Sorting contacts?

[tiverson77]

Favorites different than contacts

Why didn't anyone reply to the original question.?
I can sort my contacts, but I'm stuck with 1st name only on the favorites.

 

[JMH]

I would like to sort the names by last name first as well. I have over 1200 names in my contact list and since I am a lobbyist I know most of the member of Congress as "Congressman __________" or "Senator _____________". It seems like a simple fix and I have never understood why the Android phone won't permit you to sort them the way you would like to do it. A phone should provide you with the options that you want, not the other way around.

 

[[email protected]]

Sort By Last Name

After incalculable time and frustration, but still being stuck w/ the phone, I've done a "work around". I use the search function at the bottom (the magnifying glass) and type in what I want to find. It will then bring up the addresses with that particular search. Then I scroll down to what I want. The "work around" is putting the entire name in the First name field, as well as city & state, and anything else I might want to search by, i.e. "Restaurant" (ABC Restaurant, Boston, MA). The search should pull up all contacts with "restaurant" in the first field.

The Catagories function also is a bust. One would think that Catagories is in the contact. It's not.

This platform is terrible. It must have been designed by a 12 year old.

 

[JMH]

Sorting by First Name

I have decided that the program was written by a twenty something who has a limited number of friends, knows them all by first name, and so never realized that in the business world most sorting is done by last name. I keep hoping that they will fix it but the moment I am able to ditch the phone I will be out of it. We purchased 7 of them and have to wait at least one year or eat a pretty hefty cost.

 

[DF Smod]

I like how the answer is always "blame it on the youth" - no way a sophisticated business oriented adult could make such insufficient software :icon_rolleyes:

 

[JMH]

Sorting

TP,

Then explain to those of us who want to sort by last name why this has not been corrected. Most of the people in my age group (60's)always sort contacts by last name. You can do it on the IPhone or a Blackberry but for some reason the Droid software has decided that you should know everyone by their first name. That sounds a lot like my children and some of them are in their 30's now.

 

[DF Smod]

I'm not saying it's a non issue...just that blaming "the youth" seems to be an easy outlet -

 

[JMH]

Sorting

TP,

How old do you think these programmers are? LOL My guess is they are not over 30.

 

[dkelly701]

I am using the original Droid with a custom Gingerbread ROM, so I am not familiar with the Droid X, or even stock ROMs, so forgive any mistakes. If I understand you correctly, you still cannot go to contacts, press menu, press display options, and choose "Sort list by last name." I though that was available to everyone running Froyo and higher.

If that is true, I do have a few options for you. You can root your X and run a custom ROM that should allow you to do what you want to do. If that is not an option, I have another suggestion.

Make sure that you have your phone set up to back up your contacts to the google cloud. You can then manipulate your contacts with the Contact Manager on your computer in gmail. This allows you to do several things you cannot do directly on your phone. You can set up "Groups" which allow for more versatility on your phone. You can choose which groups to display or not display on your phone. More importantly, before Froyo, I discovered that you can arrange contacts in the Contact Manager by "last name, first name" and thats how they will appear on the phone. In the Contact Manager you get a single box to type the entire contact name in. In the box you would type "Doe, John." (without quotes) On my phone before Froyo, this would display the name on the phone as last name first. With 1200 contacts, you will want to automate changing them. I think you could do that by exporting the list to Excel, making the change and then importing them back.

While not perfect, hopefully this would be a viable work around.

I would like to sort the names by last name first as well. I have over 1200 names in my contact list and since I am a lobbyist I know most of the member of Congress as "Congressman __________" or "Senator _____________". It seems like a simple fix and I have never understood why the Android phone won't permit you to sort them the way you would like to do it. A phone should provide you with the options that you want, not the other way around.

 

[tiverson77]

Favorites different than contacts

I"ve just got the original Droid, but I can sort my contacts by last or first name.
Bring up your contacts -> menu -> display options -> sort list by -> first or last name
But when you select the favorites and -> menu there is no display options so you cant change it

 

[dkelly701]

Yea, this thread diverged from the OP. I don't think anyone can sort Favorites by last name, so no solution to that. I just wanted to throw out a few solutions for those who can't sort the main contact list by last name.

I"ve just got the original Droid, but I can sort my contacts by last or first name.
Bring up your contacts -> menu -> display options -> sort list by -> first or last name
But when you select the favorites and -> menu there is no display options so you cant change it