Gmail Gets New Contacts, yesterday Google announced that a Gmail Gets New Contactsnew update was available for Gmail Contacts. This has been on the wishlist for many users for sometime so I was excited to see the new changes.
Here is a quick list of the new features:
- Add new contact information that will default to “Work” instead of “Home” field types
- View contact details from the domain directory together with the contact details that you’ve added yourself
- Add contacts from the domain directory to your “My Contacts” list in a single click
- Manage groups more easily by quickly adding email addresses to groups, and picking from a contact’s multiple email addresses to use on a group-by-group basis
- Revert changes to your Contacts for up to 30 days in case you need to restore deleted or merged contacts, or undo an import
Now the biggest change I found was the new, easier to use interface of contacts. Also, being on Google Apps it made some subtle changes to the layout of the Gmail interface. Moving the Labels down and having a nice big “Compose Mail” button.
Here is the new All Contacts Window View:
If you are a Google Apps user you will have to get your administrator to enable the new feature in the Google Apps Control Panel and once enabled I found it took about an hour to get the new features. For administrators if you have the next generation control panel enabled, go to Service Settings > Contacts, and then hit the check box “Preview the New Contact Manage in Gmail“.
This is a great step forward for Contacts in the Google Apps suite.