Working with nylas contacts list: List all contacts from your address book

Source: Dev.to

Overview

Your address book shouldn’t require a web browser to access. nylas contacts list brings it to the terminal.

The nylas contacts list command displays contacts from your connected address book. Use --limit to control how many contacts are returned.

Syntax

nylas contacts list [--limit N] [--json]

Examples

List first 20 contacts

nylas contacts list --limit 20

Export all contacts as JSON

nylas contacts list --json > contacts-backup.json

Count total contacts

nylas contacts list --json | jq length

Tips

• CI/CD ready: This command works in non‑interactive mode. Set NYLAS_API_KEY as an environment variable and it picks up credentials automatically.
• Pipe to jq: nylas contacts list --json | jq '.' gives you structured data you can filter and transform.

How It Works

Contact data spans multiple providers and formats. Google Contacts uses its own People API, Outlook uses Microsoft Graph, and Exchange uses EWS. The CLI gives you a single interface across all of them.