Knowing how to hide Google contacts could be the difference between having easy access to the people you actually get in touch with regularly and having to hunt for them among a mass of unused entries.
Whether it’s the language-learning apps we promise ourselves we’ll use one day or those pet photos we never look at, our devices are brimming with things we know we don’t need but can’t bring ourselves to get rid of.
The same can be said of contacts. Who among us doesn’t have a bunch of phone numbers or email addresses that we never use but just don’t want to part with?
Thankfully, Google Contacts makes it easy to hide these entries by storing them in a separate folder. They’ll no longer show up on your main contact list but will still be available if you ever feel like digging them out again.
So read on and we’ll show you how to hide Google Contacts from your address book without deleting them.
How to hide Google contacts without deleting them
1. Head to Google Contacts on a desktop browser and sign in using your Google account. You’ll see a list of all your contacts.
2. To hide a single contact, start by clicking on the three dots to the right of the contact. Then, click “Hide from contacts.” This will put it into the “Other contacts” folder.
3. For multiple contacts, click the icon next to each contact and a checkbox will appear by each one. Click the three dots at the top of the page, then “Hide from contacts.”
4. To restore a single hidden contact back to your address book, go to the “Other contacts” folder and click the “Add to contacts” icon.
5. To restore multiple hidden contacts, go to the “Other contacts” folder and click the icon next to each contact so a checkbox appears by each one. Click the “Add to contacts” icon at the top of the page.
Looking for more phone tutorials? We also have guides to how to hide apps on Android, how to delete multiple contacts on iPhone and how to import iPhone contacts into Gmail.
