Google Contacts Shortcut

If you want to quickly open Gmail's address book, you can bookmark google.com/contacts or type the URL in the address bar. Another option is to add a shortcut to the standalone Google Contacts page in Google's app launcher:

1. go to google.com/contacts and sign in

2. click the app launcher icon

3. click "add a shortcut" next to the Contacts icon

4. you can move the icon using drag and drop

You can add similar shortcuts for other Google services: Google Keep, Google Sites, Google Groups, Google Play Music, Webmaster Tools, Patent Search, Google Voice.

Star Google Contacts

Google announced a new starring feature for contacts. Now you can star contacts and they'll be added to the Starred group.

"Just like how you can star important messages in your inbox, you can now star individuals in your Google Contacts list. (...) For those of you who use Android, your Starred contacts will stay in sync with your Android Favorites. Starring a contact on desktop will star that same person in your Android contacts, and vice-versa, so you can see and manage your contacts seamlessly wherever you may be."

Until now, Google used the "Starred in Android" group for favorite contacts, but this was more like a workaround. Now it's a native Gmail feature.

I don't see the new feature in the desktop Gmail interface, so this will probably be gradually added in the coming days.

{ Thanks, Matt Carney. }

The Old Google Contacts, No Longer Available

The old version of Google Contacts was available at www.google.com/contacts_v1, but now it redirects to the standard version. It was a much simpler site that worked better on a mobile phone or tablet and it had more accessibility features for screenreader users.

You can still use the basic HTML Google Contacts available at https://mail.google.com/mail/h/?v=cl.

{ Thanks, +Katty Geltmeyer. }

Templates for Google Contacts

Gmail added a new feature that makes it easier to add a new contact: templates. If you click "More actions" when you create a contact or edit an existing one, you can select the business template to quickly add fields for the job title, company name, mobile phone and work phone.


The default template is more generic:


Google Contacts lets you add or delete fields, but you can't delete the fields from a template. Hopefully, Google will allow users to create custom templates and import some of the data from Google Profiles.

{ Thanks, Herin. }

Future Gmail Option: Disable Auto-Adding Contacts

Google's video that introduces the new Gmail ads shows another option that's not yet available outside Google. In the near future you'll be able to disable a feature that's often useful and sometimes annoying: automatically creating contacts when you send a message.

At the moment, "email addresses are automatically added to your Contacts list each time you use the Reply, Reply to all, or Forward functions to send messages to addresses not previously stored in your Contacts list," according to Gmail's help center. Gmail also adds the email addresses used when you compose a message.

The new option will allow you to disable this feature, but Google's description is strange: "Create contacts (sets whether sending or receiving a message can create a new contact)." Right now, Gmail doesn't automatically create contacts when you receive new messages. You need to reply to the messages first.


Here's the video (you can fast forward to 1:14 min).

{ Thanks, François. }