Way to make the Contacts search function only bring up contacts that "start with" the search key?

[Android Central Question]

Way to make the Contacts search function only bring up contacts that "start with" the search key?

I'm using a Samsung Galaxy J33V, so it's probably an issue with the Samsung Contacts app. But I've had this issue with other phones and contact lists.

The way it used to be, you could type in, say, "N", and the contact list would jump down to the "N's." Then you could type, say, "A" and the list would jump down to entries starting with "Na." That was great. That's how I want my contact search to work.

Nowadays, if you type an "N", the search brings up ALL contact that have an "N" ANYWHERE in the name. If I type "NA", I might get "Anna" as a result. This is not what I want, this is not what any reasonable person would want or expect from a Contacts search.

Of course, I don't have to search, I could just scroll my contacts list to the letter I want, but I have HUNDREDS of contacts (its a business account for work), so getting to the "N's" for example, leaves me with a lot of extra scrolling to be done in some cases.

And of course, I could also just say, "hey google, call so-and-so" but this is also not ideal, since it can't always understand or disambiguate what I intended to say.

Is there no way to change this, or is this just the new way of programming these things? I just shouldn't have to type in the whole name (or close to it) to find the contact.

 

[mustang7757]

Re: Way to make the Contacts search function only bring up contacts that "start with" the search key

I'm using a Samsung Galaxy J33V, so it's probably an issue with the Samsung Contacts app. But I've had this issue with other phones and contact lists.

The way it used to be, you could type in, say, "N", and the contact list would jump down to the "N's." Then you could type, say, "A" and the list would jump down to entries starting with "Na." That was great. That's how I want my contact search to work.

Nowadays, if you type an "N", the search brings up ALL contact that have an "N" ANYWHERE in the name. If I type "NA", I might get "Anna" as a result. This is not what I want, this is not what any reasonable person would want or expect from a Contacts search.

Of course, I don't have to search, I could just scroll my contacts list to the letter I want, but I have HUNDREDS of contacts (its a business account for work), so getting to the "N's" for example, leaves me with a lot of extra scrolling to be done in some cases.

And of course, I could also just say, "hey google, call so-and-so" but this is also not ideal, since it can't always understand or disambiguate what I intended to say.

Is there no way to change this, or is this just the new way of programming these things? I just shouldn't have to type in the whole name (or close to it) to find the contact.

Hi, if you can register a account here , me or other members be happy to assist you.
I'll provide a link to register so you can communicate here.
https://forums.androidcentral.com/ask-question/409154-join-android-central-community.html

 

[Rukbat]

Re: Way to make the Contacts search function only bring up contacts that "start with" the search key

Is there no way to change this, or is this just the new way of programming these things? I just shouldn't have to type in the whole name (or close to it) to find the contact.

The only way to change it is to rewrite the Contacts app. The old search was <your input>*, the new search is *<your input>*. You could try other contact apps - there are wuite a few at https://play.google.com/store/apps/...jLTcgs&gsr=Cg2CAQoKCGNvbnRhY3Rz:S:ANO1ljIUtGo


(And I agree - the new way is a bit stupid, when they could just have gotten users used to putting *s where they needed them in the search string, and writing the app to use it that way.)