diff --git a/addressbook/merge.php b/addressbook/merge.php
index 4549fdb3d1..54f9f31885 100644
--- a/addressbook/merge.php
+++ b/addressbook/merge.php
@@ -4,6 +4,13 @@
  *
  * Usage: curl --user $username[:$passwd] -L https://domain.com/egroupware/addressbook/merge.php?path=/templates/addressbook/document.txt&ids=123
  *
+ * Supported GET parameters:
+ * - path: full VFS path of document to merge
+ * - ids: one or more id(s): ids[]=123&ids[]=456
+ * - search: search criteria or array with field specific criteria, eg. search[account_id]=123
+ * - limit: max. number of search results to return, default 1
+ * - order: default last modified first
+ *
  * For Apache FCGI you need the following rewrite rule:
  *
  * 	RewriteEngine on
@@ -35,7 +42,43 @@ require_once($egw_dir.'/phpgwapi/inc/class.egw_digest_auth.inc.php');
 include($egw_dir.'/header.inc.php');
 
 $merge = new addressbook_merge();
-if (($err = $merge->download($_REQUEST['path'], $_REQUEST['ids'])))
+
+if (!isset($_REQUEST['ids']) && isset($_REQUEST['search']))
+{
+	if (is_array($_REQUEST['search']))
+	{
+		$criteria = array();
+		foreach($_REQUEST['search'] as $name => $value)
+		{
+			if (isset($merge->contacts->contact_fields[$name]))
+			{
+				$criteria[$name] = $value;
+			}
+		}
+		$wildcard = '';
+	}
+	else
+	{
+		$criteria = $_REQUEST['search'];
+		$wildcard = '*';
+	}
+	$order_by = 'contact_modified DESC';
+	if (isset($_REQUEST['order']) && preg_match('/^[a-z0-9_, ]+$/', $_REQUEST['order']))
+	{
+		$order_by = $_REQUEST['order'];
+	}
+	$ids = array();
+	foreach($merge->contacts->search($criteria, true, $order_by, '', $wildcard, true, 'AND',
+		array(0, isset($_REQUEST['limit']) && $_REQUEST['limit'] > 1 ? (int)$_REQUEST['limit'] : 1)) as $row)
+	{
+		$ids[] = $row['id'];
+	}
+}
+else
+{
+	$ids = (array)$_REQUEST['ids'];
+}
+if (($err = $merge->download($_REQUEST['path'], $ids)))
 {
 	header("HTTP/1.1 500 $err");
 }