Important Google Contact Features for Business and Professional Users

We can manage thousands of contacts in Google Contacts which has a lot of potentials if used efficiently. Having a clean, well-managed contact database with backup options can make professional and business users' life easy.

Here are those features I am talking about.

1. Import Export
2. Duplicate removal
3. Labelling and star contacts
4. Existing and custom contact fields

Let's explore these features one by one.

1. Import Export

On the left side of Google contacts on a desktop browser following options can be found to export or important contacts in vCard or CSV formats.

This feature usually helps us to take backup of our contact in a safe location or to import the same in another system. We can refer to the exported files any time if there is an issue with our live copy, synchronized across our devices.

To import contacts (from other sources or systems) into your Google account I would suggest exporting your existing contacts so that you have the CSV / Spreadsheet template. The exported template is a very useful technique through which you can import the desired contacts easily. You just need to copy and paste the contacts into the Spreadsheet (CSV file) column by column and leave other columns as it is. Once the template is ready with the desired contacts to be imported then use the import feature.

A few points to note on this are as follows -

• Imported contacts will be under a separate label do follow that.
• If there is any issue with the import then you can revert to the previous state from the settings.
• After these activities, it may be useful to look for the duplicate removal feature. I assume there may be duplicate contacts that will be surfaced after import.
• To transfer contacts from one Google account to another, export (from the source account) the contacts in Google CSV format.

For Mobile App: Go to Settings of Google Contacts app → Look for the Manage contacts section for this feature.

2. Duplicate removal

Many a time while working with contacts there will be duplicates for sure. This feature is really helpful as it detects duplicate contacts and gives us the option to merge them in the best possible way.

In contacts look for the Merge & fix option at the left in the desktop browser.

For Mobile App: It is there in the main menu itself of the Google Contacts app.

3. Labelling and star contacts

Categorizing our contacts into groups is often useful while we have a wide range of contacts and we need to find the contacts efficiently. For e.g., if we star any contact they will appear on top of the list. So the contacts which are frequently used should be starred. And other contacts can be left as it is, however, labelling them into various groups is a good idea to handle a large number of contacts. You can locate this feature in the following image.

For Mobile App: Contacts labelling can be handled from the main menu itself of the Google Contacts app. Also, you can enjoy this feature while viewing and editing the contact. Look at the end of the editing screen to change the label of a contact.

4. Existing and custom contact fields

There are many fields to store the data of contact in Google contacts to explore. Most of the time they are sufficient if you explore them better. So you can manage as much as possible data in these fields and when needed it is scalable as well. This means when you need a specific type of data to store in contact then you can create the field as a custom field in case you don't find the same in the existing fields. I believe this can be used as a mini CRM very easily. The following images will show you where to find this feature. Also please have a look at the Notes field which is existing and I find it very useful to keep notes about contacts without any customization.

Click on Show more to expand the existing field list along with the option of the custom field as well.

Please note at the database level custom fields in contacts do behave a bit differently than the existing fields. So you can do check out the behaviour if you are planning import/export contacts with custom fields. It is not that hard to handle but do understand it for successful data migration with custom fields. The following images will help you a bit to understand it.

This will look as follows when we export it in Google CSV.

For Mobile App: The experience of the custom contact field is more or less similar in Mobile while viewing and editing the contact. Look at the end of the editing screen to view and add/edit the custom fields of contact.

Thank you.