Google Contacts comes preinstalled on almost every single Android phone. Using Google’s virtual phone book has probably become a muscle memory for you by now.
Did you know that apart from the most basic functions, you can do even more with the app? Here are the top five Google Contacts tips and tricks you need to know.
Clean duplicate contacts
Countless times I’ve accidentally saved the same person’s contact details under different aliases in my Google Contacts list. Some of you have probably done the same and never bothered to clean up the mess.
Google kindly introduced something called Fix & Manage, a special tool in Contacts for cleaning up all those duplicate contacts. Here’s how you can use it to tidy up your house.
First open the Google Contacts app on your phone. Look at the bottom of the app and you will find a tab called Repair and manage. Tap the Repair & Manage tab and browse the tools. To fix duplicate contacts, tap Merge & Repair. Google will automatically pull up all duplicates and help you through the correction process. Now you can proceed with the necessary cleanup.
Add home screen widgets
The sole purpose of learning these tips and tricks is to get more out of Google Contacts, faster and in less time. What better way to maximize efficiency than using shortcuts?
It’s really convenient to select the people you interact with the most and add them right on your Android phone’s home screen. This can be done using Google Contacts widgets.
Start with press and hold your phone’s home screen. Choose widgets option from the menu that opens. Scroll through all widgets to find them Google Contacts.
Under the Google contacts widgets listed, you will see three options: Contact, direct dialand direct message. These are shortcuts to instantly open, call or text a specific contact. press and hold Select the desired widget and place it on your home screen.
Finally yours Google contact list will jump up. Select the contact you want to assign to the widget of your choice. Once you’ve done that, the relevant shortcut will appear on your home screen.
Create and use labels
We all know that you can create and use labels in Gmail, but many don’t know that the same feature is also available in Google Contacts. Here’s how to create and use labels in Google Contacts for better sorting and faster access.
Go to Google Contacts on your smartphone. Tap the Hamburger menu in the top left corner of the app. Under the labels Tap the header create label Button. Enter the name of your new label and click OK.
Next you must Add contacts to your newly created label in Google Contacts. Tap the small icon to add existing contacts Contact icon with a plus sign next to it in the top right corner of the app. Select any contact by tapping it, or multiple contacts by long-pressing the names in your list.
After adding your selected contacts under a label, you can find that group of people in the hamburger menu in Google Contacts. I find this feature particularly useful when I’m hungry and can’t decide on delivery options. All of my favorite restaurants are saved under a single label to speed up the decision-making process.
Change your Google profile picture
If you want to change your Google account profile photo, you don’t have to look for the option buried in the Google app. With Google Contacts you can change your photo directly in the app itself.
To change your Google ID picture from Contacts, go to Google contacts app First. Then, Tap on your profile picture in the top-right corner of the Contacts app. Once your image opens, select the change Possibility.
Choose whether to upload your new Google Account photo from Google Photos or your device. You can also take a new picture on the spot with your phone’s camera. After choosing a nice picture, resize if necessary and click Save as profile picture.
A small prompt will inform you that this will change your image across all Google’s platforms. Beat Have it after you read it and you’re done.
Share your contacts
Google Contacts improves traditional pen-and-paper phone books in unimaginable ways. You can share any contact including details like address, work number, personal number and even the person’s birthday, all within the app. Sharing someone’s details from your contact list is easy.
begin Google Contacts on your phone. Find the contact you want to share and tap on it. After that press the three small vertical dots in the upper right corner.
Select from the drop down menu Split. Google Contacts will prompt you to select the information you want to include when sharing the contact. Enable or disable whatever you want or don’t want to share and press Continue.
In the last step, simply select your preferred medium for sending the contact. This can be anything from Nearby Share to your Google Drive. The contact card is shared in VCF file format so it can be easily imported by the recipient.