If a new person emails me in Gmail and I want to add them to contacts currently my method is:
Surely there is a better way! I keep hoping you could click on their name in the email header and there would be an option to add.
Is there actually something like this I just can't find?
While Lipis' answer still works, there's another method as well.
With the message open, hover your mouse pointer over the sender's name. An info card will pop up. If the address is not already in your contacts, you can click the "Add to Contacts" button to open a contact edit form with the name and email address already filled out.
(The Add and invite button is for adding the person to your Google+ Circles.)
Open the e-mail and click on the top right corner on the arrow. There you can find an option to add the contact. Here a screenshot:
Yep, things have changed since 2010.
I'm not sure of the "correct" way, but here's the only way I've found:
to the right of the message you'll see a box with the sender's name. There are three icons -- the third one is a down arrow and when you hover over it it says, "More actions."
Click and select "Edit contact details." Now you can rewrite the name in the form you want, if you wish, and there's an icon to add the name to your contacts. The software seems to add the contact both to "My contacts" and a group if you choose a group; if it does, you can go back to the contact again and uncheck the "My contacts" line if you want the person to be only in a group and not in the general list of contacts as well.
Hope this helps.
