Highlight the relationships that mean the most to you with new Google Contacts features

To wrap up 2022 and usher in the new year, the Google Contacts app is receiving a few new tools. In order to help bring attention to the relationships that matter most to you, the team behind its development has implemented a new “Highlights” tab (kudos for the find, 9to5Google).

Before, the bottom navigation only featured “Contacts” and “Fix & manage” tabs, but now, squished between them is a new section to view those you interact with most. You could already do this by starring contacts so they appear at the top of your list, but they would then simply sit at the top of the “Contacts” tab.

While this made sense, it’s clear that separating them into their own special section adds attention-grabbing elements. Additionally, the Highlights tab has a new “Viewed recently” and “Added recently” sub-tab switcher. Jumping between each of these will show you additional highlights and not simply the people you’ve placed a star on for special focus.

Needless to say, these sub-tabs are dynamic and will update automatically as you interact with your friends, family, and colleagues whereas the “Favorites” section will not unless you manually star or unstar a contact.

As someone who has stated forever that Google’s relationship management system (RMS) is weak and that they have much opportunity to beef up the tools and features so it competes with other, more robust apps, I’m glad to see these features being implemented. It’s important to keep in mind that while more useful options begin appearing (ever-so-slowly) Contacts was created to be simple, to the point, and effective, and it does that well.