Back when the iPhone first came out, one of the big issues with syncing Gmail contacts to the iPhone was that it dumped all of your Gmail contacts into your iPhone, even contacts that Gmail automatically saves such as an email address with no other information. These types of contacts are useful for storing in Gmail, but ugly and irrelevant for storing on your iPhone. The iPhone 2.0 software fixed this issue, but it’s still a little tricky to get these unwanted contacts filtered out. I had to restore my iPhone last night, and the process wasn’t very intuitive.

Step 1: Sync your Gmail contacts with iPhone. Use this tutorial from Google.

Step 2: Click on the “Contacts” application

Step 3: You’ll now see a bunch of unwanted contacts that you want to filter out. Tap the “Groups” button in the upper left hand corner.

Step 4: Tap on the group of contacts that you named your complete contacts in Gmail. Mine shows up as just “Contacts”, but it’s called “My Contacts” in Gmail. You never want to select the group called “All Contacts” or “From My PC”.

Step 5: Once You tap on the correct group, your unwanted contacts should be filtered out.

The reason this is a problem and confusing for some peoplpe is because the iPhone defaults to your “All Contacts” Gmail group, so every single person you’ve emailed through Gmail could show up as a contact in your iPhone. This might be helpful if you want to email someone from your iPhone, but it’s more annoying when you are thumbing through your contacts. The process I showed you will force your Contacts app to default to the more organized group of contacts that look more cell phone friendly.