Group Android Contacts by Label

Project Status: Dream Came True
Original Post: Android to bring back contact groups

That's right, contact groups are back for Android!

As of version number 1.5.16 of Google's Contacts app you now have the option to organize your contacts by use of labels. If you already had contact groups setup in your Gmail account, then you will be happy to know that those will automatically start working as label groups in your Contacts app.

How to label my contacts?

It's super easy to add grouping labels to your existing contacts. If you want to add labels from your Contacts app then follow these steps:

1. Open the Contacts app.
2. Locate the contact you would like to label.
3. Touch the edit icon in the top right corner.
   (Having problems finding the edit icon? Check out this post to learn more about fixing this issue)
4. Scroll to the bottom and touch the "More fields" link
5. Scroll to the very bottom and you will see the option to select one or more labels for this contact.

Where do I find my groups once I am using labels?

To quickly narrow your contacts list down to a smaller group you can select a label to view only contacts with that label attached to them. Here's how:

1. Open the Contacts app.
2. Touch the hamburger menu in the top left corner
   ("Hamburger menu" is a term to describe the icon which is made up of three horizontal lines.)
3. Here you should see a list of existing labels for your account.
4. Touch any label to select it and your list of contacts will be narrowed to only those using this label.

Now what?

Now that contact groups came back maybe they can start working on one of the other feature requests I was hoping for which is group ringtones. The idea for group ringtones became obsolete once they dropped groups altogether but now I have hopes for it again.