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Google Contacts: The Helpful Guide Gmail *Should’ve* Made (w/Screenshots)

How to access Gmail contacts

Looking to demystify Google Contacts — from accessing your Gmail contact list to using it for mass emails?

You’ve been a Gmail user for years… but there’s a good chance you’ve never messed around with your Google Contacts. You may not even know where your Gmail contacts list is located.

It’s not you, it’s them.

Google contact list management can get cumbersome sometimes since it requires going back and forth outside of Gmail to manage it.

In this article, I’ll give you a step-by-step guide on how to access your contact list in Gmail. To help you manage your Google contacts list easily, I’ll also cover how to add contacts, label them, check for duplicates, and delete contacts.

Plus, I’ll show you the easiest way to send individual, personalized mail merge messages to your Google Contacts. (With their first names automatically detected and inserted into those emails!)

Google Contacts: Table of Contents:

Let’s get started.

How to Find Your Gmail Contacts (Step-by-Step Guide)

If you’re confused about where your Gmail contact records (especially after various Gmail interface updates), don’t worry!

You can access your Google contact list in two ways:

I’ll cover both methods in this section.

Just follow these simple steps, and you’ll find your Gmail contact records in no time:

The Gmail Method

Here’s how to access your Gmail contact records from your Gmail account:

Step 1

Log in to your Gmail account and click on the square-like Google Apps icon on the upper right corner of your Gmail inbox.

Gmail interface showing the Google Apps icon

The Google Apps drop-down menu will pop-up.Gmail interface showing the Google Apps drop-down menu

Step 2

Click on the Google Contacts icon. Gmail interface showing the Google Contacts icon in the Google Apps drop-down menu

Step 3

Once you click on the icon, your Gmail contact list page will appear.Google Contacts interface

The Google Homepage Method

You can access your contacts from your Google homepage as well. However, you must be signed in to your Google account for this to work.

Here are the steps to access your contacts list from the Google homepage:

Step 1

Go to the Google homepage and click on the Google Apps icon on the upper right corner.Google homepage showing the Google Apps icon

The Google Apps drop-down menu will appear.Google homepage showing the Google Apps drop-down menu

Step 2

Click on the Contacts icon.Google Contacts icon in the Google Apps drop-down menu

Step 3

And voila! You’ll be in your Google Contacts page. Google Contacts interface

You can also access your contacts directly by heading to contacts.google.com or using the Contacts app for Android devices.

And that’s everything you need to know about accessing your Google contacts list!

How to Manage Your Google Contacts (Step-by-Step Guide)

Knowing how to open your Google Gmail contacts page isn’t enough, right? 

You also have to know how to manage your contacts to keep your contact list updated!

Don’t worry.

I’ll show you everything you need to know about managing your contact group in this section:

1. How Do You Add Contacts in Gmail?

There are two ways to add a new contact in Gmail, and in this section, I’ll cover both ways:

How Can You Add Contacts Through the Google Contacts Page?

Here’s how to add Gmail contacts through the Google Contacts page:

Step 1

Open the Google Contacts page (using the methods described earlier in this article).Google Contacts interface

Step 2

Click on the Create Contact button on the top left.Google Contacts interface showing the Create Contact button

Step 3

Once you click on Create Contact, you will get the option to choose between adding a single contact or multiple contacts.Google Contacts interface showing the Create Contacts options

Note: For this article, I’ll create a single contact. However, if you want to add multiple contacts, you can either add them by their names and email addresses or use a CSV file.

Step 4

An empty contact form will appear, as shown in the image below. You can fill in your new contact information accordingly. Google Contacts interface showing the Create new contact form

You can even add labels to the contact to categorize it into a specific Gmail group like School or Work. This is what a completed form looks like:Google Contacts interface showing a filled new contact form

Step 5

Once you’re done, just click on Save and the contact will be added to your list.Google Contacts interface showing the Save icon for a new contact

How Do You Add Contacts from an Email?

This method is an easy way to add a person to your contact list straight from your email inbox. Here’s how to do it:

Step 1

Go to your Gmail inbox and hover over an email until this dialog box showing the contact’s name and email address pops up.Gmail interface showing a sender's contact information

Step 2

Click on the Add to Contacts icon, and the person will be added to your Google contact list.Gmail interface showing the Add to Contacts icon

Note: If you’ve already added the person to your contacts list, you’ll see the option to edit their contact.Gmail interface showing the Edit Contact icon

And that’s how easy it is to add contacts from your Gmail inbox!

How Do You Create Labels in Gmail Contacts?

Categorizing contacts is essential to maintain an organized email list.

Gmail helps you create groups and label these contacts with a common contact group name to send an email message quickly to all your group members.

But that’s not all.

You can also add several labels to one contact and add them to multiple groups.

For example, if you have separate email groups for marketing and sales but only one manager overseeing both groups, you can add the manager to the marketing distribution list and the sales group email list.

Note: Adding a contact to a new group in Gmail is not the same as adding a contact to a Google Group. Google Groups is meant for discussions between people who share similar interests.

Here are the steps to label contacts in Gmail:

Step 1

Open the Google Contacts page.Google Contacts interface

Step 2

Select the contacts you want to label. You can do this by hovering over their contact and clicking on the checkbox that appears over the contact icon. Google Contacts interface showing selected contacts

Step 3

Click on the labels icon on the top to create a new label.Google Contacts interface showing the Labels icon

Step 4

From the drop-down menu that appears, select Create Label.Google Contacts interface showing the Create label option

Step 5

Type a label name and click Save.Google Contacts interface showing the Save button in the Create label dialog box

That’s all you have to do to label contacts!

You can access your labels from the Labels tab on the left sidebar.Google Contacts interface showing the Labels tab

3. How Do You Manage Duplicates in Your Contacts List?

Having duplicate contacts can be a headache as they clutter up your contact list.

Thankfully, Gmail can automatically clean out all the duplicates from your contact list.

All you have to do is ask Gmail to clean it up.

Let’s see how you can clear up duplicates in your Gmail contact list:

Step 1

Open the Google Contacts page.Google Contacts interface showing the Contact list

Step 2

Click on the Merge & fix icon on the left sidebar.Google Contacts interface showing the Merge & fix option

If there are any duplicate contacts, Gmail displays a number alongside it.

Here, I have 50 duplicates in my contacts list.

Step 3

In the Merge & fix page, Gmail will show you each duplicated entry.Google Contacts interface showing the Merge & fix page

You have the choice to Merge all, which fixes every duplicate entry.

Alternatively, you can choose to merge or dismiss duplicates individually. If you dismiss a duplicate, both entries will stay in your contact list.

4. How Do You Delete Contacts from Your Gmail Contact List?

Keeping old and outdated contact information only adds to the clutter of your contacts list.

Here’s how you can delete old contact information and keep your contacts page updated:

Step 1

Open Gmail Contacts.Gmail Contacts interface

Step 2

Hover over the contact you want to delete and click on the three dots that appear on the right.Google Contacts interface showing the three dots icon for a contact

Step 3

From the drop-down menu that appears, click on Delete.Google Contacts interface showing the delete option for an individual contact

When the confirmation window pops up, click on Delete again.Google Contacts interface showing the Delete icon in the Delete this contact dialog box

Note: If you want to delete multiple contacts at once, select contacts by clicking on their display pictures. Then, choose delete from the three dots on the top.Google Contacts interface showing the Delete option for multiple contacts

The Easiest Way to Send Individual, Personalized Mass Emails to Your Gmail Contacts

So you’ve got this Google contacts list… let’s reach out to it.

Let me give you a quick intro to GMass. (Since I’m guessing you got to this post by Googling for Gmail contacts and might not be one of the 300,000+ people currently using GMass.)

GMass is a Chrome extension that transforms Gmail into an email marketing and mail merge platform. It’s a pretty sweet tool.

GMass turns it into something else

It’s free and super easy to get started.

And it’s perfect for sending a mass email to your Google Contacts… but having everyone get their own individual, personalized message that they’ll never know is a mass email.

Here’s how.

Step 1: Set up GMass (it takes maybe 5 minutes)

You can set up GMass by downloading the Chrome extension and clicking a few buttons to give it the standard Chrome extension permissions. You won’t need to put in a credit card — or even fill out a form.

Step 2: Select all your Google Contacts and send them an email

On the Google Contacts screen, hit Control+A on Windows or Command (⌘)+A on Mac. That will select all of your Contacts.

(Note: You don’t have to send to all of your contacts. You can also manually pick and choose whichever ones you want. For this example I just went with all of them.)

Then click on the email icon to send them an email.

Send email to Gmail contacts

You can now type your message to your Gmail contacts.

Step 3: Use GMass’s automatic personalization features

GMass has advanced mail merge personalization features built in where you can personalize everything in emails from links to images to attachments. But most of that requires connecting a Google Sheet with data to your email campaigns.

Here, we’re working off Google Contacts.

But GMass is smart and can pick up the info from your contacts. So you can use personalization like {FirstName}.

And just in case there are contacts where you don’t have the first name entered, you can use a fallback value as well; so you can use {FirstName|there}

Step 4: Sending the messages

I can now send the campaign by hitting the GMass button rather than the regular blue Gmail send button.

Send with the GMass button

And you can see everyone’s getting their own individual, personalized message.


Personalized messages

There’s really no faster or easier way to send personalized mail merge campaigns than with GMass — you’re sending them from inside your Gmail account.

You can read even more about what makes GMass different and better — or download the Chrome extension to get started ASAP.

Google Contacts and Your Gmail Contact List: Next Steps

Google loves switching up their interface, so many people get confused about how to access their contacts. Fortunately, it’s not usually too difficult to find.

Just follow the steps I’ve covered here, and you can access and manage your contacts with ease. Besides managing contacts, there’s so much more you can do with Gmail and Google Contacts.

You can sync events with the Google Calendar app, export and import contacts using the CSV format or a Google Sheet, and more!

Check out this article to learn more about exporting your Google contacts.

And if you’re looking to get the most functionality out of Gmail and to send emails to your contacts and others, consider giving GMass a try today. It’s the best email campaign tool you could ask for, and it will help take your email experience to the next level.

Ready to transform Gmail into an email marketing/cold email/mail merge tool?


Only GMass packs every email app into one tool — and brings it all into Gmail for you. Better emails. Tons of power. Easy to use.


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23 Comments
  1. Okay, I have looked at a bunch of blogs, support posts, etc about my question but can’t seem to find an answer. Once a year I do a charity bike ride for which my fundraising activity has gotten quite extensive. I have a group in Google Contacts (not a Google Group) that is my fundraising target group and it has 360 people in it. Many of those people have multiple e-mail addresses (work, personal, more personal) and I want to send to all. I always assumed in the past when I put the group name into the bcc: field, it sent to all the addresses but it is now unclear to me if that is the case. I got in trouble with Gmail last year because I think it decided I looked like a spammer and/or was exceeding the daily sending limits and shut me down for a day. It seems like to use GMASS I have to download all of those contacts into a spreadsheet, do some cleanup and then upload. This somewhat kills the “ease” of which I have been adding people to that list over the years. I can think of a couple of ways to do it that wouldn’t be too hard but would still require some work. I downloaded the add on for GMASS and would be happy to pay during the fundraising every year (August to November) but I still have the issue of how do I use all the email addresses associated with these people and how to add to the group over time without a lot of work.

  2. Paul Darden was accused to murder when he was only fifteen many years previous. While the Stud variants in 8 game poker are 7 Card Stud, Razz, and Stud Hello-Lo. You merely don’t have that in a real job.

  3. My issue is disappearing contacts! I added 20+ a couple days ago and today all but 2 are gone!
    How do I get them back without having to reenter all the information from the ones that are missing? Any help appreciated!

  4. Oh boy, I have gone to very specific gmail question places. Tried both. Neither have been even remotely accurate. So I used both my safari and my gmail app. And I have to go to the line bar. I don’t mind if you show the right corner. Because how can google know what kind of device we have. And now I will not be sending my mother an email. Because I don’t want to here. I didn’t get your email. And is incredibly annoying when I know the first and second letter. And the whole email.but nothing. And now why is that someone who I messaged once or twice 2 years ago comes up. Now I would desire to delete these.

    1. Same with me. They STOLE our email contacts. FACT!
      How dare they mess with our contacts – but they are communists & do whatever they want.

      F Gmail – going for all the others who aren’t communists who CONTROL YOU!

  5. Doesn’t work. All email contacts are gone. How dare Microsoft do that??
    They are evil. Now I can’t send emails! F U Microsoft & all of you who mess with our computers overnight!

    Rookers! Fraud! Steal our info! Steal emails contacts! THEFT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
    THEFT!!!!!!!!!!!!! STEALERS! Useless group! I hate YOU!~

  6. That doesn’t work. You just get your Contact Phone Numbers, not the Gmail email addresses of your Contacts.

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