The change is intended to make it easier to maintain two separate contact lists on different phones.
Google has changed the way it syncs user account contacts with Android phones. The change has caused some controversy as it may confuse some users and cause the saved contact list to disappear from the phone.
Up until the latest version of Google Play (23.20), contacts saved in a Google account and synced to the phone remained on the phone even after the user turned sync off on their Android device.
In other words, if a user stores their contacts in their Google account, they can enable contact sync on their Android phone, wait for the contacts to sync with the device, then disable sync and the contacts will still show up on the device.
Google releases controversial sync update
However, in the latest version of Google services, the synchronization method has changed in such a way that contacts disappear from the Android phone as soon as their synchronization is disabled on the device. However, don’t panic: the numbers stored in your Google account will not be deleted or changed in any way. When you reactivate synchronization, the contacts will reappear on your smartphone.
This change is intended to make it easier to maintain two separate contact lists on different phones while keeping the same account. This can be useful when you’re setting up a work phone but don’t want to add work contacts to your personal Google account.
