No contacts on my new u8150

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miamiheatfan

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#442275 22-Feb-2011 10:41

so how do you convert your sim contacts / phone contacts to csv* and then put it on the SD card and gmail account ?

I've read the 2.2 manual book but all it mentioned was the vCard.

Ragnor

8223 posts

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#442276 22-Feb-2011 10:41

Gmail contact sync is fantastic, highly advise copying all the contacts from the SIM and Phone to Gmail and only displaying the contacts from Gmail.

You can edit/manage the contacts online in gmail or google contacts which saves tons of time.

If you want to move phone it's simply a matter of exporting gmail contacts to csv and importing with the new phones software or just installing an app the integrates with google/gmail.

Hmm looking at the IDEOS it is missing the features for explicit copying to phone/sim/gmail that this Vodafone 845 has, weird.

There's probably an app that will do it.

bazzer

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#442278 22-Feb-2011 10:42

miamiheatfan: Yea but the problem is this:

Consider this scenario,

You buy an android phone, met some new friends (say 15 new buddies) and you store their cellphone number in the android (the only way if u dnt hv an lg p500 and dont hv the app to do that.).

Then 2 years later you want to switch to a blackberry or a windows phone 7 .......guess what your extra 15 contacts that you have on the droid phone and google server cannot be ported to the new nonDroid phone.

I had the same issue when I got my android phone. I had all my contacts on my Nokia with multiple numbers, addresses etc. Even thought I could've transferred them to me SIM to bring them over to the new phone, that is the worst way to do it. I would have lost all the organisation of the data I already had.

My Nokia synced with Outlook, so I just exported to csv and imported that into my Google contacts. Voilà! All my nice contacts on my new phone! I'd imagine I'd do something similar if I ever got a non-Android phone (i.e. export from Google contacts, import to new phone).

Ragnor

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#442284 22-Feb-2011 11:00

miamiheatfan: so how do you convert your sim contacts / phone contacts to csv* and then put it on the SD card and gmail account ?

I've read the 2.2 manual book but all it mentioned was the vCard.

What's your old phone?

Either export your contacts from your old phone using it's pc software (then import into gmail or google contacts online)

Or if you old phone doesn't have any good way to export the contacts just save them to SIM, then stick the SIM in the Android and import contacts from SIM (to gmail).

Then tidy up / edit / categorise contacts in gmail or Google Contacts and the changes will be sync'd down to the phone.

Kiwi1971

696 posts

Ultimate Geek

#442285 22-Feb-2011 11:01

Ragnor:

You can edit/manage the contacts online in gmail or google contacts which saves tons of time.

You can save even more time by exporting them to .csv and opening in Excel. Much faster especially if there are a lot that need changing. Easy to identify duplicates and merge data into one row.

DLS

miamiheatfan

259 posts

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#442437 22-Feb-2011 15:19

ok so i've synced my contacts from the phone by settings > accounts & sync > gmail > sync contacts

So now my phone contacts and gmail contacts are all in sync ,

My question is if i delete every single contact (till there's nothing) on my phone and then do the above process (settings > ...etc etc) , will google automatically delete ALL contacts on the gmail server in order to sync it ??? I HOPE NOT.

Kiwi1971

696 posts

Ultimate Geek

#442439 22-Feb-2011 15:22

YES IT WILL!!!
Go to gmail contacts and create a back up by exporting to a csv file and save it for back up purposes.

By "Go to Gmail" I mean on your computer not your phone.

DLS

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miamiheatfan

259 posts

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#442442 22-Feb-2011 15:32

Oh goodness, why does google have to make this hard on everyone ?
THis is called stupid syncing.

Is there anyway to sync just one way ?

What if i want to backup my contacts on my phone to the gmail server ..thats it. Is that possible at all ?

bazzer

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#442443 22-Feb-2011 15:41

miamiheatfan: Oh goodness, why does google have to make this hard on everyone ?
THis is called stupid syncing.

Is there anyway to sync just one way ?

What if i want to backup my contacts on my phone to the gmail server ..thats it. Is that possible at all ?

How is it stupid? Stupid syncing is one way syncing, that's not "syncing" at all, just backing up. If you want to back it up, back it up from Google. Google is not the backup, it's the synced storage. Why would you delete it from your phone if you didn't want to delete it?

You only want it to sync one way? What happens if you modify a contact on your phone? Should that update Google? What if you update from the PC, should that update your phone? I'd say the answer to both questions is yes.

Just seems like maybe you need to get your head around a new paradigm.

Kiwi1971

696 posts

Ultimate Geek

#442444 22-Feb-2011 15:46

miamiheatfan: Oh goodness, why does google have to make this hard on everyone ?
THis is called stupid syncing.

Is there anyway to sync just one way ?

What if i want to backup my contacts on my phone to the gmail server ..thats it. Is that possible at all ?

I 'm sure you are thinking about this all wrong.
If you make a change to a contacts details on your phone or gmail then it is logical that you want this change reflected at both ends. Where is the stupid in that?
If you change someone's number in the gmail contacts on your PC then it will update their contacts on your phone and vice versa.

You can sync one way simply by not making any changes to contacts using your computer, just do it on your phone and it will update Gmail's copies although why you would want to make changes on Gmail's end that you don't want on your phone

#firstworldproblems

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miamiheatfan

259 posts

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#442450 22-Feb-2011 15:58

No you see, what i meant is that if for some reason several contacts on my phone was deleted and then i go to accnt & sync > sync contacts , then the gmail server will delete the contacts on the server in an attempt to sync it am i right ?

So what's the upside in syncing if we're going to have to MANUALLY back it up to csv anyway ?

If i get a new phone + new sim card and go to accnt & sync > sync contact ....then gmail will erase everything on the server no ??

bazzer

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#442453 22-Feb-2011 16:01

miamiheatfan: No you see, what i meant is that if for some reason several contacts on my phone was deleted and then i go to accnt & sync > sync contacts , then the gmail server will delete the contacts on the server in an attempt to sync it am i right ?

So what's the upside in syncing if we're going to have to MANUALLY back it up to csv anyway ?

If i get a new phone + new sim card and go to accnt & sync > sync contact ....then gmail will erase everything on the server no ??

No.

Kiwi1971

696 posts

Ultimate Geek

#442455 22-Feb-2011 16:18

miamiheatfan: No you see, what i meant is that if for some reason several contacts on my phone was deleted and then i go to accnt & sync > sync contacts , then the gmail server will delete the contacts on the server in an attempt to sync it am i right ?

So what's the upside in syncing if we're going to have to MANUALLY back it up to csv anyway ?

If i get a new phone + new sim card and go to accnt & sync > sync contact ....then gmail will erase everything on the server no ??

No, it will add all your gmail contacts to your new phone phone as soon as you add your gmail account to the phone and sync. The default action for registering a new account on the phone is to update from the server.

As for your point about deleting contacts then also losing them on Gmail, yes of course you will...it is designed to do that. It isn't going to know that you deleted a number of contacts by accident.
I liken that to you accidentally setting off the sprinklers at work and then being annoyed and baffled as to why water came out of the nozzles even though it was an accident.

Basically if B happens when you do A and you don't want B to happen...don't do A.

Anyway it is kind of hard to accidentally delete a contact let alone a few of them. So Google can't be blamed for not catering to the lowest common denominator.
But if you really think you might accidentally hold down your finger on a contact then select the bottom option to Delete it and then click OK when it asks if you really want to delete the contact then you should seriously look at backing up your Gmail contacts on your computer to a csv file.

DLS

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