Revamped Google Contacts gains visual refresh and gets rid of duplicate entries

Google has released a preview to Google Contacts in Gmail that brings a much-needed visual refresh and a number of new features to make our lives easier. The service will now pool together all of your contacts, circles, and most frequently-contacted users in Gmail to make it easier to find certain people. A few other notable features are also included in the update, so let’s dive right in.

The enhancement that will be most welcomed by users is the revamped “Find duplicates” feature. Now, when you go to the new Google Contacts page, the service will detect duplicate contacts and ask you if you’d like to merge them together. So far, this is working out quite well. I didn’t even know I had any duplicates, and Contacts told me I had 18 that could be merged.

Next, Google will now keep your contacts up to date by pulling in info from users’ Google+ profiles. This will make it easy to stay up to date on users who change cities, jobs or even names. Last but not least, clicking on a contact will now show you your recent conversations with that user, including emails and meetings.

The update to Google Contacts will begin rolling out in the coming weeks, but Google has provided a preview of the update. If you’d like to check out the new Google Contacts preview, head here to do so. And unfortunately, just like Inbox, Google Apps users aren’t invited to the new experience quite yet. However, Google says they’re working on it.