It’s time to finally organize your contact lists

Say goodbye to the chaos of contact list! This article will guide you on how to organize a list of contacts from Google, Apple, and Microsoft and sync to all your devices. We recommend that you choose a main contact service, organize it using its native tools or third-party applications, and then synchronize the organized contacts to other platforms.

This article has been updated and was originally published on April 26, 2018

We rely on digital contact lists to send emails, text messages or find addresses every day. However, many people ignore the maintenance of contact lists, resulting in a pile of old numbers, duplicate contacts, and unmarked addresses, making it difficult to find the required information.

Luckily, contact apps provided by platforms such as Google, Apple, and Microsoft all offer the ability to clean up duplicates, delete expired information, and synchronize across apps and devices. To avoid contacts being spread across multiple accounts, it is recommended that you choose a primary contact service (for example, iPhone users choose Apple, Android users choose Google). After selecting a platform, use the following methods to organize your contacts and finally perform cross-platform synchronization.

How to organize Apple contact list

iOS and macOS users should use Apple's own "Doctors Book" app, which can sync your information to both platforms. Other devices can access contacts through the iCloud website. Although the app does not have advanced collation options, it has basic management tools.

On iPhone, select a contact and click "Edit" to modify or delete a contact. To adjust the sorting and display, go to the iOS Settings app and select Contacts. For example, you can click on the Short Name and enable the Preference Nickname switch to display the nickname instead of the official name.

The macOS version has similar options, but it includes a handy "group" feature that makes it easier to organize contacts. Open Address Book, select File > New Smart Group, and select criteria (for example, by city or use the Notes field to add a tag). To send emails to everyone in the smart group at once, find the group entry in the left navigation menu and right-click. Unlike iOS, macOS can help you find duplicate contacts. Select Card > Find Duplicates to search for duplicate entries, and if found, it will ask you if you want to merge them. You can also manually merge: hold down the Cmd key, click on multiple contacts, and select "Card > Merge Selected Cards".

Because there are more options for macOS version, it is recommended that you manage your contacts on your computer and then sync these changes to the iOS app. If you prefer the options on your iPhone, some third-party apps offer more advanced tools to remove duplicates. For example, Simpler (free trial, unlocking most features, including contact backups for $10 a year), you can combine duplicates in one click, delete some contacts (such as contacts with missing phone numbers), group contacts, and so on. Delete Contacts can also quickly delete batch contacts, backup contacts, and identify contacts with missing information (free trial, one-time fee of $4 for merged contacts).

How to manage Google Contact List

If you choose to use Google to store contacts, you can access them through the web or through the official Android app.

The most practical feature of Google's Contacts app is "merge and fix". Visit the web interface, click "Merge and Fix" in the left sidebar, and select some suggestions. The first and most useful thing is to check the duplicate contacts you want to merge. You can do it one by one, or at one time by clicking "Merge All". If you find items that need to be merged that Google does not recognize, you can manually merge them into one entry. Go to the main contact list (click on Contacts in the sidebar), select them, and then click the Merge button in the top navigation bar (looks like a sloping upward arrow). Merge and Fix will also suggest other changes, such as adding people you frequently contact to the list, or adding more information to an existing entry.

Android apps are almost as smart as managing contacts. Click the Menu Button (three horizontal lines) in the upper left corner and select Merge and Fix to access all the above settings. Unfortunately, you can't handle duplicates manually on your mobile device, but you can customize how your contacts are sorted. Additionally, Android apps allow you to organize your contacts more effectively. Click on your avatar and go to Contacts App Settings, under Show and Edit Contacts, you can sort contacts by first or last name, or show or hide phonetic names. You can also sort contacts based on assigned tags. To do this, click the three dots on the search bar, go to Custom View, and select Custom. There, you can place contacts for specific groups at the top of the list for easier access.

Gmail is closely linked to Google's contact management. Users who have sent an email but have not been added to a contact will be displayed online under the "Other Contacts" heading on the web page. To avoid all these addresses pile up, you can change this default setting. Visit the Gmail website, click on the "Gear Icon" on the right, and then click on "Settings". There, under the General tab, scroll down to Create Autocomplete Contact and select I'll add contacts myself. If you need more help, you can find a third-party app for managing Google contacts. On Android, Cleaner (the Android version of Simpler for iOS mentioned earlier) makes the process of merging contacts and discovering duplicates a little easier, and also provides a contact backup feature. Unlike Simpler, Cleaner is completely free for Android users. We also like Contacts Optimizer, which can remove duplicate entries, find entries that are missing information, and more. It can be tried for free, and some more advanced features (such as merging multiple contacts) will cost $2.

How to organize Microsoft contact list

Unlike Apple and Google, Microsoft does not have a popular mobile operating system, so your changes to Microsoft contacts won't affect your phone. However, whether you are using Outlook online or as a computer app, contacts are synced between Windows and Outlook. Like Apple, Microsoft offers few automated cleaning options, but its basic editing interface is easy to operate.

Start from the "People" interface. On Outlook.com, you can select it from the main menu on the left side of the page (it is an icon that looks like two people). For any existing entries, the Edit Contact button will allow you to access all fields on each card. To add or delete a contact, use the New Contact and Delete options clearly marked in the top toolbar. Outlook apps for Windows and macOS have similar options. Right-click and select Edit Contact to change a single card, or organize your contact list using the New Contact, New Contact Group, and Delete buttons in the top ribbon menu.

As for the automatic cleaning option, Microsoft can detect potential duplicates for you to merge, but the process is very complicated. Microsoft has its own guide to help you. With the app, you don't have a tool to automatically merge or delete duplicate contacts, so you have to do this manually. First, select the contacts to merge from the main list. Then, click the menu button (three horizontal dots) below any contacts displayed and select Link Contacts.

In addition, Windows 10 has a built-in "People" app that you cannot launch directly (as of January 29, 2021), but it can be accessed via the "People" icon in emails, calendars, and other apps. It's just another location where you can edit the Microsoft contact list. Select any entry and select Edit to make changes, or select Find Contacts to merge contacts with any other items in the list.

The best thing about this is that it allows you to organize your contact interface. After clicking the People icon, click Three Dots at the top of the window, and then click Settings. Here you can choose to sort contacts by first or last name and hide those that confuses the interface. To change which contacts appear on the screen, select Filter Contact List. This won't edit your contacts, but it can hide for example contacts that are missing additional phone numbers, or contacts that Microsoft extracts from Skype. In fact, Windows will automatically add new contacts to which you chat or email, which can add too many contact entries to your list. To disable this setting, turn off the Automatically add contacts you recently communicated with toggle.

How to keep orderly when using multiple contact apps

The problem is that few of us use only the Apple, Google, or Microsoft ecosystem. When a contact list is spread across multiple accounts, it is difficult to keep it neat, but they can help by showing your entire address book on one screen.

For example, Apple allows you to display your Google and Microsoft accounts in its Contacts app. On iOS, go to Settings > Address Book > Account > Add Account, and click on "Google" or another option. On macOS, open the Address Book app, go to Address Book, add an account on the main navigation bar, and select a service including Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, and AOL. This allows you to access and edit your contacts on different services directly from your Apple device and sync changes to your original account. However, it won't merge those contacts with your Apple account, so you may end up with duplicates that cannot be merged. Additionally, if you try to access your contacts through the iCloud website, only Apple contacts will be displayed.

Through Microsoft, the "People" app for Windows 10 also supports multiple accounts. Open it from a mail, calendar, or other app, select the People icon (two silhouettes), then click the Three Dots at the top of the window, and then click Settings. Next, click "Add Account" and select an option. Like Apple, newly imported contacts will appear with your existing contacts, but they won't be added to your official Microsoft contact list.

On the other hand, Google does not allow you to manage and sync your Apple or Microsoft contacts. However, you can import these contacts to convert them into Google contacts, but any changes you make afterwards won't sync to the original account. For example, to add an Apple contact to your Google account, visit the iCloud Contacts website, click the "Gear Icon" in the lower left corner, and then click "Select All". Click the "Gear Icon" again, and then click "Export vCard". This will create a file that Google can import. In the Google Contacts app or website, go to Import on the main sidebar, select Select File, and select vCard files from the local folder. After importing a large number of contacts, it is recommended that you find and merge duplicates in case you have information about the same person on multiple accounts.

When it comes to multiple accounts, one of the reasons why so many contacts are displayed on your phone is that some of these platforms automatically display contacts from third-party apps like WhatsApp and Twitter. If you want to reduce the number of people on your phone, you can hide contacts from other apps. On iOS, go to Settings >Privacy > Address Book. In the Google Contacts app for Android, click on your avatar, then click on Contacts app settings, and select Settings > Account.

There is no way to organize your contacts on each app and device right away, you need to invest some time and effort. However, understanding how these contact platforms work will give you a smoother experience when cleaning up your contact list.

The above is the detailed content of It’s time to finally organize your contact lists. For more information, please follow other related articles on the PHP Chinese website!