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Adding numbers to speed dial

Help & How To
By Jerry Hildenbrand | Aug 05 2010 | 12:47 pm  | 32 Comments

Setting up your speed dial list

Sometimes we forget that our Android phones are, well, phones. For those times when you need to make a call, it's handy to have a speed dial list. And it's easy to make one. Open your dialer, some phones have a dedicated button, some have a shortcut icon on the desktop, and all have a phone app in the applications tray. Once you get it open, hit the menu button and look for the Speed dial button in the lower left (number 1 above).  Give it a tap, and a new window will pop open (number 2 above) and you just hit the Add new button.  After you pick a contact, you get to assign it to any available number on the list.

Note that this may vary by phone. It's in Sense, and on the Captivate and Vibrant, as well as the Droid X. Stock Android? Not so much.

Pro tip: For those numbers that you find yourself always calling, you can add a direct dial icon to your homescreen by long pressing an available 1x1 spot, and choose Shortcut > Direct Dial from the menu.  And don't forget about voice dialing!

Jerry Hildenbrand

Jerry Hildenbrand Cowboy

"Just press the button. Trust me."

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Reader comments

Adding numbers to speed dial

32 Comments
vivaldi265

I love how people complain when a particular tip does not apply to their phone. If a tip does not apply to you, just move on. I absolutely do not see the reason for you to post a comment bashing the "tipster". Just let it go.

vicw926a4

Thanks for the info. Setting up the Speed Dial on the DX was easy, but actually dialing it was a bit more interesting. I couldn't find any Shortcut/Direct Dial anywhere, there was no mention of it in the Motorola User Guide for the DX, and nothing in the AC, or Verizon User Forums on this topic that I could find.

I finally found an offhand reference that contained the solution in the Motorola User Forum. The answer is insanely simple. Just hold down the Dialer Key number for the Speed Dial until it dials the phone for you. Sometimes things are too simple to see for me.

Smokeaire

Thanks to several posts here I learned about the shortcut direct dial...better than speed dial. I like having the contact pic on my home page.

bojowaggie

This does not work for the stock dialer for the Droid.

I have Dialer One and it works great..
Now I just wish I could use the new icon for 2.2 on the bottom where the drawer is.
On the left is the "stock" phone app, and in the middle is the app drawer button and the right is the globe for the web.
I wish I could customise those..

Other than that I highly Recommed Dialer One as the stock Droid dialer does not have speed dials just favorites.

mupi

ADW Launcher lets you customize those buttons. Among about a million other things.

as far as I know, it's the only one that lets you customize those; although LauncherPro might, I haven't dug into that much, or the paid apps.

You can also get more than 3 home screens this way, and pick up some other goodies. I keep trying other launchers, but I keep coming back to ADW Launcher.

m2cw

dangerboy13

If anyone has a Nexus or Droid (or anything running the stock Android) and you really want speed dial, you could check out Dialer One, which does have them. It is a little different to setup, but still easy.

romiust

thanks for the tip. as a new droid1 owner i was missing the speed dial functionality. i really used it a lot on my env3. And i really like using speed dial as i only call 3 or 4 people.

tuxedobuford

I don't seem to find the speed dial option on my Droid (no menu list when in dialer) but I've been doing kind of the same thing with a starred contact folder on my desktop. Just one extra press near as I can tell.

dangerboy13

Sorry bout that, worded my comment on Twitter a bit wrong, I figured it was in other "experiences", I just knew it wasn't in the default Android OS.

storm14k

Man some of your tips posts make me realize how stupid I do things or how I get hooked on one way of doing things. I started using ADW for a home screen and went all out of the way trying to get something to replace the quick contacts widget that I had set up from Sense. I have 3 numbers that I dial very often. Like a dummy I had never thought about the stupid speed dial or direct dial shorcuts lol.

dangerboy13

Just as an FYI to all, this is a Sense feature (as shown by the screenshots above), this is not a feature in the default Android dialer (such as on the Droid or Nexus One).

myriad46

Ohhh...you mean for the majority of Android based phones? This Android 101 series tends to be leaning towards obscure tips, rather than something everyone can benefit from. Similar to the Android 101 about a Froyo feature.

dangerboy13

Dude, no need to be sarcastic, was just throwing it out there before there were a bunch of comments from Droid and Nexus users saying it didn't work. Each phone has their own little quirks and features, and that's a good thing, just wanted to make sure the info was there since it wasn't in the article.

myriad46

No foul on you. I'm in total agreement. I was poking at AndroidCentral for providing blanket "Android" tips that only apply to a portion of Android phones. As you brought up, they could have called it HTC 101, or SenseUI 101.

Saiboogu

I was just about to post something to that effect -- Couldn't find speeddial anywhere. Can't say I find myself missing it though. Don't see what the benefits are over "Favorites." Personally I have a shortlist of Favorites that stand in for what most people would probably put in speed dial (about a dozen). Then my absolute top contacts get desktop icons. Talking two icons there. What can speed dial do that's better than that?

Anyway, doesn't matter much.. that's the wonderful thing about Android, everyone can customize it to be what they want (though it sometimes needs to be rooted..)

madsere

How to delete the first speed dial entry (voicemail)? I don't use voicemail anyway.

Where are "Favorites" on a HTC FroYo? Can't see it anywhere... perhaps it's a Motorola-only thing just like speed dial is a HTC thing?

Smokeaire

Thanks for the heads up. I just wish I had read your post before I spent wasted minutes trying to find the non-existing speed dial feature in my Nexus 1.
This needs to be pointed out in the article.

Go Android!

Holy shit. I've had my phone for almost a year and never knew there was speed dial on it. I just used the Favorites tab.

decyphersmc

definitely guilty of forgetting about this.

I find putting a contact icon super handy for getting in touch with someone. Having the option to; call (mobile or work), email (personal or work), text, facebook view contact very helpful.

AndroidOne

Opened speed dial window and found #2 pre-assigned to Sprint Zone (on Evo). I find no way to change this assignment for something useful to me, any thoughts?

BMGRAHAM

+1 - it irks me that they chose to do that, especially since *2 does the same thing, it's totally unnecessary to set speeddial 2 to customer service - and in addition when you do it, it doesn't call anyway, it brings up a menu and you have to press the screen again to make the call to customer - hardly speeddial and a waste of speeddial 2!