The new bottom bar design in Google Contacts is landing for more people

Updated 13 hours ago

Keep an eye for an app update coming to your phone

Read update Rolling out more widely

The Google Contacts app for Android already received its initial Material You makeover back in July 2021, but now, its developers are updating a few more parts of the app to be more in line with Google’s current design guidelines. In the latest revision, the Contacts app has received a Material You bottom bar, but it's not fully replacing its hamburger menu.

Judging on the reports we’ve received, the new interface is rolling out as a server-side switch that some avid developers might even be able to activate manually for themselves. Based on the screenshot we’ve received from one of our tipsters, the redesign is moving most of the items previously available in the three-lines hamburger menu in the top left into a Fix & manage section, accessible via a new bottom bar. You’ll find options for merging, fixing, restoring, exporting, and importing contacts in there as well as access to trash, settings, emergency contacts setup, and blocked numbers. However, the hamburger menu isn't entirely gone in the update.

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Above: Current look Below: New look

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It appears this new design is part of Google’s larger effort to deemphasize the hamburger menu, since it’s getting increasingly out of reach on our ever growing phone screens. The transition makes a lot of sense, but Google’s overall strategy on this is a bit muddy right now, much to our disliking. The Contacts redesign doesn't fully remove the hamburger menu, and it's popping up again in other apps. Google Messages, for example, is bound to receive a hamburger menu again after removing it a while ago, and we’ve spotted the Google Photos app experimenting with one, too.

In either case, it’s good to see Contacts emptying the increasingly unergonomic hamburger menu, and we can only hope that Google will continue this process overall.

UPDATE: 2022/04/14 19:12 EST BY AROL WRIGHT

Rolling out more widely

As reported by 9to5Google, the new bottom bar design is coming to more phones. It looks identical to previous screenshots, with two buttons in the bottom bar — one for your contacts, and another one with managing options to merge and fix existing contacts, restore, import, or export. Likewise, the top left hamburger menu is staying. There's also a new option that shows, at the bottom of a contact, the date when it was added to your phone — although in our experience, it only shows with contacts added after the update.

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