# People profiles for everyone you meet > NoteOwl's People screen keeps a profile for everyone in your conversations, with their details, a relationship summary, your private notes and a timeline. Source: https://www.noteowl.ai/docs/memory/people · Last updated 2026-09-27 · Checked against NoteOwl 1.0.0 NoteOwl's **People** screen keeps a profile for everyone who comes up in your conversations: their company and title, a short relationship summary, your private notes, what's still open between you, and the conversations they appeared in. NoteOwl builds the profiles on your Mac, and you can edit any of it. People is part of NoteOwl Pro, which you can try free for 7 days: see [start the 7-day NoteOwl Pro trial](https://www.noteowl.ai/docs/pro/free-trial). To open it, click **People** in the sidebar. ![A NoteOwl People profile for Daniel Okafor, Head of Product at Ferncastle Bank, with rows for company, title, phone, relationship, a recognised voice with a Forget button and a nickname, then the start of a relationship summary marked Out of date with Refresh](https://www.noteowl.ai/product/04-person-profile.webp) ## Where do the people in NoteOwl come from? From your conversations. When NoteOwl processes a meeting, an imported recording or a note, it adds the people named in it to **People**. You can also add someone yourself. A profile added in the last seven days is marked **NEW**. The list shows how many people you have. To find someone, type in **Search people** at the top of the list: it matches names, nicknames, companies and titles. ## What's in a person's profile? Their details at the top, then what NoteOwl knows about them from your conversations. | Part of the profile | What it holds | | --------------------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | **Company**, **Title** and **Phone** | Filled in from your Contacts if you allow it, or typed by you. Click a row to edit it, press Return to save, or Esc to cancel | | **Relationship** | Choose **Client**, **Colleague**, **Partner**, **External**, **Family**, **Friend** or **Other**, or **Custom…** to type your own | | **Voice** | **Recognized** when NoteOwl can put this person's name on their voice in meetings, or **Not learned yet** | | **Also known as** | Other names they go by, such as a nickname. NoteOwl uses them to match this person in your conversations | | **Relationship summary** | A few sentences NoteOwl writes on your Mac about where things stand with them | | **Your notes** | Your own private notes. Press Return for a new line, and type "- " for a bulleted list | | **Last met**, **Meetings** and **Open commitments** | When you last had a meeting with them, how many meetings they were in, and how many promises are open between you | | **Open** | What you owe them, marked **OWE**, and what they owe you, marked **OWED**. Tick one to mark it done, or click it to edit it | | **Timeline** | The last eight conversations they came up in, newest first. Click one to open it at the passage | **Meetings** and **Last met** count only meetings. A dictation about someone, or a file you imported, appears in their **Timeline** but isn't counted as meeting them. ## How does NoteOwl fill in company, title and phone? From your Contacts, if you allow it. NoteOwl matches a person to a contact with the same full name, or the same first name when only one contact has it, and copies the company, job title and first phone number. It never changes your contacts. Anything you type in a profile wins over your contacts, and a field you clear stays empty. NoteOwl asks for Contacts only when you click **Grant** beside **Contacts** in **Settings → General**: see [the Calendar or Contacts prompt doesn't appear](https://www.noteowl.ai/docs/troubleshooting/calendar-or-contacts-prompt). ## How is the relationship summary written? NoteOwl writes it on your Mac the first time you open a person, from what was said in your conversations. When newer conversations change the picture, it says **Out of date**: click **Refresh** to write it again. If you edit the summary yourself, NoteOwl never replaces your words. While NoteOwl writes, the summary says **Writing…**. A summary you edited is marked **Written by you**. Use the buttons beside **Relationship summary** to copy it, ask for changes or edit it. ## Add a person 1. Click **People** in the sidebar. 2. Click **+** at the top of the list. 3. In **Add Person**, type their name in **Name**. Optionally, add a role in **Role (optional) — e.g. Acme · Client**. 4. Click **Add**. The new profile opens, ready for you to fill in their details. ## Edit, merge or remove a person Click **⋯** at the top right of a profile to change the person as a whole. * **Edit…** changes their name, role and private notes. Click **Save**. * **Merge into…** combines two profiles for the same person, such as "Dan" and "Daniel Okafor". Choose the profile to keep, then click **Merge**. Their history, commitments and notes combine, and this can't be undone. * **Remove profile…** deletes the profile. Click **Remove profile** to confirm. Removing a profile deletes their profile, your private notes about them, their relationship summary, contact details and learned voice. Your conversations and the action items that mention them are kept. If a future conversation names them, NoteOwl can add them again. This can't be undone. ## How do I stop NoteOwl recognising someone's voice? Click **Forget** in their **Voice** row. NoteOwl deletes only the voice it learned for them, so it stops naming them in new meetings. Their profile, your notes and their name on earlier transcripts all stay. NoteOwl learns a voice when you name a speaker in a transcript with **Rename speakers**: see [name speakers and recognise voices](https://www.noteowl.ai/docs/meetings/name-speakers). If the **Voice** row says **Needs re-learning**, the voice was learned by an earlier version of NoteOwl. Name the person on a transcript once more and NoteOwl learns it again. ## Common questions ### Are my notes about a person private? Yes. Your notes in a NoteOwl People profile are saved on your Mac and never sent anywhere. They're kept apart from the relationship summary, and NoteOwl never writes over them. ### Does NoteOwl need my Contacts? No. Contacts is optional. Without it, NoteOwl still builds People profiles from your conversations, and you can type a person's company, title and phone yourself. With it, NoteOwl fills those in from matching contacts, on your Mac. ### Will a removed person come back in NoteOwl? They can. Remove profile deletes the profile and what you wrote about them, but if a later meeting or note names them, NoteOwl can add them to People again. ## Related - [Track what you owe and what you're owed](https://www.noteowl.ai/docs/memory/commitments): NoteOwl's Commitments board lists every promise from your meetings and notes, in two columns, I owe and Owed to me, with the most urgent first. - [Name speakers and recognise voices](https://www.noteowl.ai/docs/meetings/name-speakers): NoteOwl separates the voices in a meeting transcript. Name them once with Rename speakers, and NoteOwl can recognise those voices in later meetings. - [What goes into NoteOwl's memory](https://www.noteowl.ai/docs/memory/what-feeds-memory): NoteOwl's memory is built from your meetings, imported recordings and notes you take in NoteOwl. Dictations into other apps stay out unless you turn them on. - [Calendar or Contacts prompt doesn't appear](https://www.noteowl.ai/docs/troubleshooting/calendar-or-contacts-prompt): macOS asks about Calendar or Contacts only when you click Connect or Grant in NoteOwl. If you said no before, turn access on in System Settings instead. Learn more: [People, on the NoteOwl Features page](https://www.noteowl.ai/features/people)