What kind of phone do you have?

Sounds like your computer is messed up. Have you run a scan for malware?

Ideally if you have an Android phone you should be using Google contacts.

How are you accessing the mail on the computer?

And what version of Windows is this?

Seems to ignore what I said about "clunkiness" and "inflexibility". Looks like answering the rest of the questions is moot.

I've used it since 2005 and I love it. You just have to learn how to navigate it and you will get extremely good at it after a while. It does everything I need and it does it very well. As Egnever said, you might want to scan for malware and I would use TWO programs, not just one. Two programs tends to get 100% of it. I use Windows Defender as my default and then I'll use Kaspersky (not worried) or Malwarebytes as the second.

despite the features I call (repeating) clunky and inflexible. My experience of features I don't like distract from the problem I asked about, which was about missing contacts. Plugging in generic "answers" is a waste for all of us.

Meanwhile an error message from Win10 might the answer, that Windows mail wants to access my Gmail. Thanks, all.

If you type in your contacts data correctly, it WILL save it under the name you saved it under. So, that's a malware or corruption issue. Sorry.

With all due respect, I think you have a serious malware issue or, at minimum, a software corruption issue. Gmail is very easy to use both on desktop and on mobile. On your mobile phone, you should have a separate Contacts app with an icon. Use the Contacts app and it ties into Gmail automatically.

Absolute last resort is to reset your phone to the factory defaults. If you do that, you will lose ALL your data. So, it's a last resort.

Windows 10 Mail app wants to access your Gmail ? Again, I've NEVER had that message. That's a malware thing.

At any rate, good luck. Last suggestion: Go here, type in all your problems and you will get help within 24 hours or so.

from others. I won't apologize at being short on patience at being told that what I experience through my senses is not happening. Nothing more to be said, and while it's embarrassing to leave this thread for all to see I don't run away from it.

At this point what i suspect is going on is you are using the windows 10 mail app and are not seeing your contacts.

That is because windows ten has a separate program for contacts called people. You need to connect the people program/app to your google account and your contacts will sync correctly and be available in the mail app as well. It has to be done both in the mail app and the people app.

This is not a gmail issue it is the goofy way microsoft implements its contacts for connecting to other web based services. On a side note your outlook contacts(if you use office) wont sync with the microsoft mail app either which boggles the mind but is how it is.

Gmail provides everything you need to get your contacts from them it is up to the other software providers to take advantage of that or not. Microsoft doesn't want you using google so they don't put a ton of effort into designing their connection to be simple.

If you are struggling with the included win 10 mail app there are other alternatives including just going to gmail.com and logging in.

I suspect what he is doing is using the win 10 mail app and has not connected the people feature in win 10 to his google account so his google contacts are not syncing.

But then he wont explain his problem so who the hell knows what is going on.