What you need to know
- Google Contacts is getting a UI change with its latest update.
- The app now features a bottom bar so that users can toggle between their contacts and certain settings.
- The Fix & Manage tab lets users merge, import and export contacts, and much more.
While many of the best Android phones ship with their own contacts app, Google Contacts is very widely used. The app has recently been updated with a new UI that aims to make it easier to manage contacts, thanks to a new bottom bar.
The update was spotted by Android Police and gives Google Contacts a tabbed view; the left for contacts, the right tab to "Fix & Manage" your entries. You can see the difference between the old view and the update below. You'll notice that the search bar, hamburger menu, three-dot menu, and Google Account thumbnail remain at the top.
In the "Fix & Manage" tab, you'll find various functions that you previously would have to access through the hamburger menu or the Contacts app settings, the latter of which is also still accessible through the Google Account thumbnail. This includes merging contacts, importing and exporting, restoring from the cloud, and accessing trashed contacts. Users can also access blocked contacts and emergency contacts, although that last option didn't show up on my Galaxy S22.
Google Contacts is the latest Google app to receive a bottom bar, which is found on plenty of Google's first-party apps like Gmail, Google Drive, and more. It should likely give users more obvious access to these functions to clean up their contact list. That said, the new UI has yet to appear on all of our phones, meaning it must be a gradual server-side rollout.
