There are lots of good reasons to do it

Once you’ve connected your contacts, you’ll be able to make hands-free calls while you’re busy making dinner, easily share a favorite song with your college bestie, drop in on a loved one just to say a quick hi, the list goes on.

Here’s how to easily connect contacts stored on your phone in 20 seconds (or check to see if you already did it when you set up your Echo):

1. In the Alexa app, tap “Communicate”
2. Tap the 2 heads icon in the upper right corner
3. Tap the three dots icon in the upper right corner
4. Tap “Import Contacts” and toggle to enable
5. Hit the back arrow to get to the main Contacts page, where you can scroll down to see all the contacts automatically brought over from your phone’s Contacts list

Pro Tip #1

If you’re extra privacy conscious and aren’t quite sure about the idea of connecting all your contacts to Alexa, you can add a handful of your top contacts one at a time. Follow steps #1-3 above then tap “Add Contact” to just add one person.

Pro Tip #2

Alexa recognizes names by how you have them set in your contacts list. So if you have a penchant for giving nicknames to your contacts, you’ll want to change them in your official contacts so Alexa doesn’t spill the beans when you say, “Alexa, call Boring Bobby” or “Alexa, text Annoying Neighbor.”