Command

nylas contacts create

Create a new contact in your address book.

Written by Qasim Muhammad Staff SRE

What does nylas contacts create do?

The nylas contacts create command adds a new contact to your connected address book. Specify --first-name and --email at minimum, then optionally add --last-name, --phone, --company, or --job-title for richer records. Works with Google Contacts, Outlook People, Exchange, Yahoo, iCloud, and IMAP providers. Use --json to get the created contact ID back for scripting.

Usage

nylas contacts create --first-name NAME --email EMAIL [--last-name NAME] [--phone PHONE] [--company COMPANY]

Flags

FlagDescription
--jsonOutput as JSON
--no-colorDisable color output
--verbose(-v)Enable verbose output
--configCustom config file path
--help(-h)Show help for the command
--limitLimit results (most list commands)
--yes(-y)Skip confirmations
--first-name(-f)First name
--last-name(-l)Last name
--email(-e)Email address
--phone(-p)Phone number
--company(-c)Company name
--job-title(-j)Job title
--notes(-n)Notes about the contact

Examples

The nylas contacts create command adds a new contact to your connected address book.

Create a basic contact

nylas contacts create --first-name "Alice" --last-name "Johnson" --email alice@example.com

Create contact with full details

nylas contacts create --first-name "Bob" --last-name "Smith" --email bob@acme.com --phone "+1-555-0123" --company "Acme Corp"

Example output

✓ Contact created (contact_abc123)
  Name:    Alice Chen
  Email:   alice@example.com
  Company: Acme Corp

Troubleshooting

Duplicate contact created

The CLI doesn't deduplicate by default. Search first with nylas contacts search --email to check if the contact exists.

Phone number format rejected

Use E.164 format (+1-555-0123) or plain digits. Some providers reject formats with parentheses or dots.

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Run nylas contacts create --help for full help output.