Unable to edit Contacts

[jopoor]

I do not know whether to fault Samsung or Android for being unable to edit Contacts. When a Contact is selected, there is no Edit icon shown at the top or the bottom of the screen. Pulling down the Menu shows Edit as the top choice, but tapping Edit takes me to a Select Contacts page.

I have screen images, but have not figured out how to post them here, all I get is a little square.

[Deedee46]

I found a way to fix this myself. Nothing else worked for me, but after playing around with it, this finally did. Maybe it will work for you too!

Open the phone app and go to contacts. Select the 3 dots in the top right, and choose "Manage Contacts." From there, select "Export Contacts." I had to select the internal storage in the "To" section for it to export. Then, go to your file app and open the file that just downloaded. You can choose "Import" in the bottom right, and select either phone storage or your Google account (I chose my Google account to easily transfer contacts whenever I get a new phone).

After doing this, I'm finally able edit my contacts. They weren't duplicated like I feared, but just show that they are stored in multiple storage locations. Hope this helps you and anyone else that might have this issue!

[realaud]

I could swear I said just that in my previous response - with pictures. Directed specifically to you.

[userUxnkpsNtLd]

Thank you. This was driving me bananas. 👏

[ILANE]

Thank you so much for taking time to explain this, and explaining it in enough detail.

[Members_LkU2LZH]

Same for me. After the last software update I haven't been able to edit any of my contacts and all the solutions I find are outdated and don't solve this issue.

[realaud]

Just transfer all your contacts to Google contacts, that way they are not proprietary to Samsung, and you can access them anywhere on any type of device of any brand, as long as you have web access.

[realaud]

Your contacts should already be saved to Google, unless you turned off Google sync. Go to contacts.google.com, log into your Google account and see if your contacts are listed there.  Are you trying to edit from within the contacts app or the contacts tab in the phone app? If your contacts are in Google, you need to switch your location for your contact list to Google.   Open the Contacts App. Tap the three-line menu on the top left, and you will see a list of actions. In the window "all contacts" should be showing with a count of all your contacts, regardless of storage location. Tap that window and it will bring up all the places your contacts are stored.  You can choose Google as your default location. The advantage of storing them in Google rather than Samsung, is that your contacts can be accessed from any device or computer and transferred seamlessly from phone to phone regardless of brand.  With Samsung you have to stay within the Samsung ecosystem to have access to your contacts.  If you select manage contacts, you can transfer all your contacts to Google.  That way if the edit function does not work within the phone, you can go to a computer and do your edits from within your Google account. So, you don't have to transfer them by hand.

Incidentally, I have never seen the edit option missing from the bottom of the screen.  Have you tried deleting your cache partition? Something may have gotten confused with a recent update.

[satyendra444]

In my s25 ultra this error is coming when contact is saved to phone, no edit button is showing then. . . . . Solution is - delete the contact and save again but not to the phone memory, u can save to email address, then its working & edit button now showing. . . Hope this helps!!!

[robertddar]

That definitely sounds frustrating, and you’re not alone—this issue can sometimes happen depending on the phone model, One UI version, or even if a third-party app is set as your default Contacts manager.

Here are a few things to try:

1. Check if the Contact is synced from an external source (like WhatsApp, Outlook, or your work email). If it is, it might be read-only, and the phone won't allow editing directly. Try saving the contact to your phone or Google account instead.

2. Make sure you’re using the default Samsung Contacts app. If you’re in a different app or view, the "Edit" function may act differently. Go to your Apps list and open “Contacts” directly.

3. Clear default apps (if necessary): Go to Settings > Apps > Choose Default Apps and make sure “Contacts” is set properly. Sometimes this clears up weird behavior like the one you’re seeing.

As for the screenshots, most forums don’t let users upload images until they’ve posted a few times or met a certain requirement. The little square usually means the image upload didn’t go through. You could try uploading the images to an image hosting site and sharing the link instead.