If your brokerage email is on Gmail / Google Workspace

1. Open the brokerage Gmail account → click the gear icon → See all settings
2. Click the Forwarding and POP/IMAP tab
3. Click Add a forwarding address and enter your master email
4. You'll get a verification email at your master address — click the link to confirm
5. Back in the brokerage Gmail forwarding settings, select Forward a copy of incoming mail to [your master email] and choose keep Gmail's copy in the Inbox (or archive it — your call)
6. Click Save Changes at the bottom

Heads up — Google Workspace brokerage accounts: sometimes the admin has restricted forwarding at the org level. If you don't see the forwarding option, or the option is grayed out, you'll need admin-level support to enable it. Email your brokerage IT — standard request.

If your brokerage email is on Outlook / Microsoft 365

1. Sign into your brokerage Outlook account on the web at outlook.office.com
2. Click the gear icon (top right) → View all Outlook settings
3. Click Mail → Forwarding
4. Check Enable forwarding and enter your master email
5. Check Keep a copy of forwarded messages (recommended)
6. Click Save

Heads up — Exchange / Microsoft 365 brokerage accounts: same as Google Workspace. If forwarding is locked, ask IT to enable it for you.

Gmail

1. Go to contacts.google.com. In the left sidebar, click Other contacts
2. Review the list. Move valuable contacts into your real contacts: click the person-with-plus-sign icon on the right of the name
3. To bulk delete junk: check the box next to one contact, then at the top click the arrow down by "1 selected" and click All. Then click the three-dot menu at the top right and hit Delete
4. To delete one at a time: click the three dots on the right side of any name and select Delete

Prevent it from happening again: Open Gmail → gear icon → See all settings → scroll to Create contacts for auto-complete → change to I'll add contacts myself.

Outlook

1. Open your People / Contacts view and locate the Suggested Contacts folder. Move valuable contacts into your real contacts folder.
2. Open Outlook on your desktop → go to File → Options → Mail
3. Scroll to Send messages and click Empty Auto-Complete List — confirm when prompted
4. For Outlook on the web: Settings → Mail → Compose and reply → turn off Add contacts for people I email

Prevent it from happening again: File → Options → Contacts → uncheck Automatically create Outlook contacts for recipients that do not belong to an Outlook Address Book.

Gmail / Google Contacts

1. Go to contacts.google.com
2. In the left sidebar, click Merge & fix
3. Review each suggestion — click Merge for matches, Dismiss for false positives
4. If you're confident, click Merge all to accept everything at once

Outlook

Outlook doesn't have a one-click merge tool like Google. You have a few options:

1. Open your People / Contacts view in Outlook
2. Sort by name or company to spot duplicates visually
3. For each duplicate: open one contact, copy the missing info, paste it into the other, then delete the incomplete one
4. If you have a large list, third-party tools like Outlook Duplicate Remover can save time — or export to CSV, clean in Excel, re-import

If you use Gmail — switch to the Gmail app

1. Download the Gmail app from the App Store or Play Store (free)
2. Sign in with the Google account you use for your business
3. Use it as your primary email app from here forward
4. Recommended: remove your Gmail account from Mac Mail to avoid confusion — Settings → Mail → Accounts → tap your Gmail account → toggle Mail off

If you use Outlook — switch to the Outlook app

1. Download the Outlook app from the App Store or Play Store
2. Sign in with your Microsoft / Outlook account
3. In the app: Settings → your account → Save Contacts and toggle it on — this syncs Outlook contacts to your phone
4. Remove your Outlook account from Mac Mail or Samsung Mail to prevent duplicate sync

Gmail users — iPhone

First, make sure your Gmail account is syncing contacts:

1. Open the Settings app on your iPhone
2. Tap Apps, then tap Contacts
3. Tap Contacts Accounts
4. Tap the Gmail / Google account you want to use for your business contacts
5. Make sure the Contacts toggle is turned on (green) for that account
6. If you have multiple Gmail accounts, turn off the Contacts toggle for any you don't want syncing
7. Tap on your iCloud account and turn off the Contacts toggle — this stops iCloud from maintaining a separate contact list that conflicts with Google

Then, set your default account for new contacts:

1. Go back to Settings → Apps → Contacts
2. Tap Default Account (this only appears if you have more than one account with Contacts turned on)
3. Select the Gmail / Google account you want all new contacts saved to

Gmail users — Android

1. Open the Google Contacts app
2. Tap your profile icon → Contacts settings
3. Make sure contact sync is turned on for your primary Google account
4. Go to phone Settings → Accounts → Google → confirm Contacts sync is toggled on

Outlook users

1. In the Outlook mobile app: Settings → your account → Save Contacts toggled on
2. On your desktop, confirm your contacts are syncing through your Microsoft account (not just saved locally)
3. If you use Outlook with Exchange at a brokerage, your IT admin may control sync — check with them

Build it with Zapier Copilot

1. Go to zapier.com and create a free account
2. Once logged in, you'll see a prompt box at the top: Describe what you want to automate
3. Gmail users, type: "When a new contact is added to Google Contacts, create or update that contact in [your CRM name]"
4. Outlook users, type: "When a new contact is added in Microsoft Outlook, create or update that contact in [your CRM name]"
5. Copilot will automatically build the Zap — picks the right apps, the right trigger, the right action, and maps the fields for you
6. Follow the prompts to connect your accounts (sign-in only)
7. Review what Copilot built. If anything needs adjusting, type in the chat sidebar: "Use Find or Create Contact instead of Create Contact"
8. Click Publish in the top right. Done. It runs in the background.

Gmail — Labels

1. Go to contacts.google.com
2. Click the contact you want to tag → click the label icon at the top (looks like a tag)
3. Type the label name (your category) and hit Create label the first time. Reuse the label for every contact in that category.
4. Bulk tagging: select multiple contacts using the checkboxes, then click the label icon and apply the label to all selected at once

Outlook — Categories

1. Open your People / Contacts view
2. Right-click a contact → Categorize → pick or create a category
3. You can customize category names and colors under Categorize → All Categories
4. Multiple categories per contact is fine (and recommended for contacts who wear multiple hats — e.g., a past client who's also in your sphere)