ContactZappStart Free
User manual
Your contacts

Use labels

Add or remove labels on one contact or on many at once, and find where to choose which labels sync.

A label is a tag on a contact, such as a group or a category. You can add a label to one contact, or to many at once. Labels also decide what is brought in from each account.

Add or remove a label on one contact

  1. Tap Contacts. Find the contact and open it. Its labels show as chips.
  2. Tap Edit.
  3. Find Labels. Type in the box that says Add a label, then press Enter. You can pick one we suggest from your other contacts, or type a new one.
  4. To remove a label, tap the small cross on its chip. Its name reads Remove the label followed by the label.
  5. Tap Save.

A label can hold a comma, such as "Clients, EU". It is saved as one label.

Add a label to many contacts

  1. Tap Contacts.
  2. Tick the box beside each contact you want. To tick every loaded contact, use Select every contact in the list.
  3. In the bar that appears, tap Add a label. The bar shows how many contacts are selected.
  4. Type or pick a label in the box marked Label.
  5. Tap Add label.

This adds the label to each selected contact and changes nothing else. Labels the contacts already have stay. A contact that already has the label is left as it is. The bar says the change goes to every account the contact is in.

When it finishes, a message reads "N contacts labelled." Your contacts stay selected, so you can add a second label. Tap Clear to unselect them.

What happens next

The label is saved in ContactZapp and added to History. We send it to each of your two-way accounts that holds the contact, at the next sync. Read-only accounts are never changed. See Edit a contact for where a change goes.

To find contacts by label, type the label in the search box. See Search and filter contacts.

Choose which labels sync from an account

Each account has its own list of labels. To keep one out of ContactZapp:

  1. Open Settings, then Accounts.
  2. Tap the gear button on the account. Its name reads Configure followed by the account.
  3. Under Which labels to sync, turn off the labels you don't want from that account.

Contacts that have only labels you turned off are removed from ContactZapp after the number of days the screen shows. Nothing is deleted in the account itself. Turn the label back on and they come back. The linked answers explain what happens to a new label, and to a contact with several labels.

If something goes wrong

  • "N labelled, N could not be labelled." The contacts that failed are usually waiting for duplicate review, or were merged into another contact. Finish the review, then add the label again.
  • "Could not add the label. Try again." Nothing was changed. Tap Add a label and try again.
  • A label didn't reach an account. The account may be read-only or paused. Read-only accounts are never changed. A paused account gets the change when you resume it.
  • A contact disappeared after you turned a label off. That is expected when all its labels are off. Turn the label back on.
  • "Labels appear after the first sync." The account hasn't finished its first sync. Come back after it has.

My contacts have labels. Can I exclude some labels from syncing?

Yes. Open Settings, choose Accounts, and open the account with the gear button. Under Which labels to sync, turn off the labels you don't want from that account.

ContactZapp then doesn't bring those labels in from that account. A contact that has at least 1 label turned on still syncs, without the labels that are off. A contact that has only labels that are off isn't brought in from that account. If no other account has it, we remove it from ContactZapp after 30 days. Nothing is deleted in the account itself, and turning the label back on brings the contact back.

The choice applies to one account. A label that is off for that account can still reach it from your other accounts.

What happens when I create a new label in one of my connected accounts?

It depends on where the label was created.

  • A label you create in ContactZapp is sent to your two-way accounts and turned on there.
  • A label created in another app, such as Gmail or Outlook, syncs from that account if you have never changed its label toggles. If you have, the new label starts turned off. To sync it, turn it on under Which labels to sync in the account's settings.

While a label is off, contacts that have only that label aren't brought in from that account. We check each account for new labels about once a day, so a new label can take up to a day to show in the list.

How is a contact with multiple labels synced?

A contact with several labels syncs when at least 1 of its labels is turned on for the account. The labels that are turned off aren't brought in from that account. A contact with no labels always syncs.

When we send the contact to your two-way accounts, we send the labels it has. Labels that an account already has on the contact, and that you turned off for it, stay in place. A label that is off for one account can still reach it from another account that has the label.