So, with Lollipop came the baffling absence of Groups in the Contacts app. For many out there, this was a huge pain in the rear. There is a work-around but it's clunky at best.
I'm wondering if anyone who has tried Android M has noticed if the Groups tab is back in the Contacts app or if it's still just Favorites and All Contacts.
No groups, just the 2 listed above
Related
In 1.5, I could do this (or something similar)
http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/android/thread?tid=3a1a78cfe42ee8d9&hl=en
But that option is not there in 2.1. I'm assuming it has something to do with Sense.
Any ideas?
It's no longer there. It's a huge pain in the ass to me. Was super useful that it was an option in 1.5, a selling point for me, in fact.
i've posted in every Android and Sprint forum I could find. I even tried flashing the Contacts app from 1.5 to 2.1 but that never works.
The overal consensus on all forums is that they really don't care and nobody used this feature... what!? This feature is KEY in my opinion. I'm basically looked at as a whiner. I get that this reply is whinny but usually I come at it from a reasonable standpoint.
so annoying.
the way i fixed it was create a group for phone contacts and then i erased ALL of the contacts in gmail HAHAHA
/ME SLAPS FOREHEAD
On Darchdroid, I can go Contacts>Menu>Display Options>select my Google acct>Select the groups. But Darchdroid is based on AOSP, so I'm not sure about Sense.
Yeah, it's def. a Sense issue.
the way i fixed it was create a group for phone contacts and then i erased ALL of the contacts in gmail HAHAHA
/ME SLAPS FOREHEAD
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yikes. no thanks.
On Darchdroid, I can go Contacts>Menu>Display Options>select my Google acct>Select the groups. But Darchdroid is based on AOSP, so I'm not sure about Sense.
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This is because you have AOSP Contacts.apk and it can filtor out the contact groups you don't want. But you still have to have to stock contacts app on the phone with ALL your contacts which means they will still show up in the results list of any app that can look through your phonebook, like handcent, fring, other SMS and VOIP apps. Oh, and Google Voice too. Pretty good workaround but not ideal for me. I actually want them to not be synced in AT ALL.
I also would like to have this feature back. Under sense 1.5 you could chose between if you wanted my contacts and all contacts synced from your google account. I have not been able to find this option at all under 2.1.
Because I email other people through the web gui those people/email addresses now show up on the phone which I don't want (just like all my facebook people showing in the phone dialer) the only way I have found to reduce this is to go into google contacts on the pc and select all contacts>put a space in the search box(which now shows two groups other contacts and My contacts) and than delete any of the "other contacts" you don't want and add any you want into my contacts
Would a work around be make a [email protected], export the contacts you want to include, make android not link the contacts in your main email then link the contacts in your [email protected] account?
I had a simular problem with the Palm Pre where it would export my contacts from facebook (and really... I dont need half those peoples numbers) and then sync them with my Google contacts. So I had to create a Facebook contact and link every single person to that contact name so they would be removed from my list. It was really annoying. Took me about 15 minutes to fix but was good after that.
This is a f'ing JOKE!!!
What were they thinking. Hello HTC gmail is an email account not a phone book it seems pretty logical that people would have a number of contacts in gmail that they don't have phone numbers for.
I loved choosing which groups to sync. I specifically created a set of groups for the purpose of syncing with my phone. I certainly do not have a need to have all 500 of my gmail contacts on my phone.
So seriously no work around for this other then moving to a different rom?
email htc and ask for group syncing to be returned
After posting my feelings on here I went ahead and sent HTC a support request email. I encourage everyone to email HTC (and sprint for that matter, get sprint to apply some pressure on HTC to have this feature returned).
Here is the txt of the email I sent to HTC:
Hello
I have an HTC Hero from Sprint here in the USA. I updated to android 2.1 using the rom that you and sprint released. I am EXTREMLY UPSET!!!!!! This update had made managing contacts impossible. What were you thinking!!!! Gmail is an email service first and foremost so it would be clearly logical that gmail users would have contacts that they do not have phone numbers for and thus don't need to be in their phone. I have 500 contacts (yes 500 email contacts) and I DO NOT want 500 contacts in my phone. In 1.5 I could chose which gmail contact groups I wanted to sync with the phone but it seems like that ability has been removed in 2.1, WHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY???????????????
Please bring this feature back IMMEDIATELY. It should have never been removed. The remove of this feature has crippled me in the use of my phone.
Contacts in Phone App not necessarily People App....
I have 4200 contacts. I REALLY REALLY REALLY want this solved.
While testing the Andriod App and Google Contacts I realized a couple of things.
In Google Contacts selecting ALL Contacts I could REMOVE them from MY CONTACTS under GROUPS.
If you look to the left hand side column you will see MY CONTACTS now has ZERO contacts in it and ALL CONTACTS has all your contacts.
Then I selected ALL CONTACTS in the left hand side column. The I selected only the contacts I wanted to be in MY CONTACTS. When you click on a CONTACT you now have an option next to GROUPS at the top that say MOVE TO MY CONTACTS.
The great thing about this is under the PEOPLE APP only MY CONTACTS and the GROUPS I have created show up in the PEOPLE APP.
This is what I hoped would happen.
What happened in addition to this you ask?
Now when I go into the PHONE APP I click on MENU then PEOPLE and voila! Only the selected contacts come up. Perfect so far right?
Wrong. From the HOME screen I press the TALK BUTTON. When I start scrolling through the HISTORY of the calls and I arrive at the last HISTORY call I see that the 1st CONTACT of my 4200 contacts shows up. Then I scroll on down and realize that all 4200 contacts ARE THERE!!!!
So it is not only the PEOPLE APP that needs work but ALSO the PHONE APP. In my opinion.
Am I missing something?
So my question is now how do I tell the phone app to only sync whats in PEOPLE APP and not request ALL CONTACTS?
Any thoughts? Ive only worked and researched this for about 5 hours. So I am probably missing something.
Thank you for your help.
David
Build: Damage Control v2.09.01
Firmware: 2.1-update1
Baseband: 2.42.01.04.27
Kernal: 2.6.29-bc0d2cf
Hello, I'm a new owner (less than a week) of the Captivate and a newbie for android except for messing with the Backflip for a couple weeks. All of your guides have been great and I've been tweaking the heck of my captivate. I've even recovered from a near-bricking... scary but satisfying when I breathed life back into the phone. Currently I've got it rooted, OCed, new interface, etc.
However there's one aspect I'd really like to change that's bothering me. As you can guess from my subject it's the contact handling. I haven't seen any threads addressing it and hope someone can either help or point me towards a solution.
In a nutshell, contact handling is horrible. It makes me appreciate motoblur on the backflip... and I hate going backwards. I can't sync my google contact groups and the current implementation is acting strangely. I have it set up to only sync and ONLY display google contacts yet I'm getting an abbreviated list on the contacts tab. There's a lot of contacts that will only display if I click Groups->google. I have no idea why.
Are there any mods that will improve the display of contacts and handle the managing and syncing of google contact groups? Also, what folders will it sync if I enable contact sync with my exchange server? Will disabling sync remove the contacts if I don't like how they're being displayed?
Thanks.
I agree. The stock Contact app on this phone is garbage. The google groups are completely hosed on this app. No individual ringtones can be assigned unless you also create duplicates as phone contacts and then link them together. That is completely brain dead. Even if you do that, you still can't view the google group assigments. They are there, you just can't see them. Try to create a new group with the same name as one of your google groups that doesn't show. It will say it can't create it because it already exists. I'll say it again, the Contacts app on the Captivate is garbage. I haven't been able to find a replacement for it either. Anybody have some suggestions?
The closest thing I can find is an app called GroupU. It presents all of your google groups and changes made through it sync back to your google contacts. However it not integrated into he OS so it's a bit awkward to use.
Still looking for other options. Are there any phones out there that have better contact/google integration? If so, would it be possible to, say, backup that phones contacts.apk and restore it to the captivate? I don't think this would be possible (though I'd definitely try it if I had a different android phone) but I'm still knew to this and haven't gotten down to code level yet.
Anybody else have other options?
Raleran said:
In a nutshell, contact handling is horrible. It makes me appreciate motoblur on the backflip... and I hate going backwards. I can't sync my google contact groups and the current implementation is acting strangely. I have it set up to only sync and ONLY display google contacts yet I'm getting an abbreviated list on the contacts tab. There's a lot of contacts that will only display if I click Groups->google. I have no idea why.
Thanks.
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Two things I can think of in response that might answer some of your questions/issues.
You are obviously aware that you can display contacts from a specific location as you described like "google contacts." For some reason the contacts app has default settings for certain apps. For example; only display contacts with phone number when you are in the dialer or only display contacts with email addresses when in the email app. I have noticed that this weird auto filtering has a tendency to block the contacts I want at the wrong time. I would try checking the filters and make sure its not just hiding what you want to see.
Secondly, I was annoyed with the poor handling of contact groups by the captivate. It seems that the phone will not sync the group placement of the contacts with gmail. From the reading I did, it seems this is a known issue and is being addressed. Google recently made changes to the contacts section online and I am assuming that we will see a change on next months update.
I hope this answers some questions. I have not tried any 3rd party contacts managers so I don't have a replacement suggestion. I got my filters straight and I don't mind waiting for a "groups" fix.
This is my wife's biggest gripe with her phone as well. The groups come through weird, and when she links two contacts together we can't seem to figure out how to set one as the default, so several contacts are showing up in her list as their Twitter username instead of their actual name.
Also, no assigning personalized ringtones for Google contacts? Seriously? Vanilla 2.1 and 2.2 don't have this problem.
I can't wait for somebody to write a vanilla ROM for the Captivate and get completely rid of touchwiz.
Another brain-dead feature of contact groups: if you do "send message" to a group, you're presented with a list of all the contacts in the group. None of the contacts in the group are selected, and there's no "select all" option; you have to go through and tap every member of the group.
Shovelhead84 said:
You are obviously aware that you can display contacts from a specific location as you described like "google contacts." For some reason the contacts app has default settings for certain apps. For example; only display contacts with phone number when you are in the dialer or only display contacts with email addresses when in the email app. I have noticed that this weird auto filtering has a tendency to block the contacts I want at the wrong time. I would try checking the filters and make sure its not just hiding what you want to see.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm having this trouble with the default contact app. If I go to the "desktop" and start contacts I get a different listing on the contact tab then the groups->google tab. I've made sure that only google contacts are displaying (unselected google and made sure the contacts tab was blank). I don't see any filters except for the "only display contacts with phone numbers". Are there any others hidden somewhere?
Shovelhead84 said:
Secondly, I was annoyed with the poor handling of contact groups by the captivate. It seems that the phone will not sync the group placement of the contacts with gmail. From the reading I did, it seems this is a known issue and is being addressed. Google recently made changes to the contacts section online and I am assuming that we will see a change on next months update.
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Click to collapse
I think that the groups are carried to the phone and they're synced in the background. I think that Touchwiz contacts just doesn't display them. Here's why I believe this... GroupU says in their description "Contacts GroupU integrates with built-in phonebook seamlessly." When I loaded it, it knew my labels I had set up in google contacts AND when I changed the assignment it synced back to my desktop.
I haven't seen anything on next months update... do you mean 2.2 will be released then?
Kiserai said:
Also, no assigning personalized ringtones for Google contacts? Seriously? Vanilla 2.1 and 2.2 don't have this problem.
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Here's the strange thing... I know someone with the original droid and they can't access groups either. Go figure.
I've never seen a vanilla ROM for android... so I have absolutely no clue what it looks like.
Raleran said:
I'm having this trouble with the default contact app. If I go to the "desktop" and start contacts I get a different listing on the contact tab then the groups->google tab. I've made sure that only google contacts are displaying (unselected google and made sure the contacts tab was blank). I don't see any filters except for the "only display contacts with phone numbers". Are there any others hidden somewhere?
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I would double check this but I just picked up my phone and it is dead. Not sure why but my battery is completely drained...I think you will see different filter options base on contact application launch. IE...dialer, email, messaging
Raleran said:
I haven't seen anything on next months update... do you mean 2.2 will be released then?
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We can only hope... here is one post on it.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=754678
EX Dialer seems great
Kiserai said:
This is my wife's biggest gripe with her phone as well. The groups come through weird, and when she links two contacts together we can't seem to figure out how to set one as the default, so several contacts are showing up in her list as their Twitter username instead of their actual name.
Also, no assigning personalized ringtones for Google contacts? Seriously? Vanilla 2.1 and 2.2 don't have this problem.
I can't wait for somebody to write a vanilla ROM for the Captivate and get completely rid of touchwiz.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
First off try EX Dialer, it seems fine, and I think it addresses your complaints.
Sendly any JB 4.2 release for your Cappy will astound you, most CM 10.1 based ROMs are really fine.
I like Captivating, though slim bean looks well supported.
Dosolutions
hey. was just wondering if there's anyway to sync selected groups of contacts instead of every damned one on my list.
reason is that i don't want hundreds of e-mails clogging up my contacts list.
sure, i can show only contacts with numbers. but there are some contacts which i only have their e-mails.
thanks!
i'm looking for something similar myself
i got several email accounts (more than 15) that i sync with and you can imagine the huge mess of contacts i have in my phone when i pull up the list to search for an email or phone number
i'm trying to find a way or something to organize all that
also to sync it all across all the accounts
or something along the line
just to clean them up and make it easy to the eyes
i have no problem finding the number or email of the person i need to contact
it just eye soring to see over a 1000+ contacts when you bring up the list to pick from the list.
good lord Android came with an awesome search build in, else it would have been a major pain in the arsenal as it was with Windows Mobile and PalmOS and every other smartphone i've ever had before, even Blackberry sucked at contacts handling
ah well. looks like for now i have to show only contacts with phone numbers. and add some random numbers for the important contacts that i only somehow have their e-mail addresses. bummer.
I am having a problem with facebook contact syncing on my SGS. The contacts all sync to my phone fine, but i have noticed that even if i have the same name in my phonebook as i do for a facebook friend it joins the 2 together.
Only problem is that if i join 2 people of the same name, it seems to use the profile photo and status of another facebook user, and there seems to be no way to sort it, i have tried deleting facebook account from phone and resyncing it, i have tried manually joining the contacts and still nothing.
Anyone else experienced this?
Happened to me on Several roms
Stock 2.1
Stock 2.2
Various custom roms
Does anyone know of an app that has fields for adding birthdays to the phone contacts?
Thanks
Go contacts will. However I noticed it moves slow at times. I have close to 1000 contacts but the Photon, EVO4G & 3VO stock contact apps never lag opening the same amount. I recommend trying it. I need a contact app that will preserve & populate groups made on my EVO4G & 3VO as well as birthdays. The first time I imported my contacts from SD the motorola app created the groups. However it did not populate them & I recently noticed an export of the same omitted Birthdays. I wonder if I would have a differnt result rooted?