Nokia E71 Contact Search

Date: January 8, 2009

Categories: Misc

Its very unlike me to be posting tech related articles on my blog but after years in software testing and writing, I thought it was time for me to start. But the first post I make had to be something that plagued me for a long time!

I have the Nokia E71 and one of the most beautiful things about that phone is the “contacts search” feature where you just start typing the name of the contact you want to call on your QWERTY keypad and the contacts appear on screen filtered as you type. You don’t have to go into contacts and then start your search! In my mind this is a very small yet brilliant addition to an already nice phone.

Now a month back or so, I had managed to accidentally turn off this feature and the regular intuitive way that I thought one would go about turning such a feature back on was leading to dead ends! Searching for this Online din’t help either because I couldn’t find references to this problem – Maybe I was searching for the wrong thing!

The fix is very simple, and in retrospect, it is very intuitive as well, but only in retrospect! Atul found this out for me and saved me a lot of pain!

Once you type a character on screen when you are on the home screen, you click the upper left ‘Options‘ button and in there is the option to switch “Contact Search” ON or OFF. This option is not available in any other menu that I could find on the phone and it took a LOT of figuring out to stumble upon this.

I hope this helps someone else facing such a problem!

124 Responses to "Nokia E71 Contact Search"

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Pingback: WOM World / Nokia » Blog Archive - E71 contact function
Suraj Venkataraman
January 12, 2009 at 9:03 pm Reply

Hey, Thanks for the tip. I have an E71 too and I never knew this feature. very handy.
Gaurav
January 13, 2009 at 12:48 am Reply

Hey Suraj! Glad it helped .. it certainly is a great feature for me and I now can’t live without it!
Etan
January 15, 2009 at 8:28 pm Reply

Hello Suraj,

I have been using this feature on my E71 and then it stopped working (probably my kids playing with the phone), I had no idea how torestart it. Thanks for the tip, you’re a real life saver.
Anil
January 22, 2009 at 7:40 pm Reply

Somehow I do not see “Contact Search” when I press Option (after keying in some chars), any idea why?
anil_baheti@yahoo.com
Matt
March 5, 2009 at 5:20 am Reply

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!!
I accidentally turned this off as well and it was driving me up the wall!!!!
- Gaurav
  March 9, 2009 at 5:57 pm Reply
  
  Hey No Issues! Glad it was of help
toadpole
March 10, 2009 at 12:27 pm Reply

Thank you thank you thank you! I have no idea how this got turned off, but its working again! Thank you thank you thank you thank you!
Dan
March 10, 2009 at 3:42 pm Reply

Thanks a lot.. found a solution as soon i had this query!! gr8 post
Sanjeev
March 10, 2009 at 10:22 pm Reply

Genius – this has been rally annoying me.

Thanks very much!
Gaurav
March 12, 2009 at 3:05 am Reply

Unbelievable! Now I am glad I wrote about this
Nikki
March 24, 2009 at 12:20 pm Reply

The Contact Search option is available through the Menu by going to Tools -> Settings -> Phone -> Call -> Contact Search and switch it to “On” or “Off”
Gaurav
March 24, 2009 at 5:28 pm Reply

Nikki – Finally!! that is buried quite at the bottom of the pile! Thanks for that
eboy
April 4, 2009 at 2:26 pm Reply

i am still cannot turn it on..how to turn it on?
eboy
April 4, 2009 at 2:50 pm Reply

hey..i look at my friend’s e71,the white one..
and i found the setting for contact search..but i cant find any in my e71..is it because the white is new?
Gaurav
April 6, 2009 at 1:17 pm Reply

@eboy – I don’t think so. As far as I know, all E71′s have this feature.
Fay
April 16, 2009 at 3:44 pm Reply

How can I change this sitting if I am interested to search contacts by ‘First Name’ instead of the default option of searching for ‘Second name’.., Thanks
Needy guy
April 23, 2009 at 2:28 pm Reply

Absolutely great help. Tones of thanks!!!!!!!!!!!!
Prakash
May 20, 2009 at 12:18 am Reply

Can anyone tell me how to search by phone no. on the E71? The only thing i can figure out is by dialling the specific no. and finding out if it is already saved
Matt
May 21, 2009 at 9:45 am Reply

Thankx for this – might just be a coincidence but my contact search stopped working at the same time I upgraded the firmware?? Anyway, thanks to your post its back!
Joe
May 22, 2009 at 9:59 pm Reply

Thanks…this was driving me nuts…
Redbull
May 30, 2009 at 9:09 pm Reply

Nice one. I also was reliant on this feature but following a firmware update the feature was turned off. Thank god for the T’interweb otherwise I don’t think I would have found a fix for it.

Cheers.
William
June 5, 2009 at 4:07 pm Reply

brilliant Thank you, i had the same problem and with this blog it help…thanks for posting
raggni
June 8, 2009 at 1:18 pm Reply

thanks! this helped me too
manya
June 13, 2009 at 4:34 pm Reply

thank god
Sameer Verma
June 15, 2009 at 11:11 am Reply

Too simple but too dicy to find it.Th eproblem is that this feature is not in the regular menu of “Settings” I checked the help also but somehow ur explanation was simplest. I took my phone to Nokia Care but they know how to sell phone ,, not how to manage the them. Ur blog helped me coz this feature is an execellent one.

Thanks buddy.
Gaurav Vaz
June 15, 2009 at 12:05 pm Reply

Thanks all you guys for the comments! will keep posting more stuff if I find it
JTS
June 17, 2009 at 4:43 am Reply

Arg! I had accidentally turned it off, and miraculously turned it back on… When I accidentally turned it back on I searched through every menu on the phone… Very frustrating. Glad to find this as I was going crazy! I (obviously) knew it was somewhere.
Ankit
June 17, 2009 at 12:47 pm Reply

Hey man, u dont know how much help you have been to me. I was going crazy trying to find this option after i accidentaly turned it off
Eleen
June 19, 2009 at 8:05 am Reply

Thanks heaps! Great help. It has been driving me crazy after I accidentally turned the thing off.
Avihu Cohen
June 22, 2009 at 12:51 pm Reply

Great man, very helpfull
CK
June 25, 2009 at 2:39 pm Reply

Hi,

I have a unique problem.
My contact search is on and no problem with that. But recently when I search for my friend’s contact (his name is BJ), it would not search but gave me a phone number which I found out it is on the 8th location of my SIM card storage. (When u enter BJ, the screen shows 8#, which means the 8th locations of the SIM contacts) Can someone help? I used to be able to call BJ from the home screen.
Manish
July 1, 2009 at 4:03 pm Reply

If your E71 does not display this option anywhere in the phone settings, it means you need to have a software update.
I found a heap of new features that were necessary but missing, most basic features… After software update, new features were added to the phone…
Jibs
July 1, 2009 at 9:39 pm Reply

hii. im using the white E71. but i cant find the function in my phone. is it because i didnt update the software? n if it is because of that, how can i get my software update? thanx!
Dung Lai Quoc
July 14, 2009 at 7:05 am Reply

Thanks you. I have this problem too.
Lifesaver
August 2, 2009 at 11:49 am Reply

a real life saver… i almost do the unthinkable, nearly went beserk & just about to do a clean firmware upgrade again…

thanks
thanks
thanks!!
Joller
August 3, 2009 at 9:00 pm Reply

Thank you so much, all the way from South Africa! You’re a star for helping me solve this!
Yas
August 9, 2009 at 7:04 pm Reply

Oh my god! This has been making me crazy for a few days now and I could not figure out at all how to turn it back on.

Thanks!!!
Jef
August 15, 2009 at 3:27 am Reply

THANK YOU! accidentally turned the feature off as well and this certainly helped a lot!
waleed
August 24, 2009 at 5:56 pm Reply

thank you man , you don’t know how much i looked for this
Rexy100
September 2, 2009 at 1:06 pm Reply

Thank you very much. Yes, I must have disabled it too and had no idea how to reactivate it.
Alfaro
September 8, 2009 at 8:35 am Reply

Thank you so much, all the way from South Africa! You’re a star for helping me solve this!…
Sarah
September 26, 2009 at 6:53 pm Reply

My e71 does not display contact details of any landline number. Only mobile numbers have the contact details displayed. Does anyone have this problem? Any solution?? I’ve reset the phone to factory settings, with no solution.
lng
October 1, 2009 at 2:21 pm Reply

thx man… don’t know how i turned it off in the first place.. but this helped me get it back, can’t live without it! thanks alot!
Kelvin
October 17, 2009 at 10:09 pm Reply

Thanks so much for this. I was running into dead end too and the manual was just not helping at all.
Jessica
October 25, 2009 at 12:54 pm Reply

OMG!

Thank you so much! i somehow turned it off too and it was frustrating me that the auto find feature disappeared! nothing in the nokia e71 manuals could tell me how to turn it on/off!

thank you!
Siv
October 31, 2009 at 11:47 am Reply

Thanks man! this had been bugging me for last 2 weeks – i have spent hours looking for the fix…finally tried various ways to search for this info. No luck. Then the magic words “E71 auto find contacts” brought up this page/ Cannot believe how simple a fix it is. Youa re a total cat man!
Gurminder
November 3, 2009 at 11:36 am Reply

hey dude…you are a life saviour, I went thru xactly the same prob as urs but managed to find help very quickly because of ur post….thanks a ton!!! Keep up the good work!!!
Dean
November 3, 2009 at 2:32 pm Reply

Oh my goodness.
This has been doing my head in for the last week. I turned it off by accident and couldn’t work it out.

Im usually a gun when it comes to mobile phones, but i couldn’t nut this one out after so many attempts

thanks so much
Prav
November 5, 2009 at 3:56 pm Reply

hahaha, it’s indeed very simple in retrospect…this has been bugging me since last 4 days. Didnt strike to me that i had to just search..

Great help…thanks dude!!!
BaZe
November 8, 2009 at 9:11 am Reply

You probably thought it was just a small tip (when writing this), buti just want to let you know that is helping us, the e71 users every day !!!

Thanks for the GREAT tip

p.s. i know that feeling when someone feels the small things he’s done are usefull.
ss
November 9, 2009 at 6:36 am Reply

When I open contact search button(phone icon), Moment I type any alphabet I am going back 2 screen. Do you know why?
gates
November 23, 2009 at 8:10 am Reply

hii. im using the white E71. but i cant find the function in my phone. is it because i didnt update the software? n if it is because of that, how can i get my software update? thanx!
gates
November 23, 2009 at 8:11 am Reply

hii. im using the white E71. but i cant find the function in my phone. is it because i didnt update the software?
Luke
December 6, 2009 at 4:27 pm Reply

WOW Just like everyone this has been bugging me for so long… it worked one day and then just stopped – most likely due to my bad habit of sticking my phone in my pocket unlocked and instead of calling someone this particular instance, it obviously turned this feature off!

AWESOME big thanks!
U the man!
December 7, 2009 at 6:08 am Reply

Hey! Thanks!!! Never been so delighted to get it back working!!! You saved me lots of time!
muffins
December 7, 2009 at 6:08 pm Reply

THANKYOU SO MUCH!! so glad its back to being good!
Gugos
December 21, 2009 at 7:20 pm Reply

Thanks man. It saved me a lot of time and effort. I was a little bit desperate for losing this feature and now with your help I have it back
THANKS!
AlexK
January 6, 2010 at 12:58 am Reply

Well, how about that – Every time I start a text message and am on the to field, and want to send it, say, to Danny, i start typing da and it shows me all the c0ntacts with da somewhere in their name, and Danny itself might be 10th on the list because some contact has da in the middle of their name or something… Can this be fixed and hsow them based on the first name as I type? It is very annoying this way! Thanks.
AdrianP
January 8, 2010 at 4:59 pm Reply

It was driving me crazy. I fixed it. THANKS A LOT!!!

Adrian.
Deb
January 15, 2010 at 3:39 pm Reply

After using the iMate JAMin that had this contacts search feature I was dubious about going to another phone. I’m glad the E71 has it – saves loads o time….and I thank GOD for your blog as somehow I switched it off. No amount of searching the user guide gave me a result. Thanks again.
Hasira
January 19, 2010 at 4:32 pm Reply

Hi – thanks a bunch! I too found this feature to be one of the simplest, yet most brilliant on this phone.
I was devastated to know that it has been turned off accidentally – your post is probably the ONLY one of its kind addressing this problem – Thanks a million!
Damian
February 3, 2010 at 4:24 am Reply

Thank you a lot. I also lost this after firmware update and couldn’t get it back. It is very well hidden.
Sherry
February 4, 2010 at 12:33 am Reply

Thanks! I was using that feature daily and one day it got turned off – and except for this article, I might never have found out how to turn it back on.

Blessings on your head!
Erik
February 9, 2010 at 11:44 pm Reply

Super. So annoying and looking in Help function didnt solve the problem. Amazing that Nokia overlooked this, it seems it turns up when updating to the new firmware now available.
Rajat
February 13, 2010 at 12:42 am Reply

having turned it off somehow , I was going to update the firmware . Thank you for posting the remedy.
Chris
February 15, 2010 at 11:10 pm Reply

mate thank you for typing this up….had the same problem and thought my phone was on the blink. much appreciated and thanks for posting this!
dreadlocksny
March 15, 2010 at 5:41 pm Reply

I called the Nokia store in NYC to find out how to reactivate this feature on my E72 and she wanted me to do a hard reset of my phone. That means I would have to back up all my data and start all over again. Of course I refused to do this and told her she really needs to find the solution. She the gave me the Nokia 800 number and after holding for 10 Mins the agent want ed to do a soft reset.

Why is it that everything I need for my phone I have to come to sites like this and not the company that sold it to me. They don’t know shit. I told them that this happened with my E71 and I found the info online. Just 2 buttons and It was back on. Hard reset????

I cannot live without these phones but they really need to get to educating their staff. Thanks so much guys!
damnjan
March 18, 2010 at 12:29 pm Reply

Thanks. I have E71 and few days ago my phone stop searching the contacts when I start typing on the home screen. I waste a lot of time looking for the option to turn back on contact search. Now after reading this everything works fine. Great option, than you for the help.
nick
March 22, 2010 at 2:28 pm Reply

Thanks so much. Just like everyone else here, I managed to turn this off accidentally. It’s been really annoying me, and just like everyone else, I wasted loads of time searching for the reactivate option. So easy too to solve it!

Thanks.
Paddy
April 14, 2010 at 2:19 pm Reply

Thanks for this tip, it was really starting to get me down. I can’t believe how easy it is to switch the option back on; I, like you, had searched high and low in the phone’s options to no avail, and decided to Google the problem and your article was the first result. Wish I had done that earlier haha.

Cheers!
Mohit Khanna
May 6, 2010 at 4:23 am Reply

Thanks for the help… the feature stopped working smhow….now it works..thanks to you..:)
Al
May 6, 2010 at 3:27 pm Reply

Searched all over the Nokia site for a fix with no luck, then tried this and hey presto. Perfect. Thanks.
Tim
May 13, 2010 at 7:48 pm Reply

Thanks very much. This has been driving me nuts for months.
Cesar
June 1, 2010 at 10:39 pm Reply

This seems to be a silly problem to have, but your post has been most useful. It had been bugging me for quite sometime now. Thank you!
SAmi
June 3, 2010 at 7:23 pm Reply

thank you very much
you note was very helpful
John
June 16, 2010 at 6:44 am Reply

There is another way actually: Go to Tools>Settings>Phone>Call>Contact Search. Switch this on.
Bogi
June 17, 2010 at 7:29 am Reply

I felt crippled, but now I’m good again – THANK YOU!
Happy again Nokia user
June 27, 2010 at 6:20 pm Reply

Thank you, I appreciate your publishing this so much. Suddenly the autosearch was off, for a few weeks now I had to open contacts before being able to call anybody, and this has a nasty “feature”: if you mistype and backspace one to much, it wants to delete the contact!!! My phone has actually gone missing a few commonly used contacts, I guess I must have pressed backspace once too often and then in the hurry to call, pressed yes to confirm whatever it was asking… Lucky I regularly back my outlook folders up, so I could restore the missing contacts…
Thanks, Gaurav!
mike
July 12, 2010 at 1:03 pm Reply

Thanks so much for this article. I literally was combing through the manual when my contact search suddenly went off. I started the phone multiple times and was on the brink of re-formatting the phone back to its original state until I stumbled upon your article.

Thanks mate
Finero
July 17, 2010 at 8:03 am Reply

Hey, thanks, I really needed this.
Sid
August 2, 2010 at 12:43 pm Reply

This was really helpful, Thanks ever so much.
Mel
August 9, 2010 at 9:38 am Reply

Hi Gaurav, thanks a lot for the post I too had accidentally turned off the contacts post and it would not come back So i thought i’ll reformat the same and still it did not work, Now today I came across your article and its so simple. Really appreciate what you’ve done to Nokia e71 community
kay jay
August 12, 2010 at 3:59 pm Reply

thank u, thank u, thank u.
Brandon
August 13, 2010 at 10:09 am Reply

Also, I had turned the feature off by accident. I also did not find a way to activate the function, but fortunately came across your post. Thank you.
Manzb
August 13, 2010 at 11:49 am Reply

Great.. i also had the same prob.. only this site is giving the relevent solution to my prob of single press contacts display on home screen e71 which was not working.. anyway thanx
anubhav
August 21, 2010 at 1:47 pm Reply

That really helped, i was going crazy searching the option on the phone and the web till i got to here, and it worked Thanks
josh
August 26, 2010 at 7:35 am Reply

you’re an absolute lifesaver thank you for this, mine had stopped working and i thought it was kaput, turns out I just had to do this simple little fix!
first search result too so that made a change
cheers bud
carlos loria
September 22, 2010 at 9:38 pm Reply

Thanks! Very helpfull, I was very upset having the same problem.
Daniel
September 27, 2010 at 8:50 am Reply

Thank you so much! First search hit on Google. You da man!! Cheers, Daniel.
signorcuoco
September 29, 2010 at 7:47 pm Reply

almost drove me crazy… THANKS
Anoop
October 14, 2010 at 10:09 pm Reply

Hey!

Great dude… rlly works.. thnx a lot!
sathish
October 25, 2010 at 4:38 am Reply

helped me too…thank you
Adrian
November 15, 2010 at 11:16 am Reply

Like all the others – Thank you! This function turned off by accident and was driving me mad!
Faez
November 28, 2010 at 3:59 pm Reply

Thanx a ton dude 
Sajan
December 17, 2010 at 11:26 am Reply

Thanks a lot, l also turned it off by mistake and was really searching how to enable this…..
Ronald Wielink
January 11, 2011 at 2:10 pm Reply

thanks for the tip. searching for “nokia e71disable auto-find contacts” brought me here, btw.
Nathan
January 12, 2011 at 4:13 am Reply

Awesome! It was driving me crazy! Thanks for the fix!
DIPPA
January 27, 2011 at 12:16 am Reply

THANKS HEAPS!! This was driving me crazy. Awesome.
Manish
February 21, 2011 at 11:52 am Reply

Thanks a lot. Saved a lot of and certainly this is not intutive and at best intutive only in hindsight.
veljko
February 24, 2011 at 2:07 pm Reply

HVALA čoveče! Thanks, you are the Man!
Vikash
April 19, 2011 at 4:04 am Reply

good suggestion…it really helped
Sharad Tater
May 2, 2011 at 8:23 am Reply

Thanks, after getting this contact search turned off accidently, i was going nuts on how to get it back, tried factory reset in frustration but still could not get around this one…

thanks you so much… sounds so simple but of immense help…!!!
Tom Courtney
May 3, 2011 at 4:20 am Reply

Love my Nokia E71. Had it for years and was devastated when contacts problem occurred this morning. Thought it was about to die on me. Thank you for posting the solution – I couldn’t find anything in the User Guide
Erasmo
July 9, 2011 at 3:32 am Reply

Hey just check this out

Menu-Tools-Settings-Phone-Call-Contact Search and put it on or off as u want….cheers
Patrick
July 15, 2011 at 8:54 am Reply

GENIUS!!!! IT WORKS!!

Thanks a million glad ot be my contacts auto search back that i’ve been missing
sanjay
September 13, 2011 at 10:37 am Reply

Somehow the feature stopped working for me, I looked around for all options with no luck. Your tip was really helpful, thanks for sharing it
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rick
September 27, 2011 at 6:50 pm Reply

very helpful… thanks… save me time to search and make calls or message
Parth
October 3, 2011 at 5:03 am Reply

Thanks, was really wondering from last two days how to get it back.
Madan
October 8, 2011 at 2:14 pm Reply

Man, you just dont know how i was fiddling my phone to just activate this option, thank you man, so much.
emi
November 29, 2011 at 12:22 am Reply

Thank you so much!!!!! I accidentally turned it off too and I was devastated. So thankful that there’s such a large group of dedicated E71 users who love the phone and has answers to questions like this. Can’t thank you enough!
Danny N
December 27, 2011 at 7:16 am Reply

My Blackberry got washed in the sea so I had to go back to my Nokia E71. COntact search stopped working and I spent hours trying to get it back. Thanks to you I have it again! You are a life saver.
Neal
January 26, 2012 at 3:55 pm Reply

Thanks for this!
janam arora
February 16, 2012 at 6:56 am Reply

yeah….thanks it helped me a lot…..
simpletron
April 24, 2012 at 10:07 pm Reply

Still using my E71 and somehow got this problem recently. Thanks for posting this and saving some time going through the unintuitive existing menus. Despite having already “upgraded” to an N8 I still keep this phone as a very useful standby.
Hash
August 9, 2012 at 5:34 am Reply

Thanks a lot for this tip. My life had become so difficult, when the contact search had suddenly vanished. Was thinking of buying a new phone(although i love E71). This was a great help!
- Violet
  September 3, 2012 at 1:10 pm Reply
  
  Thanks soooo much. saved me hours of searching
Tania
August 22, 2012 at 10:12 pm Reply

THANKS A LOT FOR THE TIP!
Claus
August 25, 2012 at 8:54 am Reply

You are a hero….so is Google…worked on my old E72!!!
Gaurav
September 29, 2012 at 11:47 am Reply

Can’t believe so many people found this to be so useful – Thanks for your comments guys!
rajagopalan
September 30, 2012 at 7:50 am Reply

thank you boss, it was so nice… though it appears simple after reading your post, it was a hangaround for long.. thank you
Angie :)
November 29, 2012 at 2:23 am Reply

This was so helpful. I looked and looked myself. May not have ever found it if it weren’t for you! Thank you so much! FOR REAL THANKS!
Manish
April 17, 2013 at 6:22 am Reply

Thanks a lot buddy!! You are a life savor!!