What relationships do
Tags say "this person was at the wedding." Relationships say "this person is married to this other person." They're the connective tissue: friend, colleague, partner, parent, sibling, and dozens more to choose from.
Relationships in betterpal are bidirectional. When you connect Alex to Priya as "colleague," Priya's profile automatically lists Alex as a colleague too. You only enter the link once.
How to add a relationship
- Open one of the two people's profiles.
- Tap the + next to Connections.
- Search for the other person (or create them on the fly).
- Pick a relationship type from the menu.
- Save. Both profiles are now linked.
The relationship types
betterpal offers a big menu of relationship types, grouped so the right one is easy to find. The label flows the way you'd say it: "Maya Chen is Sam Rivera's colleague."
- Social - friend, colleague, mentor, mentee.
- Romantic - spouse, partner, ex-spouse, ex-partner.
- Family - parent, mother, father, child, son, daughter, sibling, brother, sister.
- Extended - grandparent, grandchild, aunt, uncle, cousin, niece, nephew.
- Step family - step-parent, step-child, step-sibling, and the rest.
- Professional - manager, direct report, assistant, teacher, student, coach, and more.
Between Social, Romantic, Family, Extended, Step family, and Professional, there's almost always a built-in type that fits, including gendered options (mother/father, brother/sister) that help betterpal lay out the family tree correctly.
Professional links aren't just labels. Add a manager or direct report and that person slots into the family-tree view exactly like a parent or child would: a manager sits one level up, a report one level below. The result is an org chart you can read at a glance, right alongside your family trees.
Smart Connections
Once you've linked a few people, betterpal can work out relationships you haven't entered yet. Smart Connections reads the links you already have and suggests the ones that logically follow. Record that your mum has a brother named Tom, and betterpal will suggest that Tom is your uncle. You never typed that link; it was implied by the two you did.
Where to find it
- Open the Extras (···) tab and tap Smart Connections.
- When there are new suggestions, a banner also appears at the top of your Pals list: "3 recommended connections - Tap to review & connect." Tap it to jump straight in, or dismiss it.
- It also lives under Settings · Smart Connections, with a badge showing how many suggestions are waiting.
What it figures out
Smart Connections works on family structure. From the parent, child, sibling, and partner links you've recorded, it infers the relationships those imply:
- Grandparents and grandchildren - your parent's parent.
- Siblings - two people who share a parent.
- Aunts and uncles - a parent's sibling.
- Nieces and nephews - a sibling's child.
- Cousins, and step-relations through partners.
Each suggestion comes with a plain-language reason ("Both are children of Maria") so you can see why it was proposed before you accept.
Reviewing suggestions
Suggestions are stacked as cards, one relationship each:
- Swipe right to connect. The relationship is added to both people.
- Swipe left to skip. It's set aside; skipped suggestions stay in a "Skipped" list you can revisit, so nothing is lost.
- Tap a name or a label to open the person or change the relationship type before accepting.
- Connect all accepts every current suggestion at once.
Nothing is changed until you accept it. Smart Connections only ever proposes; you decide what becomes a real link. And because relationships are bidirectional, accepting one suggestion updates both profiles.
See it in the Network view
Relationships really come alive in the Network tab: an interactive, node-based map of everyone you know, with lines for relationships and clusters for shared tags. You can tune the layout, size nodes by importance or upcoming birthdays, and switch on a family-tree mode. It has its own full guide.
The graph is the only view that exposes connections you didn't put there directly. If three people share the same two tags, they cluster together, even if you never linked them. That clustering frequently jogs memory: you'll spot a connection you'd forgotten and add a real relationship for it.
Practical examples
"How do I know this person again?"
Open their profile, scroll to relationships. Often the relationship label tells you instantly: "met through Sam." If not, the tags will.
Planning a party
Filter by the tag for the group, switch to Network view, and you can see who already knows whom. Useful for table assignments, intros, and noticing that two friends would actually hit it off.
After a conference
Tag everyone you met with the conference name. A week later, open the Network view filtered to that tag. You'll see clusters reflecting the booths, talks, or dinners where you met them. It's a visual prompt for follow-up.
Common questions
Can I make my own relationship types?
Not yet - relationships are chosen from betterpal's built-in menu rather than free-typed. That menu is deliberately large, though, spanning social, romantic, family, extended, step-family, and professional types (dozens in all), so there's almost always one that fits. Custom relationship types are on the list of things we're considering.
How do I remove a relationship?
Open either person, tap the relationship, and remove it. Because links are bidirectional, removing it from one side removes it from both.
Does the graph work offline?
Yes. The whole app works offline. Data lives on your iPhone, and the graph renders on-device.
Next up
Once you have a few relationships in place, the next natural step is making sure you remember to actually see these people: birthdays and reminders.