How-to: Manage your mobile phone contacts

Entering contact information onto a fresh device can be really daunting. I have so many contacts between my Outlook email contacts, my IM contacts (MSN, GTalk, Y!), and of course, my regular phone contacts. So many email addresses, phone numbers, birthdays, and home addresses to remember!

Windows Mobile devices tries to make organizing all of these contacts as simple as possible and makes it very easy to manage your contacts including your Outlook and Windows Live contacts in a personalized way to suits you best. Contacts are stored on the internal device memory or on a SIM card. The address book lets you enter many items of information for Outlook or Windows Live contacts stored on the device, including name, work phone number, e-mail address, company address, and birthday. For contacts kept on the SIM card, you can save only the contact’s name and phone number. If you move the SIM card to another device, the SIM contact is moved too, saving you from having to enter in all those names and numbers every time you switch to a new device.

Add a contact

Tap Start > Contacts.
Tap New.
Tap Outlook Contact or SIM Contact.

Note: If your device does not have a SIM card and you have not set up Windows Live, the device may skip step 3 and go directly to the information entry screen for the contact.

Enter the necessary information for the contact, and then tap OK.

Tip: To save an existing contact to your SIM card, open the contact and tap Menu > Save to SIM. To save a copy of an existing SIM contact to the internal device memory, open the contact and tap Menu > Save to Contacts. Enter information for the contact, if you want, and then tap OK.

View or edit information about a contact

Tap Start > Contacts.
Scroll to and tap the contact you want to view or edit.
Tap Menu > Edit.
Scroll to or tap the message area and enter your message.
Make the changes that you want, and then tap OK.

Add a contact to speed dial

The speed dial function is a quick and easy way to call a contact.
Tap Start > Contacts.
Scroll to and tap the contact you want to add to speed dial.
Scroll to a phone number for the contact, and then tap Menu > Add to Speed Dial.
Scroll to the Location field, and then tap the up or down arrow to select an available keypad assignment for this contact.
Tap OK.

Enter a Web address for a contact

You can enter a Web address only for a contact that is stored on the internal device memory.
Tap Start > Contacts.
Scroll to and tap the contact you want to modify.
Tap Menu > Edit.
Scroll to the Web page field.
Use the on-screen keyboard to enter the Web address
Tap OK.

Tip: To enter a Web address for a SIM contact, you must first save the contact to the internal device memory. Open the contact and tap Menu > Save to Contacts. Enter the Web address for the contact, and then tap OK. You will see two copies of the contact. One is stored on the internal device memory and has a Web address, and the other is stored on the SIM card and does not have a Web address.

Enter an e-mail address for a contact

You can enter an e-mail address only for a contact that is stored on the internal device memory.

Tap Start > Contacts.
Scroll to and tap the contact you want to modify.
Tap Menu > Edit.
Scroll to the E-mail field.
Use the on-screen keyboard to enter the e-mail address.
Tap OK.

Assign a picture to a contact

You can assign a picture only to a contact that is stored on the internal device memory.

Tap Start > Contacts.
Scroll to and tap the contact you want to modify.
Tap Menu > Edit.
Scroll to the ‘Change Picture’ field, and then tap Select a picture. A screen opens displaying the pictures stored on your device.
Scroll to and tap the picture you want to assign to the contact.
Tap OK.

Assign a category to a contact

Assigning a category to a contact lets you filter your contacts later, based on your assignments. Among the categories you can select are as follows: Business, Holiday, Personal, Seasonal

Tap Start > Contacts.
Scroll to and tap the contact you want to modify.
Tap Menu > Edit.
Scroll to the Categories field, and then tap No categories (or whatever text is in the Categories field) to display category options.
Tap to select the check box of each category you want to assign to the contact.
Tap OK.