The first thing to note, is that you can only share Google Contacts with other Gmail users if they are on the same domain e.g. @flashissue.com. This also means it only works for Google Apps users and not for regular @gmail users.
If you don’t use Google Contacts, your can learn more here. At ITFixTech, let you use your Google Contacts to build mailing lists so you can more quickly send and track emails.
There are a number of reasons and scenarios why you might want to share your Google Contacts in this way. Some examples are:
- I want to give my assistant access to my contacts so he can send out emails to our board members using his Gmail account.
- My main Gmail account is for personal use but i want to be able to access my personal contacts from my other Gmail account i use for sales.
- I’ve uploaded a customer list to a “team” Gmail account and I want my sales team to have access to the email addresses from their personal accounts.
Once I share my Google Contacts with others, these contacts will appear as a new group called Delegated Contacts in everyone’s Google Contacts screen.
How to share your Google Contacts using the Delegate feature
- Open Google Contacts.
- Select the More pulldown menu directly above your contacts list and click Manage Delegation Settings.
- Using the Add people box, enter the email addresses of the other users you wish to share your Google contacts with.
- Click Share & save to finish granting the specified users access to your contacts.
- (this part was just like sharing any other document with Google Drive)
How to view shared Google Contacts
- Go to Google Contacts.
- In the left navigation, click the Delegated Contacts group.
- Under Delegated Contacts, view the names of users who have delegated their contacts to you. Click on the user’s name to enter their My Contacts group with full edit access.
Things you can do when sharing Google Contacts to Other Gmail Users
- Invite anyone in your organization to share and have access to your contacts
- Avoid having to replicate contacts across Gmail accounts
- You can delete or edit a delegated contact and it will automatically be synched to everyone with access to your contacts.
Things you can’t do when sharing contacts
- You can’t share your contacts outside your domain.
- You can’t limit sharing to a Contact Group. You have to share all of My Contacts.
- You can’t create your own Contact Group that include emails from the shared group.
- You can’t create a new contact and add it to the delegated group
- If you do a search in your address book it will search the delegated contacts
Things to bear in mind and beware of
- The synching of delegated contacts may take a few minutes (try refreshing your screen)
- When you click the Delegated contact group is may take a while for the contacts to load (depending on the number of contacts)
- If your share your Google contacts with other Gmail users they can delete and change your contacts.
- When you delegate your contacts for sharing it includes your entire address book not just part of it.
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How to Move contacts to a different Google account on your Android device
If you need to switch Google accounts on your smartphone and you're concerned about losing contacts, fear not. Here's how to import and export your Google contacts.
How to export and import your contacts
While this task can be done from within the Google Contacts app, it's much easier to manage from the Google Contacts page. (Note: Exporting and importing isn't supported by the new Contacts page yet.) Once you're on that page, do the following.
- Log into the source account.
- Click the More drop-down.
- Click Export.
- From the resulting window, select All Contacts (unless you want to select a particular Group) and Google CSV format.
- Click Export.
- Save the file to your local storage.
Log out of the source account and log into the destination account. You'll follow the same process except select Import from the More drop-down. Then click the Choose File button, navigate to the file you just saved, and click Import.
Now you can add the new Google account to your device, remove the old account, and wait for your contacts to sync to the phone.
Export and import contacts from your mobile device
You can also do this from the device. Here are the steps.
- From the source account, open the Contacts app.
- Tap the Menu button. Tap Import/Export.
- Tap Export To Storage. Note the filename of the exported contacts and tap OK.
- Add the new account to the device and remove the old account.
- Once the new account is on the device, open the Contacts app.
- Tap the Menu button. Tap Import/Export. Tap Import From Storage.
- When prompted for where to create the contacts, select Google.
- Allow the import to complete.
With these steps you can easily manage your Google cloud contacts, regardless of device or account; you don't have to rely on third-party apps to help move your Google contacts from one account or device to another