iMessage Desktop Extension: search_contacts times out with large contact databases

[alexwb72]

Summary: The search_contacts tool in the verified iMessage extension hangs indefinitely and times out after 4 minutes for users with large contact lists.

Environment:
Claude Desktop (latest)
macOS
Verified iMessage extension from the Extensions directory
Contact database size: ~10,000 contacts

Steps to reproduce:
Install the iMessage extension
Have a large Contacts database (10,000+ contacts)
Ask Claude to search for a contact

Expected behavior: Search returns results within a few seconds

Actual behavior: Request times out after 4 minutes with MCP error -32001

Root cause: The AppleScript in server/index.js (line ~643) iterates through every contact with a repeat with p in every person loop and performs string comparisons. This is O(n) and extremely slow for large databases.

Log evidence:
2026-01-02T22:57:54.949Z [Read and Send iMessages] [info] Message from client: {"method":"tools/call","params":{"name":"search_contacts","arguments":{"query":"John"}},...}
2026-01-02T23:01:54.954Z [Read and Send iMessages] [info] Message from client: {"jsonrpc":"2.0","method":"notifications/cancelled","params":{"requestId":16,"reason":"McpError: MCP error -32001: Request timed out"}}

Suggested fix: Replace the loop-based search with Contacts' native whose filter:
applescripttell application "Contacts"
set matchingPeople to every person whose name contains "query"
-- then iterate only over matchingPeople
end tell
This delegates filtering to the Contacts app and is nearly instant regardless of database size.