We all know that we can start typing a person's name in our BlackBerry address book to locate a contact. What about when you have several people with the same first name, or at the very least the same first letter? You could type in their first name and then scroll to the correct contact. While that doesn't usually take too much time, there is an even quicker way. Simply type in the contacts initals separated by a space. Now you have an even smaller list to select from or perhaps the exact contact you're looking for (very few people I know have the initials AZ). That's it!
Reader comments
Quick Tip: Find contacts even faster in your address book
Thanks for the tip Kerri, though it doesn't seem to work very well on my OS 5 phone... Maybe it's only a feature for 6.0 and above? I still get a truncated list but by no means specific to people with names beginning with each inputted letter (for example, I typed in "N P" and received results with last names beginning with "B").
Oh, and first! :)
@00stryder,
You might want to check whether the truncated list includes people with a Company Name that starts with B. This address book filter feature also filters according to Company Name.
There aren't many people in my contact list with their company listed (I'm a student), but I do see what you mean. My address book is also linked to my student email address so it might be the contacts that were imported from my school's mailing list. But thanks for the tip!
Works on my OS 5 Bold just fine. The search is really strenuous and it will search not only within names, but companies, nicknames, or whatever info you've entered in for every contact. This works great when you want to search for someone whose name you've forgotten, but you know where they work, etc.
did not know this, works well with my Tour OS 5. I don't even have to go into the contact list, but rather search right from the home screen.
Thanks!
Doesn't seem to be working for me either.
Bold 9700 running OS 6
If you are someone that has more contacts than the average user, it may turn out that you've got 4 contacts with the initials 'A Z'. Just include an extra letter in your search: 'Ad Z' or 'Ad Ze'. This also works in the Universal Search, which is great for getting to apps, documents, media, or messages from your home screen without having to type whole words into the search query.
Only my mother calls me Aaron. You aren't my mother, change it :p
Lol fixed, sorry. I always refer to you as Obi anyway...
That's koool!
Also, this is not a linear search. you can search "Z A" and get the same result. It will search for the string between each space in each alphanumeric field. so if you have a gajillions A Zs, you can search for "A Z C" to get Adam Zeis at CrackBerry.
Cool, I like it.
Once again CrackBerry shows why it is the number one place for BlackBerry phone information! Thanks for the great tip.
Great tip! Made my day!
Works great! Even work of you just type lower case in universal search! First initial of firstname then space then first initial of lastname. Thanks!
Wow, great tip.
Another reason I prefer a BlackBerry in my pocket, the little things like this make the OS superior for my needs.
Great tip, I love learning new stuff like this. Especially after having my BB for so long.
And that is why I come to Crackberry
1XEV. Nice. Hope you're getting a new one this month :)
I'm torn between grabbing the new Bold or holding out for the white Torch. Have two upgrades coming up so I may just grab both :)