How to not display every gmail contact in the Nexus contacts

[jean15paul]

(Full disclosure, I'm asking this on behalf of my wife and her Nexus S 4G)

So apparently Gmail saves EVERY email address that you've ever sent an email to or received an email from as a contact. When my wife set up her Nexus S 4G with her Gmail account, the phone downloaded every one of those email addresses into her Contacts. This is not what she (and I'd assume most people) would want. So I have a few questions:

1) Has everyone else experienced this? Is there any way around it?
2) If she goes through and deletes those contact from her phone, will it also remove them from her Gmail account
3) Is there any way to organize your contacts native to the Nexus or via an app? (e.g. put them in groups, control which contacts are displayed, etc)

I hope these aren't dumb questions, we're both brand new android users (i.e. <24 hours).

Thanks,
JP

 

[chud]

My Contacts in gmail.

 

[BlackHawkA4]

My Contacts in gmail.

I'm bored and will give you a better explanation. Because I'm so frustrated with Google Contact Management I can relate to frustration. Even if this is an easy one.

1) Google will add every email you are in contact with when writing emails to "Other Contacts". From preventing this from happening you can disable it on the gmail website under settings.

2) If you delete a contact from your phone it will sync with your account and delete it from the cloud. Same goes for adding contacts. And same goes for doing the same on the website. Think of your phone as a window looking at Google products. It's not really there. It's online. And whatever you do through the window happens there.

3) If you want to keep those "Other Contacts" just simply do as Chud said. In contacts. Hit menu, display options, the account in question, and select which contacts to view.