuitive, if in the first installation. Delta would scan the sent folder and automatically add some email addresses to the delta contacts, (at least the most recent ones) in this way the new users would already have something to do ---
**Author:** ![ian](https://forum.delta.chat/user_avatar/forum.delta.chat/ian/32/3164_2.png) [@ian](https://forum.delta.chat/u/ian)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2026, 5:25pm UTC](https://forum.delta.chat/t/probe-existing-email-contacts-upon-installation-for-easy-onboarding/4677/2 "2026-02-03T17:25:04Z")
Further contact list integration, sync, import and export related issues: > [@OS contacts integration](https://support.delta.chat/t/os-contacts-integration/1110): > > Expected behavior It would be great if delta chat would integrate with native addressbook on the system because: It could pick profile pictures that are already there. It could recognize messages from the same people even when they respond with different emails. Actual behavior At the moment it does not appear that native address book is used at all. So every correspondent appears as circle with initials. Even better if public keys could be stored in corresponding address books so other apps… > [@How to make Deltachat use phone contact?](https://support.delta.chat/t/how-to-make-deltachat-use-phone-contact/1640): > > Currently it display all email addresses I used to send and receive. How to make it use only my phone contact? Delta Chat version 1.14.5 Expected behavior Deltachat should access and use contact from phone. Actual behavior Deltachat currently compiles contact from all email addresses that I use to send and receive from my account. Steps to reproduce the problem Setup and use Deltachat normally Screen snapshots > [@Using/importing contacts on desktop program](https://support.delta.chat/t/using-importing-contacts-on-desktop-program/368): > > Hi, I think it would be very nice to use the CardDAV address book of your mail provider in Delta Chat. In the current state you have to type in the mail address and name, if you want to chat with someone. Those information are already in my CardDAV address book slight_smile What do you think? > [@Android: Open Contacts Integration](https://support.delta.chat/t/android-open-contacts-integration/878): > > Some people use a separate address-book app on android to keep their real contact list away from apps like facebook or whatsapp. One of this app is OpenContacts([F-Droid](https://f-droid.org/en/packages/opencontacts.open.com.opencontacts/)|[sourcecode](https://gitlab.com/sultanahamer/OpenContacts)). This would require a bit of collaboration with OpenContacts on a feature to expose api for getting access to the contacts: [https://gitlab.com/sultanahamer/OpenContacts/-/issues/77](https://gitlab.com/sultanahamer/OpenContacts/-/issues/77) I believe having an address book where you can specify what app is allowed to access which fields on the contact is usefull. You could e… > [@Contacts management](https://support.delta.chat/t/contacts-management/1948): > > Delta Chat imports correctly the contacts but it’s impossible to export or manage them. Expected behavior Edit the contacts, export vCard Actual behavior Contacts can’t be edited (the address, contact name only is possible) and can’t be exported as vCard > [@Easy identification of Delta Chat contacts and phone contacts](https://support.delta.chat/t/easy-identification-of-delta-chat-contacts-and-phone-contacts/181): > > Users can’t not differentiate easily between DC contacts and phone contacts, perhaps showing a little badge with a delta sign or another visual clue for the users would help them identify the contact type. I propose something like this: Expected behavior Users can easily know which contact are created on DC only and which are phone contacts. Actual behavior All contacts look the same, users can’t know if a given contact is in DC database or in the phone database… > [@Kontakte Android](https://support.delta.chat/t/kontakte-android/1539): > > Hallo, ich bin ein Neuling hier. Mir gefällt [Delta.Chat](http://Delta.Chat) App ausgezeichnet. Meine Frage bezieht sich auf die Android-Version. Auf meinem Smartphone habe ich Kontakte hinterlegt, die nur im Gerätespeicher (vcf-Format) sind und bewusst nicht mit Google syncronisiert werden sollen. Gibt es eine Möglichkeit (oder ist sie geplant) das Deltachat die Adressen aus einem “Ordner meiner Wahl” bezieht? Wäre ein coole Sicherheitsoption > [@Contact names from address book](https://support.delta.chat/t/contact-names-from-address-book/1749): > > I would like to have the option to choose the source for displayed contact names. Currently, only nicknames given in the DC client are used, with a fallback to the name provided with the mail by the sender. However, the highest priority for me (and I assume many others) would be to use the name saved in my device’s address book. I would propose to add a tier in between, resulting in the following order to determine the displayed name: Nickname given in the DC client (no change) Name associate… > [@Contacts management](https://support.delta.chat/t/contacts-management/1948): > > Delta Chat imports correctly the contacts but it’s impossible to export or manage them. Expected behavior Edit the contacts, export vCard Actual behavior Contacts can’t be edited (the address, contact name only is possible) and can’t be exported as vCard > [@Favourite contacts](https://support.delta.chat/t/favourite-contacts/213): > > Make possible to favourite contacts will allow users to easily identify they real contacts from contacts automatically added from a group, or that users don’t use to talk to. Favourite contacts will be shown at the top of the list in the contacts list. Initially all contacts in the phone’s contacts will be marked as favourite. > [@Better contact handling](https://support.delta.chat/t/better-contact-handling/705): > > It’s a bit difficult (if not extremely tedious), when we change accounts in DC, export our contacts Expected behavior We are able to send more than one contact info at the same time (if not all), with the possibility to export it as vCard (or any other format) too. Actual behavior afaik current method (as of DC v1.0.0) is to send a message to the recipient with contact name and a clickable email > [@Add contact as vCard](https://support.delta.chat/t/add-contact-as-vcard/277): > > If I tab the attache button “contact” it would be nice if I could choose a contact from system contact App (address book) as vCard. Currently is only a mailaddress. ---
**Author:** ![link2xt](https://forum.delta.chat/user_avatar/forum.delta.chat/link2xt/32/1971_2.png) [@link2xt](https://forum.delta.chat/u/link2xt)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2026, 6:15pm UTC](https://forum.delta.chat/t/probe-existing-email-contacts-upon-installation-for-easy-onboarding/4677/3 "2026-02-03T18:15:38Z")
We had this feature for scanning fro the IMAP folder before, but it was just removed: > > > This can only result in adding unencrypted email-contacts and we do not want to …encourage creating unencrypted chats. There are practically no public keys sent unencrypted in the latest versions of DC, so you will not be able to collect anything other than email addresses this way. > [@ian](#): > > If any entry has an email address not known to DC, DC would send a probe email to it. This will just spam all non-DC users with probe emails asking to send back the key. We also normally don’t reply back automatically to anything. During SecureJoin we reply, but only if a known “invite code” from the scanned QR code is sent. ---
**Author:** ![ian](https://forum.delta.chat/user_avatar/forum.delta.chat/ian/32/3164_2.png) [@ian](https://forum.delta.chat/u/ian)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2026, 6:38pm UTC](https://forum.delta.chat/t/probe-existing-email-contacts-upon-installation-for-easy-onboarding/4677/4 "2026-02-03T18:38:00Z")
Note that the account of the existing phone and IMAP contacts may support one or more of the following (list based on what gpg can probe automatically for new contacts): - Autocrypt - WKD - [HKPS](https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-gallagher-openpgp-hkp-04.html) - DNS CERT of [RFC-4398](https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc4398) - DANE PKA of [RFC-7929](https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc7929) - [LDAP](https://wiki.gnupg.org/LDAPKeyserver) NTDS through DNS Service Discovery or Active Directory Autocrypt headers and public key attachments could also be scraped from the IMAP inbox without requiring to send a new ping mail. A DC user may also have the choice to submit their key to HKPS hosts. They may additionally set the above domain records if they are self-hosting their email. Given how often such requests are raised on the forum (many linked), are you sure dismissing it immediately is the best course of action? ---
**Author:** ![ian](https://forum.delta.chat/user_avatar/forum.delta.chat/ian/32/3164_2.png) [@ian](https://forum.delta.chat/u/ian)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2026, 7:32pm UTC](https://forum.delta.chat/t/probe-existing-email-contacts-upon-installation-for-easy-onboarding/4677/5 "2026-02-03T19:32:40Z")
At the same time, the feature of notifying your email contacts who you could not upgrade about you joining DC and telling them how to encrypt your connection could also be useful to some. Many messaging apps and social networking services supported such a feature in the past. The key here is to skip those who you have already contacted about this or have already added. DC should also pop up a list of checkboxes for each proposed person, so the user could confirm each before sending a ping. ---
**Author:** ![irvan-putra](https://forum.delta.chat/user_avatar/forum.delta.chat/irvan-putra/32/2473_2.png) [@irvan-putra](https://forum.delta.chat/u/irvan-putra)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2026, 7:41pm UTC](https://forum.delta.chat/t/probe-existing-email-contacts-upon-installation-for-easy-onboarding/4677/6 "2026-02-03T19:41:33Z")
I think most of the proposals have outdated assumption about how DeltaChat works, i also just realized it with the closing of WKD topic, that DeltaChat won’t publish the public keys: > [@The life-changing magic of WKD](https://support.delta.chat/t/the-life-changing-magic-of-wkd/2258/72): > > anyways, this seems to be diverging a lot from the initial topic, so let’s resume the answer to the initial question and close it, if something different needs to be discussed or problems reported, better create new on-point threads: it is unlikely we ever support WKD, we don’t want people to discover public keys, that is in direct contradiction with the anti-spam protection of open-registration email servers (a.k.a chatmail) So with that, we won’t realize if that contact actually use DeltaChat. I think at this point, if DeltaChat still support sending email to classic-email (see [FAQ - Delta Chat](https://delta.chat/en/help#classic-email) ), we can just auto generate an invite link to chatmail in the footer of the email, so the other party will realize that they can continue the conversation at DeltaChat. So with that, side-stepping the possible spamming if we just automate the probing. ---
**Author:** ![ian](https://forum.delta.chat/user_avatar/forum.delta.chat/ian/32/3164_2.png) [@ian](https://forum.delta.chat/u/ian)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2026, 8:08pm UTC](https://forum.delta.chat/t/probe-existing-email-contacts-upon-installation-for-easy-onboarding/4677/7 "2026-02-03T20:08:44Z")
Note that the WKD topic contained too many off topic messages, and the closing reason mentioned that chatmail is not planned to support WKD right now. However, the other aspect was not addressed there: adding support for looking up WKD of a new contact (i.e., when the other peer is not on chatmail/DC)! ---
**Author:** ![steko](https://forum.delta.chat/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/c77e96/32.png) [@steko](https://forum.delta.chat/u/steko)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2026, 7:16am UTC](https://forum.delta.chat/t/probe-existing-email-contacts-upon-installation-for-easy-onboarding/4677/8 "2026-02-04T07:16:33Z")
Thank you for removing any feature where DC would need to interact with the phone contact list ❤ ---
**Author:** ![ian](https://forum.delta.chat/user_avatar/forum.delta.chat/ian/32/3164_2.png) [@ian](https://forum.delta.chat/u/ian)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2026, 10:42am UTC](https://forum.delta.chat/t/probe-existing-email-contacts-upon-installation-for-easy-onboarding/4677/9 "2026-02-04T10:42:07Z")
The linked issue was about IMAP, not the phone contact list. ---
**Author:** ![Minim](https://forum.delta.chat/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/ccd318/32.png) [@Minim](https://forum.delta.chat/u/Minim)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2026, 4:13pm UTC](https://forum.delta.chat/t/probe-existing-email-contacts-upon-installation-for-easy-onboarding/4677/10 "2026-02-12T16:13:22Z")
I would not want automated probing, but most Linux mailclients will talk to a keyring. DC will allow me to import public keys/contacts from my keyring only if I export them all as flat .asc files first. [Keyrings are currently in a state of upheaval](https://www.latacora.com/blog/2019/07/16/the-pgp-problem/), but once that has settled down a bit integration would be convenient, and would make DC less walled.