Help Only a few contacts showing in email app

[JLeslie]

My wife's S4 has a problem I haven't run into on any other Android phone so far. She runs the Email app and then composes a new email. To address it she brings up the contact list or does a contact search and only about 6 contacts show up. However when you open the Contacts app there are about 300 entries.

Why aren't all of the people in her Contacts app showing up when she goes to address an email in the Email app?

Jonathan

 

[stevedec]

There is more than one contact list - Google, phone, SIM card all have contacts. Check the Contacts app to see which ones it is displaying. There is a menu option to select which one(s) to use.

 

[Crashdamage]

Yeah, make sure she saves new entries as Google (Gmail) contacts. That way they're all in one place, backed up in her Google account for easy restoration or transfer to a new device.

 

[JLeslie]

She does have a fair amount of contacts in the local (phone) contact list. I wish there was some way to export them into the Google contacts list. What is already in it is of course getting backed up.

As for which contact list they're in, it doesn't seem to make any difference with this particular problem. I say that because of the few contacts that do show when composing an email, some are in the local contacts list and some are in the Google contacts list. So it's not a matter of selecting which ones to display because some in each list are showing. That's what has me puzzled.

So there is something else that preventing the majority of the contacts in either list from showing when composing an email. And it doesn't seem to matter which email account she's composing an email in (she has multiple accounts on her phone). On all my Android phones I've had multiple accounts and at first the contacts weren't all in the Google contact list but I still never experienced this problem she is having.

 

[Crashdamage]

To get all of her contacts in Google contacts:

There should be an option to export the phone contacts as a .vcf file. Export them, and make a backup copy of the .vcf file.

Delete the phone contacts on her phone.

Turn off Google contacts sync on her phone.

Import the .vcf file to her Google (Gmail) contacts online.

When the phone contacts in the .vcf file are successfully imported and merged with the existing Google contacts, turn contacts sync back on and the new combined Google contacts list will sync to the phone.

The phone should now have a single, all-Google contacts list. Make sure she always saves new contacts to her Google account from now on.

Getting all her contacts saved in a single place may solve your other problem.

 

[JLeslie]

To get all of her contacts in Google contacts:

There should be an option to export the phone contacts as a .vcf file. Export them, and make a backup copy of the .vcf file.

Delete the phone contacts on her phone.

Turn off Google contacts sync on her phone.

Import the .vcf file to her Google (Gmail) contacts online.

When the phone contacts in the .vcf file are successfully imported and merged with the existing Google contacts, turn contacts sync back on and the new combined Google contacts list will sync to the phone.

The phone should now have a single, all-Google contacts list. Make sure she always saves new contacts to her Google account from now on.

Getting all her contacts saved in a single place may solve your other problem.

I followed your directions and now while she has all her contacts in gmail and synced, when composing an email and selecting from the Contacts list to pick who to send it to, there are only 6 contacts listed. The same 6 that were listed before I first posted here. So while the contacts are now backed up, the problem still exists.

Note: I gave the phone back to my wife and we were discussing the problem and all of a sudden she said she knew why only those few were showing up. Those are the only contacts with an email address in them, all the others just have a phone number! I never thought of that so I feel rather foolish but I'm glad her contacts are now all in one place and backed up.

Thanks for the help folks.

 

[GTWalling]

Check a few of the contacts not being listed to make sure there e-mail address is in the correct format or even there. If no e-mail address listed they will not show up.