Navigating Contacts: Grouped View, Search, and Select Mode

In brief: Contacts opens grouped by Company with Individuals last, search filters companies and people together, and Select Mode adds checkboxes for bulk actions.

Applies to: Everyone in the workspace, though which header controls you see depends on your role.

See also: Companies, People, and Individuals: Contact Records explains the grouping, and Deactivating vs Deleting Contacts (and Why Delete Is Final) is worth reading before you use bulk delete.

Contacts opens grouped: your Companies listed alphabetically, each one expandable to show the People at it, and an Individuals group at the bottom for People with no Company. Search filters companies and people together as you type. Select Mode is a separate mode you switch on when you need to act on many contacts at once, which is why checkboxes never clutter the view you use every day.

Everything here lives on the main Contacts page.

The grouped view

This is what you land on, and for most people it is the only view they ever need.

Companies are listed alphabetically. Each Company row shows its name, its links, phone, and location. Click the chevron on a Company and it expands to show the People at that company, each with their own name, title, links, phone, and location.

At the bottom, under a heading of its own, sits Individuals: every Person in your workspace with no Company attached. Same rows, same behavior, just no organization above them. Why that grouping exists, and why it is not a third record type, is explained in Companies, People, and Individuals: Contact Records.

You should be able to read this like a directory rather than survive it like an admin spreadsheet. Companies collapsed by default, people one click away, nothing shouting at you.

Expand and collapse

Each Company expands and collapses on its own chevron.

The expand control in the header at the top left does it to everything at once. Click it and every visible group opens; click it again and they all close. Useful when you are scanning for a name and do not want to guess which company it sits under.

Expanding everything and then using search is the fastest way to find a person whose company you cannot remember. The search narrows the list and the expanded groups mean you can see the matching people without clicking anything.

Links on a row

Every Person row carries a links area, and the email chip is always there, always first. That is a direct consequence of email being required on every Person, and it means the answer to "how do I reach them" is visible without opening anything.

Social icons appear after it, but only for the profiles that actually exist on that contact. Some people have email and nothing else. Some have several. You see what is real rather than a row of grayed-out placeholders.

Company rows show company socials and website. They do not carry an email chip, because that concept belongs to People.

Search

The search bar sits in the middle of the Contacts header and filters as you type.

It looks at Companies and People together, which matters more than it sounds. When a Company matches your search, you see the Company. When only some People at a Company match, you still see the Company row, with just those People underneath it. You never lose the context of who someone works for while you are searching for them.

The Individuals group behaves the same way: it appears when any Individual matches, showing only the matches.

Select Mode

Select Mode is how you act on more than one contact at a time.

Turn it on with the select control in the header, next to expand. Checkboxes appear on rows, and you pick the contacts you want. Turn it off and the checkboxes disappear along with any selection you had.

Keeping bulk actions in their own mode is a deliberate choice. Permanent checkboxes on every row turn a directory into a control panel, and put destructive controls one stray click away from someone who was only looking something up. They live behind a switch instead.

Bulk delete

With contacts selected, a delete control appears in the header. Companies and People are handled separately, so selecting both gives you a control for each.

Confirming asks you to acknowledge what you are about to do before anything happens. There is no undo afterwards.

Bulk delete is the single most destructive control in Contacts. Check the selection count against what you meant to select before you confirm, especially after a search, because it is easy to select more than what is on screen. What deleting actually does to a Company and its People is covered in Deactivating vs Deleting Contacts (and Why Delete Is Final).

What else changes in Select Mode

The header controls adjust to fit the mode. The delete controls only appear when you have something selected, and only for users whose role permits deleting contacts.

Which controls you see anywhere in Contacts depends on your role. Importing, creating, and deleting contacts are each permissioned separately, so a Member may see a read-only directory where an Owner sees the full set. See User Roles Explained: Owner, Admin, Lead, and Member.

The rest of the header

Left to right, the Contacts header carries:

Expand all, opens and closes every group
Select, turns Select Mode on and off
Search, filters companies and people together
Import, opens the CSV and Excel import wizard
Add person
Add company

Import is covered in Importing Contacts from CSV or Excel: Step by Step, and adding contacts in Adding and Editing Contacts (Including Quick Add).

Frequently Asked Questions

Why are my contacts grouped by company?

Because that is how you actually think about them. People belong to organizations, and seeing a company with its people underneath tells you more than a flat alphabetical list of four hundred names. Companies sort alphabetically and expand on click.

Where do people without a company appear?

In the Individuals group at the bottom of the list. It is a grouping, not a separate record type. Attach a Company to one of them and they move up under that Company automatically.

How do I open every company at once?

Use the expand control at the top left of the Contacts header. It opens every visible group, and clicking it again closes them all. Pairing it with search is the quickest way to find someone whose company you have forgotten.

Does search look at people or just companies?

Both, at the same time. If a company matches you see the company. If only some of its people match, you see the company row with just those people under it, so you never lose track of who someone works for while searching.

How do I select several contacts at once?

Turn on Select Mode with the select control in the header. Checkboxes appear on rows and you pick what you want. Turning the mode off clears the selection. Companies and people are selected and acted on separately.

Why are there no checkboxes in the normal view?

On purpose. Bulk controls live behind a switch. A directory people use to look up a phone number should not have delete controls one stray click away. Select Mode keeps the destructive tools in their own space.

Can everyone on my team delete contacts?

No. Creating, importing, and deleting contacts are permissioned by role. People without delete permission simply do not see the control. Your role decides which parts of the Contacts header you get.

The grouping only makes sense once you know what the records are, so Companies, People, and Individuals: Contact Records is the natural starting point. To put more contacts into this view, use Adding and Editing Contacts (Including Quick Add) for one at a time or Importing Contacts from CSV or Excel: Step by Step for a whole list. Before you use Select Mode on anything, Deactivating vs Deleting Contacts (and Why Delete Is Final) is worth reading, and User Roles Explained: Owner, Admin, Lead, and Member explains why your teammates may not see the same controls you do.

Updated on: 08/04/2026

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