Give another user access to your contacts

If you use Gmail through your work, school, or other group, you can give other users in your domain permission to access and manage your contacts. These users can add and update your contacts with information such as names, phone numbers, and addresses.

Important: Access to your contacts doesn't grant access to your email account.

Requirements

• Your Directory administrator must turn on contact sharing. If you’re an admin, learn how to turn the global Directory on or off.
• You can delegate contacts only to people in the same domain as you.
• You and your delegates must be signed in to your accounts with your work, school, or other group.
• You and your delegates must be on a computer, not a phone or tablet.

Delegate your contacts

1. Open the Contacts Manager.
2. Make sure that you're signed into the Contacts Manager with your work or school account.
3. At the top left, click Settings Delegate access.
4. Click Invite delegate.
5. Enter the name or address of the person you want to give permission to manage your contacts.
   • Tip:​ You can enter up to 25 names, separated by commas.
6. Click Send.

The users you invite can now access your Contacts.

Note: Users can't view and edit delegated contacts with the Contacts app from a mobile device.

Add & manage delegated contacts

You can:

• Add new contacts with the Create contact or New contact buttons
• Edit contacts in the delegated contacts list
• Delete contacts from the delegated contacts list

You can’t:

• Print contact information
• Import contacts
• Export or forward contacts
• Find and merge duplicates
• Undo changes
• Manage labels for delegated contacts, unless the person also delegates access to their Gmail.
  • Learn how to manage group labels for delegated contacts in Gmail.
• Get delegated contacts to autocomplete in Gmail or other Google services

Manage contacts delegated to you

If someone in your organization gives you access to their contacts, you can manage their contacts from your account.

1. Open the Contacts Manager.
2. Make sure that you're signed into the Contacts Manager with your work or school account.
3. At the top left, click Menu Delegated contacts, and click the name of the person who delegated their contacts to you.
   
   While the person’s name is selected:
   • Contacts you add or edit appear in their contacts, not yours.
   • You can edit and delete their contacts.
   • You find their contacts in Contacts searches.

When you click another contact name, other users’ contacts no longer appear.

Search contacts delegated to you

If you have many contacts delegated to you, you might need to search the list of contacts to quickly find a contact. To search delegated contacts:

1. Open the Contacts Manager.
2. Make sure that you're signed into the Contacts Manager with your work or school account.
3. At the top left, click Menu Delegated contacts, and click the name of the person who delegated their contacts to you.
4. In the search box at the top, enter the name or email of the contact you want to search for and press Enter.

Note: If you search for a delegated contact who has the same email or name as a directory contact, the autocomplete result returns the directory contact.