Organize your Gmail contacts with these 10 tips

Despite technological advances that promise to increasingly dynamize our social relationships, e-mail remains the main form of digital communication, especially in professional terms. And speaking of practicality, the gmail is a titan of electronic messaging platforms, carrying 1,5 billion active users globally, holding the nickname of the largest email and contacts service in the world.

Given the need for email in our activities, it is essential to have all your contacts correct and well organized so as not to make the mistake of confusing recipients. In fact, this organization is key to speeding up any message you have to send.

And being Google's own platform, this task is not a huge headache. For this, the showmetech teach ten infallible tips all with organize your Gmail contacts in an assertive way for any need. Check it out below:

Find and merge duplicate contacts

For several reasons, the same person can be saved in your gmail with two or more contacts on your server. Whether by accident or a failure that caused this duplicate, any user can find and merge such identical Gmail contacts.

To do this, in the side menu of your Gmail, there is the option merge, which performs this curation of possible copies of the same Google contact, based on the same email, same first and/or last name, etc. After this analysis, if you dispute really duplicate contacts, simply finish by clicking “Merge” again.

If all the Gmail contact options that appeared on the screen are in fact copies, the user can speed up the process by pressing the “Merge all” button; If there are reservations, the “Dismiss” menu will individually delete the exception, organizing your Gmail and freeing up space, right away.

Delete contacts you no longer need

Another way to organize Gmail is delete contacts which you no longer use, or which, in some way, are not important for your activities. Spam addresses may be automatically saved among your Google contacts, or others that simply no longer meet your needs. To achieve this, this more manual process must be well thought out and crucial.

To delete a single contact wanted:

1. Click on the contact in the upper right corner;
2. Press the “Delete” option.

To delete two or more:

1. On your cell phone, press one of the contacts and then select the others. On your computer, hover your mouse over the contact's photo icon and press the square that appears;
2. After selecting, click on the three dots in the upper right corner;
3. Press “Delete”;
4. Confirm the action by clicking “Move to Trash”.

If you want to delete all contacts:

1. On your cell phone, press one of the contacts and then select the others. On your computer, hover your mouse over the contact's photo icon and press the square that appears;
2. Press the arrow next to the square in the top corner of the “Contacts” tab and select the “All” option
3. All contacts will automatically be marked. With that, go to the three dots in the upper right corner;
4. Select the “Delete” option;
5. Confirm the action by clicking “Move to Trash”.

It is worth remembering that once deleted, Gmail contacts remain stored in the Recycle Bin and are permanently deleted after 30 days. If after some time you feel regret, you can recover contact Clicking on “Recover” in the Recycle Bin. For more than one, instead of tapping, you press and click on the others, then click on “More” and finish with “Recover”. To recover them all, you just click on the “More”, “Select All” and “Recover” options.

Sync your contacts

Another important point for organizing your Gmail contacts é enable automatic sync with other devices and accounts. This way, you avoid duplicating your contacts and deleting contacts you shouldn't. If it is not activated, it is not possible, for example, to recover Google contacts moved to the Trash.

If you have an Android, your case is safer, after all, Google Contacts are already synchronized with the operating system's Contacts. For iOS, users have to follow these steps:

1. Go to “Settings”;
2. Scroll down and find the “Passwords and Accounts” option
3. Click on “Add account” and select the Google logo
4. You will be taken to the Gmail account screen, log in to your Gmail account and press “next” to continue;
5. When the process is authorized, finish by clicking “Save”;
6. Then, enable “Contacts” in the list to synchronize contacts;
7. Finish by clicking “Save” in the top right corner.

Google Contacts also acts as a cloud, so it is more than worth saving all your contacts through the application synchronized by your account as a way to prevent loss of this data if your cell phone is stolen, lost or broken.

Edit contact names

After merging duplicates and deleting unwanted contacts, another big manual step involves edit the name of your Gmail contacts.

Contacts that only have the first or last name listed (or old ones), contacts sent to you that were automatically saved in your inbox, or roles in companies where the person no longer works should be edited correctly to improve their dynamicity.

To change this and organize your Gmail contacts, in the Contacts app:

1. Select the desired contact and click “Edit”;
2. Change whatever you need and then click “Save”.

Fill in your contact details

Still in the field of editing your Google contacts, another tip for organizing Gmail is fill in more fields in your contacts, at least those that are more strategic and frequent.

When you click on “Edit”, use the sections marked by “+” and fill in more information that may be useful to have easy access, such as address and birthday – with this information, other Google services, such as Google Calendar and Google Google Maps, in this case, are synchronized with the contact automatically.

Contacts with just email or telephone, it is advisable to have both for any urgency. The more, the better.

Make a contact group

Did you know it's possible categorize your contacts do gmail? Instead of searching through your contact list from top to bottom, you can save time creating groups and classifying them according to their groupings.

Firm group, agency contacts, sector group… the possibilities are extensive and depend on your needs and routine. See below:

1. Click on the “+” sign in “Bookmarks” in the left sidebar;
2. Enter the name and description you want to name the label;
3. Finish with “Create”.

The new group will be positioned in the side menu below “Bookmarks” on the computer, while on mobile it appears at the top of a contact page.

To manually add your contacts that will belong to the category, on your computer, the process is very easy: drag the email by holding down the left mouse button and place it on the label.

For mobile, there are more steps:

1. Press the chosen email;
2. Press the three dots located in the upper right corner;
3. Select “Move to”;
4. Click on your marker, which will always be below the “Promotions” option.

The new group will be positioned at the top of a contact's page.

Favorite the most useful contacts

If you have a few important Gmail contacts and don't feel the need to create labels for your Google contacts, you can favorite such contacts so that they are first on your list. For Android phones, favorite contacts are always highlighted in the app.

To favorite on your cell phone and PC, just click on the star icon. On the computer, the icon is on the left of the contact, on the cell phone the star appears on the right corner of the contact. To access the favorites field, both on your cell phone and on your computer, just press the “Starred” section located in the side menu.

Export your contacts

Now with your Gmail contacts listed and filled out, how about saving these organized contacts in a safer area? Export your contacts It is a very important path as a safe route in case unfortunate unforeseen events happen. Export also makes it possible to migrate all your Google contacts to other email services, saving you the manual task of adding them one by one.

The entire email history will be downloaded as one csv file or VCard – don’t be surprised by the strange nomenclature. To export Gmail contacts by the computer:

1. Select one contact or multiple contacts by checking the boxes next to the names of the selected contacts. If, in this case, it is all, there is an option present in the upper left corner, under “Selection actions” and then “All”.;
2. After selecting the desired Google contacts for export, in the upper right corner, click on the arrow pointing upwards;
3. Select the Google CSV option and Finish with “Export”

By Android:

1. Open the application and find the “Fix and Manage” option at the bottom of the screen and click;
2. Then, press “Export to file”;
3. Define which Google account you want to export Gmail contacts to or whether you prefer to export them on the device itself;
4. Choosing the Google account, click on “Export”;
5. Finish with “Save” with the Gmail contact data stored in the Google Drive of the chosen account, automatically in .vcf format.

Import contacts from other sources

Moving forward, another step you should take to organize your Gmail contacts is to concentrate all your contacts in one place: if you have sources in other applications, import them into Google. Make your work easier and make your contact spreadsheet richer. To do so, you must have downloaded the contacts which will be imported into Gmail in CSV format, it's all right?

For computer:

1. In the top left corner, just click on “Import”, below the “Fix and Manage” category;
2. Dumps the file in CSV or VCard format.

By cell phone:

1. In the Contacts app, in the bottom right corner, click “Fix and Manage”;
2. Then click on “Import from File”;
3. Choose the Google account that will receive the import or save it on your device under “Device”;
4. Select the already downloaded CSV file. To streamline the process, it is advisable that the file is already stored in Google Drive of any Google account – as you can access it in the top corner of the screen under “Search for files in other apps”. But there's no problem if the file isn't on Google Drive: in the three-line icon, located in the top left corner of the screen, you can find it on the phone's SD card and on the device itself.
5. Click “Save” to finish.

Back up contacts

With your Gmail contacts organized after a lot of work, we will ensure that the final list of all your contacts is not just in the cloud – although this is a great way of protection.

To carry out your backup, in your Google Account:

1. In the top right corner, click on “Data and Privacy”;
2. Scrolling further down the section, when you see the “Download or delete your data” menu, press the “Download your data” button;
3. Google will automatically redirect you to Google Takeout and ask you to select data to download from all Google applications. In this case, just select your email.

Update autosave settings

Finally, ensure that the organization of Gmail contacts always have one automatic cloud backup, saving manual time that would otherwise be wasted.

On android, you can activate and deactivate the feature at:

1. “Fix and Manage” Menu
2. Then, “Settings”;
3. Select the “Google Contacts Sync Settings” option;
4. Choose the desired Google account;
5. Select “Sync Status” and activate the option

Now at PC, there is no possibility to automatically save the backup. However, since the automatic backup is authenticated by the cell phone, the entire account gmail It's saved in the cloud, so you don't have to worry about organizing your Gmail contacts again!

See also other features

How to Delete Old Emails in Gmail

How to use Gmail on iPhone

How to register other email accounts in Gmail

Sources: Make Use Of; Contact Book; Google Support; The report of Statista