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Google Contacts update finds people not saved to your account in search

Google makes it pretty easy to house all of your contacts in a single location, but sometimes you’ll still shoot emails off to people you don’t have saved or vice versa. Now, Google is making it easier to track down “other” contacts with the latest update to Google Contacts for Android.

The latest update for Google Contacts started rolling out this week, and its changelog actually details what’s new. In search, Google Contacts can now show “other” contacts. However, this feature may have been rolling out for some time. We’re not 100% sure when it went live. Android Police found it working as far back as v3.15.2, where the latest is v3.17.1.

What are these “other” contacts? In short, these are people you’ve been in contact with but never saved their information. Google has saved this information online for a while, and it’s often a handy way to fill in auto-complete forms or just save the information without bothering to take the time to do it properly. Often, the contact suggestions you see in Gmail are populated in part from this list.

Now, Google is showing that “other” list of contacts on Android devices. If you open up the Google Contacts app on Android and enter the search form, you’ll see normal results you’ve saved, but also these unsaved people, too. Notably, this applies to any accounts on your device, so you’ll see results from both personal and work accounts.

More on Android:

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