Help & FAQ

Getting better recognition

When text does not come out right, it is almost always about how the photo was taken rather than the card itself.

• Fill the frame with the card — the more desk you capture, the smaller the text becomes
• Shoot straight down. Angled shots stretch the text near the edges
• Avoid shadows, especially your own hand or phone falling across the card
• For glossy cards, tilt slightly so the light does not reflect into the lens
• If the back has information too, use "Add another side"

Anything still read incorrectly can be fixed on the confirmation screen, and your correction is what gets saved.

You can also import from your photo album — useful for cards you already photographed, or card data you received as a PDF.

When the same person appears twice

If an email address or phone number matches a card you already have, we ask before saving whether you want to merge.

1. 01Merge into this cardKeeps one card. Your tags, notes and contact history stay, and the newly captured side is added as another image. This is what you want when someone’s title has changed.
2. 02Save as a separate cardKeeps both. Choose this when it genuinely is a different person with the same name.

Saving separately also creates a second entry with the same name in your phone contacts. If it is the same person, merging is the better choice.

About items marked "Check"

Fields the scanner wasn't fully sure about get a "Check" badge. You can still save the card as is, but it's worth a quick look before the value gets exported to your contacts.

1. 01Wrong value: just fix itTap the field and correct it — the badge clears automatically. What you type by hand always wins.
2. 02Value is right: tap the badgeTap the "Check" badge and choose "Mark as checked". Tapped by mistake? Undo it right there.

The "Check" filter on the home screen shows only cards that still carry this badge. Once everything is confirmed, the card leaves the filter too.

About AI refinement limits

Scanning happens entirely on your device and is not limited. There is no cap on how many cards you scan or store.

The limit applies only to AI refinement — re-reading a card that on-device recognition struggles with (heavily designed, handwritten, or mixing several languages) at higher accuracy. That step uses an external AI, which is what costs money.

• Free: 3 cards per month
• Plus: 300 cards per month
• Pro: 1,000 cards per month

Running out changes nothing about scanning, saving or exporting. You can always correct the result by hand.

Where your exported data goes

Your card data lives on your device. Scanned cards reach our servers only when you authorise it (cloud sync / AI connection — off by default).

Every export destination is somewhere you own:

• Your phone contacts (usable from any other app)
• Your photo library (the card images themselves)
• vCard / CSV / Excel files — usable for moving to any other service
• Salesforce / HubSpot formatted CSV
• Your own Google Drive (backup)

Turn on "Two-way sync with device contacts" and merging and deleting follow along too: deleting a card also removes the matching person from your phone contacts. Leave it off and Meishitto never touches your existing contacts.

If you ever stop using this app, your data stays with you. That is deliberate.

Let your AI read your card library (MCP)

Connect your card library to any AI app or CLI that supports MCP custom connectors. Claude is the client we have verified. It can then answer questions like “Who in my cards works in logistics?” using your own data. Turning this on stores a copy of your library on Meishitto’s servers. Disconnect anytime — the copy is deleted. Cloud connection is a Plus / Pro feature (active while your subscription lasts; the computer-only path below is free).

1. 01Start the connection in the appSettings → “Connect your AI” → “Start connecting”. Review and agree, and your connector URL appears.
2. 02Paste the URL into your AI clientIn Claude: Settings → Connectors → “Add custom connector”. Type meishitto in the Name field (your AI recognizes it by this name), and paste the URL you copied from the app into the URL field (phone or desktop).
3. 03Ask away“Who in my cards works in …?” “Who haven’t I contacted in 3 months?” — answered from your own cards.

First thing to ask once connected: “Is meishitto connected? What can you do?” — if the AI walks you through its features, you're all set.

Your AI may ask “Allow this tool?” before using one. A quick guide:

• search_cards / get_card / list_recent / list_dormant / check_status — read-only, cannot change anything. Safe to set “Always allow”
• export_vcard — also read-only, but the AI can pass its output elsewhere. Keep per-call approval if that concerns you
• propose_card_edit / propose_tags — the AI only files a proposal; nothing changes until you approve it in the app (unless you turned on auto-apply in Settings)
• propose_card_delete — proposes deleting a card. Approving this cannot be undone. The app asks you to confirm a second time, but keeping per-call approval here is wise

• The tool doesn’t appear → reload or restart the client after adding the connector
• Newly scanned cards don’t show → tap “Update data” on the app’s connection screen (no auto-sync yet)
• Worried the URL leaked → “Re-issue URL” invalidates the old one immediately
• Want out → “Disconnect” deletes the server copy on the spot

The AI cannot edit your cards directly. Corrections, tags and deletions arrive as proposals, and nothing changes until you approve them in the app (unless you switch on “Apply AI suggestions automatically” in Settings). When you ask your AI a question, the relevant card contents are sent to the AI service you chose.

Prefer not to store anything on our servers? There is a computer-only path: Settings → “Export everything” → “AI assistant data (JSON)”, then on a computer with Node.js paste the config below into your AI client (your data never leaves that computer).

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "meishitto": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["meishitto-mcp", "--file", "/Users/<you>/Meishitto/meishitto-export.v1.json"]
    }
  }
}

Whether to turn on cloud sync

It is off by default. With it off, scanning, saving and exporting all work exactly as before. Turning it on stores a copy of your card library on Meishitto’s servers so your AI connector can read the current contents. It is a Plus / Pro feature.

• What syncs is the text on your cards — names, companies, contact details, tags and notes
• Card images do not sync. They stay on your device and wherever you chose to back them up
• While it is on, syncing is automatic. You never need to press “update”

You can turn it off any time from Settings → “Cloud sync”. The copy on our servers is deleted right then, and your AI connection is disconnected at the same time. The cards on your device are not touched — only the server copy goes.

While it is off, the app makes no network requests at all for this feature.

Sharing your own card by QR

MyCard is your own digital business card. Let someone scan the QR code and they have your details, with no paper card needed.

1. 01Create your MyCardFrom the MyCard tab, enter your name, company and contact details.
2. 02Choose what is publicEach field can be public or private. Leave anything you would rather not share locked.
3. 03Show the QRMost phone cameras read it directly — the other person does not need Meishitto.

If they do use Meishitto, updating your title or contact details can notify them that your card changed. Notifications are optional.

Create an email signature

Meishitto can turn your MyCard into an email signature — name, company, contact details and links — and copy it for you. Paste it into your mail app's signature box and you're done.

1. 01Open MyCardOn the MyCard tab, tap "Copy email signature".
2. 02Paste into your mail appPaste into the signature field of Gmail or any mail app. Bold text and links carry over.

Only fields you've made public go into the signature. Locked phone numbers or email addresses are never included — adjust with the public toggles on the edit screen.

Putting your QR on the home or lock screen

Add your MyCard QR as a widget and you can show it on the spot without opening the app.

1. 01Set up MyCard firstCreate your MyCard and turn on at least one public field. Until you do, the widget says there is nothing to show.
2. 02Add it to the home screenOn iPhone, long-press the home screen → “+” → Meishitto. On Android, long-press the home screen → “Widgets” → Meishitto.
3. 03Lock screen too (iPhone)Long-press the lock screen → “Customize” → add a widget. There is a circular one and a wide one.

You can also keep your MyCard in your phone’s wallet: Apple Wallet on iPhone, Google Wallet on Android (app 1.10.0 or later) — both from the add button on the MyCard screen. From the wallet you can show the QR without opening the app; in Apple Wallet it also works in airplane mode and where there is no signal.

The QR only contains the fields you marked public. Locked fields are never included. Delete your MyCard and the widget QR disappears with it.

Letting your contacts help you find someone (Business Chain)

Ask your AI something like “does anyone I know work in hardware?” and the question reaches only the people in your own card library who have switched this feature on themselves. All they do is choose “I can help” or “not this time”.

1. 01Turn it on for yourselfSettings → “Business Chain”. Only people who turn it on receive questions. It is off by default.
2. 02Ask your AITell your connected AI who you are looking for, in ordinary words. There is no form to fill in.
3. 03They chooseYou hear back only when someone chooses “I can help”. If they pass, nothing appears on your side — you do not learn who passed.

• Our servers never read your card library. Matching happens between codes you registered yourself, in a form that cannot be turned back into the original
• All the other person sees is your name and the question you wrote
• Their contact details are never handed to you automatically. That stays their decision
• The introduction itself — the call, the meeting — is not something this feature does

Your question is delivered as a push notification, so it passes through the notification provider. While the feature is off you neither send nor receive anything through it.

Moving in from another business card app

If you were using a different business card app, you can bring your cards over as a file. There is no need to photograph them all again.

1. 01Export from your old appLook for “Export”, “Download” or “Backup” in its settings or menu. If it lets you pick a format, vCard (.vcf) keeps the most information.
2. 02Get the file onto this deviceEmail it to yourself, AirDrop it, or put it in a cloud drive — whatever you normally do.
3. 03Import it hereCard box → menu at the top right → “Import from a contacts file (.vcf / .csv / .xlsx)”. You can review what will be added before it happens.

• vCard (.vcf) — name, company, department, title, phone, email, address. If the file carries card images, those come across too
• CSV (.csv) — the column mapping is shown on screen, so you can correct it if it guessed wrong
• Excel (.xlsx) — same as above

Duplicates are detected as you import, so the same person does not end up twice — you choose whether to merge into the existing card or keep it separate. / Exporting from this app is free and unlimited. Once you have moved in, you can always take your data back out again. / You can also pick people straight from your device contacts (Settings → “Import from contacts”, version 1.7.0 and later).

How do my cards come back after I change devices?

Sign in with the same account and your cards come back automatically. We read them back from your own Google Drive (or iCloud), so this works on the free plan too.

1. 01Install the app on the new deviceGet it from the store and open it.
2. 02Sign in with the same accountChoose the same Google or Apple account as on your old device.
3. 03Just waitProgress appears on the home screen. Fields come back first; images catch up one by one.

• Are you signed in with the same account as before? (A different account only restores that account's cards.)
• Did you move or delete the Meishitto folder in your cloud? (This app can only see files it created itself.)
• If you signed in with Apple before 1.6.1, only images come back and fields are empty (they are re-read automatically).
• You can run it manually any time from Settings → Restore from the cloud.

Restoring from your own cloud works on the free plan. Paid plans add an encrypted backup on our servers that you can also restore from.

Automatic backup is on from the start. You can turn it off in Settings at any time.

Closing your account and deleting data

Settings, then "Delete account", closes your account at any time. Everything held on our servers (account, subscription state, notification preferences) is deleted.

Card data on your device goes away when you delete the app. Export first if you want to keep it.

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