Media sharing using contact data involves identifying contact records on a personal electronic device of a user. Each of the contact records includes a contact address of a person associated with the respective contact record. The contact records are communicated to a media sharing service via a network. Media items of the user are sent to the sharing service. One or more of the contact records are associated with each of the media items. A notification is sent to the persons associated with the one or more contact records. The notification describes sharing of the media items associated with the contact records. The sharing service facilitates access to the media items by the persons associated with the contact records in response to the persons receiving the notification.