Monica

What it does

Monica is a private address book with a memory. Keep notes about friends and family: how you met, their children's names, their pets, gift ideas, money you lent and what you talked about last time. It emails you before birthdays and other dates, nudges you to stay in touch, and has a journal for your own life. It is for your eyes only, never a social network, and it runs on your own server. The pinned code is Monica 4, the stable version.

• Notes, relationships, pets, gifts, debts and activities for every contact
• Automatic birthday reminders and "stay in touch" nudges by email
• A personal journal with a daily "how was your day"
• Phone sync with CardDAV, vCard import and export, and a full API
• Multiple users and 27 languages

Great for: People who want to be a better friend, partner or relative and keep track of the details of the people in their life.

Make it yours: ideas

Pick an idea to start from, or describe your own.

• Settings, no code Never forget a birthday again “Add my 40 closest friends and family with their birthdays, and email me a week before and on the day.” Start with this idea
• Settings, no code A simpler contact page “The contact page has too many sections. I only want notes, family relationships, reminders and pets.” Start with this idea
• Extend: themes, plugins, API Birthdays in my phone's calendar “I want the people and birthdays in Monica to show up in my iPhone's contacts and calendar automatically.” Start with this idea
• Extend: themes, plugins, API A weekly email of what's coming up “Every Sunday evening, email me a short list of this month's birthdays and reminders from Monica.” Start with this idea
• Code changes A list of people I'm overdue to call “I've set how often I want to be in touch with each person, like every month for Grandma. Add a dashboard tab that lists who I'm overdue to call, most overdue first.” Start with this idea
• Extend: themes, plugins, API A Christmas gift planner “Make one page listing everyone I buy Christmas presents for, with the gift ideas I've saved in Monica, the budget and whether it's bought.” Start with this idea

How easy is it to adapt?

A classic Laravel app. Pages are Blade templates in resources/views/ with Vue 2 components in resources/js/components/. Logic lives in app/Services/, web and API controllers in app/Http/Controllers/, models in app/Models/. Which sections show on a contact page, genders, contact field types, activity types and reminder rules are all settings. Your AI always tries the gentlest step first, so your version stays easy to update.

1. 1

   Settings 6 options

   No code. Change it in the app or its config.

   • Choose which sections appear on a contact page, e.g. hide Debts and Activities, keep Notes and Pets.
   • Make the options fit your family and culture, e.g. add a Signal or WhatsApp field.
   • How many days before a date you get an email, and at what time of day.
   • Get an email when you haven't been in touch with someone for a set number of days.
   • Invite a partner or relative by email. Every user of an account sees all its contacts.
   • Personal display preferences, in 27 languages.
2. 2

   Extend 3 options

   Themes, plugins, webhooks and the API. Still no fork.

   • Bring in contacts from your phone or another app, and take everything out again.
   • Sync contacts and birthdays with your phone's address book and calendar.
   • Read and write contacts, notes, calls, reminders, gifts, debts, tasks, journal entries and more from scripts or other apps.
3. 3

   Code 3 options

   Your AI edits the source for anything else.

   • New sections or behaviour on a contact page.
   • New dashboard tabs, lists or journal features.
   • Wording and the look of reminder emails.

Can I trust it?

• AGPL-3.0-or-later. Free to use and change. If you run a changed version that other people use over the internet (not just you or your household), you must offer them your source code under the same licence. Private use has no extra obligations.
• Your data: stores personal data, on your own device or server. A MySQL or MariaDB database plus uploaded photos and documents in storage/ (the monica-data volume in Docker).
• Other services: Email (SMTP) (optional, free with most providers); LocationIQ (optional, free tier); WeatherAPI (optional, free tier); Amazon S3 or compatible storage (optional, pay-per-use)
• Pinned version 32028ce. Every handover uses exactly this code, which we've reviewed.
• Monica holds private details about other people. Keep it on your own server, use HTTPS, and set APP_DISABLE_SIGNUP=true.
• Change the default database password ('secret') before real use.
• Back up before every update, and run php artisan monica:update afterwards.
• Never paste APP_KEY, the database or mail passwords, or API tokens into an AI chat.

Did it work for people?

Tell us how it went

For your AI

The project pack has the pinned version, how to run it, and where to customise it. Your prompt links to it automatically.

https://handoff.bespokeai.software/p/monica/32028ce/pack.md

More for people & community

Rallly

Find a date that suits everyone, without a long chain of emails.

People & community