By Kevin Purdy, Lifehacker – March 23, 2010 at 08:00PM
Google Contacts needs to get better. Google and Gmail devotees regularly deal with duplicate contacts, sync abnormalities, over-stuffed contact groups, and other problems. Here are our best methods for fixing those annoyances yourself until Google does for real.
Photo by sidewalk flying.
Let’s be clear: We love how Google Contacts functions as a centralized database of email addresses, phone numbers, birthdays, mailing addresses, IM handles, and much more for our various Google services. Our readers generally dig it, too, though not without complaints about its sometimes unpredictable nature. What I’m aiming to do in this post is detail how Google Contacts works (it’s probably not how you’d expect), explain some fixes for common Contacts annoyances, help you clean up and organize your Contacts, and point out the proper way to sync Google Contacts to your various devices.
How Google Contacts Works
You don’t actually need a Gmail account to use Google Contacts, but Gmail is normally where most users start using Contacts. If you use nearly any kind of Google service, Google has probably set up a Contacts section for you, which you can visit at google.com/contacts and start tinkering with.
If you’re using Google Apps with a particular domain, your Contacts page can usually be found at google.com/contacts/a/sitename.com/, replacing sitename.com with your own organization’s URL. Google Contacts acts a bit differently inside an Apps account, and can cause some stress when used alongside a “personal” Gmail account—but we’ll get to that in a bit. Take some time to get familiar with the web interface, and learn what you can and can’t do in it. It is always, always the primary place to fix problems and negotiate sync issues with your various apps and devices—make a change here, and it’s the only way to ensure it will (probably) stick.
Google’s Help section for Contacts doesn’t get nearly nitty-gritty enough, but a read-through does provide a few pointers. The most helpful explainer is about Default contact groups, which really explains the five contact groups that you can’t delete, rename, or change, and the one contact group that drives a lot of office app veterans nuts:
- All Contacts: Just what it sounds like—this is a list of everyone you’ve composed an email to, or replied to, from this Google/Gmail account. If you’re using an Android phone or the Google Voice service, you’ll also see people you’ve called (more than once?) show up here. You don’t have a lot of say in the matter as to who goes into All Contacts, but if it ever feels like just too much information stashed away about your email, there are nuclear options, detailed below in “Fixes.”
- My Contacts: Google automatically populates this group, and you can’t delete it or manage who automatically goes into it, though you can manually add or remove individuals from it, as noted below. Contacts in this group tend to rank higher in Gmail’s auto-completing address function, and in other Google apps, whenever you start typing.
- Your Friends, Family, and Coworkers: Default groups, created by Google, and you can’t delete them. If Google Contacts was very, very smart about which contacts it created, which contacts it let into My Contacts, and how it syncs up and eliminates duplications between all your accounts, desktop apps, and devices that can access it, this would be the end of this post. We soldier on, though, because there are many other points to discuss.
- Any group you create on your own: Create your own group, and Google won’t automatically shove people or fake names/numbers into it, and if you’ve got the right kind of phone or syncing app, you can make that your primary “People I Actually Correspond With” list. Highly recommended.
We’ll get to the fixes and tweaks first, and then list some syncing tools that might help you connect Google Contacts in a better way to all your communication outlets.
Fixes
Remove contacts from My Contacts: My Contacts should only contain people who you would actually email, on your own, to update, ask something of, or chat real friendly-like. It can, occasionally, get cluttered up with people you might have had one lengthy exchange with, but never plan to email again—a Craigslist buyer, perhaps.
To remove one or more people from My Contacts, scroll or search to find them, select them from the My Contacts list, then hit the Groups button and select the “Remove from: My Contacts” option. No guarantees they won’t go back there if you get into a real discussion by email or phone, but for most users, it’s not all that painful to do an occasional My Contacts purge.
Remove contacts from chat (or add one in): Two solutions. The first is to mouse over their name in your Gmail chat list, click the “Video & More” button in their name box. From that drop-down, you can set their names to always or never appear, block them, or let Google/Gmail decide when you’ve been chatting frequently enough to warrant a prime spot.
If a contact isn’t in your chat list and you want them there, search out their contact name from the search box at the top of the chat list, mouse over the name result, and do the same kind of chat selection from the “Video & More” menu.
Stop new contacts from appearing in Chat: The second, going-forward solution. From Gmail’s Settings panel, head to the Chat section, and to the right of “Auto-add suggested contacts,” select the “Only allow people …” option. (Last two tips via Download Squad)
Remove Contacts from Google Wave: You do so, according to The Complete Guide to Google Wave, by removing them from Google Contacts.
Import Facebook and LinkedIn contacts into Google: It’s sometimes a smart move, since you’ve already invested all that time into building your social networks. The most reliable way we’ve seen Facebook importation happen requires Firefox with Greasemonkey installed, a handy Greasemonkey script to go with it, and Nic Pfost’s helpful instructions. (Original post)
As for LinkedIn, it’s much easier: click the “Export Connections” link at the bottom of your Contacts page, and you’ll be prompted to save a vCard or Outlook CSV file with your contacts, both of which Google Contacts accepts. For a more continuous sync, try LinkedIn’s Outlook Plug-In.
Duplicates
Manually remove all your duplicates at once: From the Contacts’ main startup page, look in the right-hand pane for the “Find duplicates” button. You’ll see every entry in your contacts for which the names are the same, but email addresses, phone numbers, or other statistics are different. Quickly scan the list and un-check false contacts, like Facebook and other automated reply addresses, then hit the “Merge” button in the upper right. All your contacts are merged, with Google making its best guesses as to which email is home or work and so forth. (Original post)
Carefully edit & merge a particular contact: Search their name from your main Contacts page. Click all the results that pop up that relate to the same person, then hit the “Merge these X contacts” link that appears in the right-hand pane. Fix the email assignments and other details in the editing pane that appears, hit the “Save” button up top, and two or more have become one. (Original post)
Mysterious “blank” contacts: This is most often the case with Android phones syncing to Google Contacts, and it’s known to many. It’s suggested that using Google Voice to call or SMS contacts, then not using Google Voice to do the same, creates these empty, name-only contacts, because you are, technically, using a different number. No fix at the moment that we’ve found, but at least you know where the blanks are (likely) coming from.
BlackBerry duplicate fix: If you’re using the Google Sync app to keep your BlackBerry and Gmail account in sync, here’s SudiptiNycteus‘ instructions on forcing your phone to stop creating dupes:
- Click and open contact folder
- click the berry button and look for Options
- Click on options
- Click the General Options Tab
- Under Actions you will see Allow Duplicate Names:
- Choose No
That’s it—no more duplicates using Google Sync
Make Android syncing selective: By default, your Android phone syncs your entire “My Contacts” group—great if you’ve kept it tidy, annoying if you only want a certain whitelist of friends and contacts to show up. Open the Contacts app, head to the Contacts tab, hit the Menu button, and select “Display options.” From this screen, you can choose which Google or Facebook accounts to sync, and which sub-groups inside those accounts you want shown. A master switch at the top also allows syncing only of those contacts with phone numbers, though that seems like a kind of drastic dead man’s switch for such a Gmail-savvy phone. (via Droidie, which also explains the sync fix procedure for HTC Sense-skinned phones).
The nuclear option—Export/Import to CSV file: Maybe none of the fixes above will do it for you. Maybe they’ll take too much time. You do have an option, if you sincerely want to massively detangle your contacts, or start over with just your Outlook address book, your iPhone/Android list, or whatever you’ve got.
Find the Export link on the far-right side of the main Contacts page—it’s blue on blue, so they definitely don’t want you messing with it as a primary tool. Hit Export, choose to export “Everyone” and do so in “Google CSV” form. You’ll download a file, google.csv, that should open without much trouble in Microsoft Excel, OpenOffice.org, in Google Docs, or other spreadsheet apps.
It is much faster, easier, and, in some cases, formulaic to delete and fix entire rows and columns of data with your contacts inside a spreadsheet—no safety prompts, no buttons to push—just pure data. Of course, you can also mess things up if you move a column left or right, so it’s a good idea to make a copy of your initial contact download, then keep that original copy somewhere safe and backed up—or just email it to yourself.
Once you’re done fixing up your contacts, you can make the call as to whether you’re ready to click on All Contacts, select the “All” link above the list, then hit “Delete” and wipe the slate clean. You’d then re-import your CSV file into Google using the Import link, also on the right-hand side, and if you used the Google format, the contacts you chose to bring back should fit in just fine. It’s not a permanent solution, but for those at their wit’s end, it’s easier than searching out and selectively fixing contacts person by person.
The Gmail/Google Apps Divide
Like Contacts itself, the confusion and division users of both personal Gmail and Google Contacts feel between their different Google-y platforms is something Google’s aware of, and more than one engineer has said a big, serious solution is coming.
In the meantime, Gina has addressed the divide at Smarterware, and noted that she’s had free syncing service Soocial recommended for syncing contacts across Gmail, Google Apps, Outlook, smartphones, and other platforms. After authorizing through Google, you can connect multiple Gmail and Google Apps accounts, and link their contact lists. Update: This paragraph was corrected from an earlier version.
Syncing Tools
This isn’t a complete list, by any means, but a primer on some of the tools we’ve run across that keep Google Contacts updated with other platforms. If you’ve got your own favorite app or service for syncing with Google Contacts, tell us about it in the comments, and we’ll try to update this post with more options.
Almost every mobile phone: All of Google’s desktop and phone syncing services
Google Apps to Outlook: Google Apps Sync for Microsoft Outlook
Google Apps Contacts shared to anywhere: Shared Contacts [Google Apps Marketplace; not free]
Thunderbird: Google Contacts add-on or Zindus.
iTunes/iPhone: Through iTunes 7.7 and later.
Mac Address Book: Built-in sync option, with or without an iPhone.
That’s our take on how Google Contacts can be made better and more livable—at least until Google steps up their game. All app recommendations, clever fixes, and other suggestions are welcomed in the comments.