How to Manage Contacts in Android Smartphones?

Nowadays people use smartphones for all purposes like playing games, reading news, making arts, watching videos, etc. However, managing contacts is the one thing did not change from the time of inventing smartphones. Contacts are essential data on your phone to get in touch with people and managing the contact list is one of the important tasks for all smartphone users. Over time, the contact list grows, making it hard to search for a person you haven’t contacted in a long time. Here we will explain some useful options to manage contacts in Android phones. If you have iPhone, check out how to block contacts in iPhone.

Managing Contacts in Android

Maintaining proper contact list has the following actions and we will explain them in the details in the following sections.

• Adding contact details
• Deleting contacts single and bulk
• Recover mistakenly deleted contacts
• Merge duplicate contacts in your list
• Third-party apps for managing your contacts

1. Add a Contact in Your Android Phone

There are various ways you can add a contact in your Android phone. First, you must pull over your phone’s “Create contact” page. To do that, try one of the below methods:

• The quickest and easiest way to add a contact is to type the number using the Dial pad as if you want to make a call to that number. When you finish typing the number, a list will appear in the upper part of the screen showing the options – “Create a new contact,” “Add to a contact,” and “Send a message.” Select the desired option to open the “Create contact” page and save the entered number in your contact list.

• Next method is to open your contact list and tap on the “+” sign on showing on the screen. It will open the “Create contact” page where you can save the number. This is useful to save a number from which you have received a call.

On the contact page creation screen, you will be asked to enter the first and last name of the person associated with the number. You can type or change the number and select the label. The screen has a hyperlink “More details” at the bottom. Tapping it will open an extended page for creating contact where you can add a picture of the contact, the birthday, other details, etc. You can even generate more fields of your choice. Use these options to enter as much detail you wanted to store in your phone about the contact. You can use these details to search and find the person in future if you have forgotten the name.

2. Add Profile Picture to Contacts in Android

The best way to remember a person is to add a profile photo (something like a display picture) to his/her contact number. You can see the photo whenever viewing the details of that contact. Moreover, the set profile picture will be shown whenever you call that person, receiving call from that person and also in the messages.

While saving a contact number on your phone, press “More fields” at the end of the “Create contact” page. As mentioned above, the page will have a comprehensive view with more features. To add a profile photo, tap “Add photo” at the top of the page. You have options to either take  photo using camera or choose a photo from the phone. Once you select the photo, a review page will allow you to resize or rotate the picture. After finishing the editing, press “Done” to attach the image to that contact.

If you want to add a picture to a contact already saved on your phone, open the contact in the “Contacts” of your phone. Once you are at the “Contact info” page, press the edit icon (pencil) to open “Edit contact” page. Now press the “More fields” near the bottom of the page and tap “Add photo” button at the top of the screen.

Settings picture is also useful to quickly block the call from the person temporarily or permanently.

3. Delete Single or Multiple Contacts in Android

It is possible to delete a single contact from the list or you can bulk delete.  

• To delete a single contact, open that contact in your contact list. Once you are at the contact info page, press the three dots in the upper right corner of the screen. Select “Delete” from the menu; Android will show you a warning that it will delete the contact from all your synced devices. If the contact is synced with your Google account, it will be moved to the trash. Press the “Delete” hyperlink to confirm deleting the contact from your list.
• If you want to delete multiple contacts at once, then there is a convenient way to do this. Open your contact list and press the name of any contact you want to delete for a long time. It will select the contact, and a checkmark will appear beside the name. Now you can tap on all the other contacts you want to delete. Once you finished the selection, press the delete icon (trash can) showing at the top right of the screen. A confirmation message will appear on the screen to check if you want to move the selected contacts to trash. Press “Move to Trash,” and all the selected contacts will be removed from all your synced devices.

4. Recover Deleted Contacts in Android

Sometimes you might have wrongly deleted contacts while cleaning up your phone. When you delete contacts from your phone, they go to “Trash,” where they stay for 30 days. The contacts in Trash for more than 30 days will be deleted forever. So, if you have deleted contacts within the last 30 days, you can recover them quickly using the following procedure.

• Open your contact list and select “Fix & manage” near the bottom of the screen.
• The next page will show you various options to manage contacts and tap on “Trash” to open its contents.
• You will see the list of all the contacts that you have deleted in past 30 days.
• Tap and hold on any contact that you want to recover. Now tap on any other contacts if you want to recover them in bulk.
• Press the three dots and choose “Recover” option.
• All your recovered contacts will be moved back to your contact list.

5. Merge Duplicate Contacts in Android

Sometimes you save the same phone number multiple times and with slightly different details like name for one and nickname for other. These duplicate contacts will make the list messy and hard to manage. Android provides “Merge & fix” tool which you can use to merge duplicate contacts at the tap of a button.

• Open contact list and navigate to “Fix & manage > Merge & fix” section.
• If duplicates are found in your contact list, it will show you “Merge duplicates” option in the list.
• Tap it to review the duplicate listings and merge the contacts.

Additionally, you can update your contacts and add people you often email from the main page of “Merge & fix” section.

6. Third-party Apps to Manage Contacts in Android

In most situations, the above mentioned default Android functions are sufficient to manage the contacts list. However, there are also various third-party apps available in Google Play store for managing your contacts effectively. These apps offer features like spam protection, replace your default phone dialer and SMS utility to provide more services. The problem is that you need to grant permission to the app for accessing your contacts which poses a security concern. Since the app developer can sell your contacts to marketing agencies, make sure you trust the app and check the details collected by the app before you install on your phone.

For example, Contacts+ is one of the popular apps for managing your contacts. It works as a phone book and offers dialer with caller ID & spam protection, and SMS messenger. Note that it is also possible to transfer your contacts from one Android phone another without any third-party apps.