Question about tidying up contacts

[darkemeralds]

Hello googleplus! elke_tanzer suggested prepping for Google+ by, among other things, tidying up contacts, and I've got some questions about that.

Gmail and Google Contacts have become my world since I got an Android phone. Gmail stores the address of everyone I've ever contacted as a Contact--right?

So Contacts and my phone share a list that includes my dentist and my bike mechanic and the one-time customer service contact at BuyCoolStuffHere.com.

I can see deleting that last contact, but I don't want to tidy away my dentist or my mechanic, if you see what I mean. And now (because I just got into Google+ via the loophole--whee!), I'm faced with this massive list of semi-relevant contacts, many of whom I don't want to share with socially, but whom I'd like to keep in my "address book" and not just delete for the sake of my G+ privacy.

How does that work? Does this question make sense? I'm in the fog!

Comments

Hmm...

[elke_tanzer]

I think I would delete the last contact (one-time customer service contact) and consider that to be good progress on tidying. I was kind of astonished at the number of addresses like that in my Gmail Contacts.

For the dentist and bike mechanic... well, I'd keep them in Gmail Contacts, and when they're imported/suggested in Google+, I would simply not add them to any Circles. I suppose you could try Blocking them to scoot them out of the way while you sort the rest of your relevant Contacts into Circles, and then maybe unblock them when you're done with that...

Hmmm. I'm not really sure how this process was supposed to work in an ideal case.

Re: Hmm...

[darkemeralds]

Thanks for helping me think it through! I spent some time this afternoon Removing a host of random "contacts" that I didn't even recognize. I notice that they haven't been deleted from the Contacts side, and that needs work now too. It DEFINITELY would have been easier and better to clean them up before entering the G+ world.

But at least people I remove from the G+ side can remain in Contacts so they'll sync with my phone. I think. It's a complicated set of connections!

I'm still hesitant to organize any circles till I understand the Circles concept a little better.