Circles are how you group people in Longtime. You write the labels, choose how they look, and put anyone in as many as you like.

Circles are labels you write yourself, and what they mean is entirely up to you. A new Space starts with a few common ones — Family, Close Friend, Childhood, High School, College, Friend, Professional and Social — to save you some typing. Keep them, rename them or delete them; nothing depends on them.

Making a circle

Circles live on the Personalization page — the gear icon at the top of the page. Add a circle, give it a name and a color, and check the preview badge. The same place lets you rename, recolor or delete a circle.

You can also make one in passing. Tell the interview "she's part of my running group", and if there is no such circle yet it asks whether to make one. Say yes, and the row is marked "new" and the circle is made when you save.

Names that tend to work are the ones you would use out loud — "School friends", "Book club", "Dad's side" — rather than the ones a system would pick, like "Tier 2" or "Personal – High".

Putting people in circles

Say it in the interview — "add Sam to Book club" — and Longtime adds them. Circles are added through the interview or an import; there is no picker on the person's page. A person's circles show as colored badges on their card and page.

To take someone out of a circle, use the × on that circle's badge on their page. They leave just that circle; the circle and everyone else in it stay.

People can be in more than one

A person is not filed into a single circle. Someone can be in "Book club" and "Neighbors" and "Ran the marathon with" all at once, and adding them to a new circle never takes them out of another.

This matters more than it sounds. The moment a grouping is exclusive you start making decisions about which single label someone belongs under, and the answer is usually that they belong under several.

What circles are good for

Circles do two jobs.

The first is finding people. Search for "everyone in Book club", or name two circles — "Book club or Neighbors" — and choose whether someone must be in all of them or in any. See Searching.

The second is acting on a group. Save a circle search as a Pool — "everyone in my Family circle" — and you can export just those people as a file, ready for the holiday cards.

Circles are not permissions

A circle changes what you see and what a search matches. It does not restrict anything, and it has no effect on what a Flash Bridge shows — that is chosen per link.

Deleting a circle

Deleting a circle removes the label, not the people in it. A Pool whose search used that circle says so, so you can adjust it.

A note on how many

There is no limit, but there is a practical ceiling. Circles are useful while you can hold them in your head; past a couple of dozen, finding the right circle becomes its own chore and you are better served by searching.

If you find yourself making a circle to hold one person, the thing you wanted is usually their About field — edit their details from the ⋮ menu on their page — or a note.