Best Way to sync contacts? - Nexus One General

I love the N1 but the contacts is really starting to annoy me, is there a way to add contacts with just their first names instead of having first and last? For instance i have a friend named James and when i try to add a new contact for a different person named Jimmy, it'll automatically lump him in under James unless i put a last name, any way to separate them and other contacts who are supposedly similar names?

At the bottom of a new entry you'll see a "More" option. Click that and add a "Nickname"

I use first and last names usually as well as nick names. I do notice that it lumps people under the same group as My dad is named Mike and i am too.. Its got all my emails lumped underneath him which is definitely annoying.

go to the contact it gets merged with, choose edit, hit menu and select seperate.

I find the easiest way to add/update/delete contacts / update calendar (apologies if I's stating the bleedin' obvious..) is do do it inline from my PC/Laptop with a nice big screen 'n keyboard.. then she syncs up pretty-da**-quick..
There also seem to be some fields (eg Birthdate) which I can't edit in the N1 version
Cheers!
Lodger

Related

Change Contact List To [First Name-Second Name] ??

Is there anyway to change the view, when in all contacts so that peoples first names and listed first?
thanks
and a happy new year!
You will enjoy this tiny freeware software that does just that: almost instantly order your contacts by first name (or middle name or last name). Look here for Contact Changer. You run it once and 1 second after, all your contacts are sorted. The downside is that it doesn't change standard setting of the program, which means that the default order will still be LAST NAME first. But since the application is free and quick... You could run it everyday.
Happy new year mate
rzasharp said:
You will enjoy this tiny freeware software that does just that: almost instantly order your contacts by first name (or middle name or last name). Look here for Contact Changer. You run it once and 1 second after, all your contacts are sorted. The downside is that it doesn't change standard setting of the program, which means that the default order will still be LAST NAME first. But since the application is free and quick... You could run it everyday.
Happy new year mate
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks man, it works a treat
Happy new year
[★] said:
Is there anyway to change the view, when in all contacts so that peoples first names and listed first?
thanks
and a happy new year!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, it's a built-in function. But you have to go right to the bottom of the edit screen for the entry and select it from 'others'.
S
Just installed the Contact_changer_v1.3.cab. via file explorer on my HD2, but no joy. Restarted it and checked my contacts, still showing as Last, First.
Am I missing something?
Cheers
Ibb1982 said:
Just installed the Contact_changer_v1.3.cab. via file explorer on my HD2, but no joy. Restarted it and checked my contacts, still showing as Last, First.
Am I missing something?
Cheers
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think restarting resets it
[★] said:
Is there anyway to change the view, when in all contacts so that peoples first names and listed first?
thanks
and a happy new year!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ye if you select a contact, then go to edit. Scroll to the bottom and select "more". This brings up the standard WM contact editor. Then in the box "File As" Select the "First, Last" option. This is long winded but it survives soft reset.
optiknerv said:
Ye if you select a contact, then go to edit. Scroll to the bottom and select "more". This brings up the standard WM contact editor. Then in the box "File As" Select the "First, Last" option. This is long winded but it survives soft reset.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
cool thanks ill do that on a rainy day
You can do that within Outlook, that's probably more convenient than on the phone.
freyberry said:
You can do that within Outlook, that's probably more convenient than on the phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thats true. I dont use outlook anymore now that there is "my phone" might look if there is the same option on the web site.
Contact_changer_v1.3.cab did the trick for me, thanks guys.
I used the app, I then set the contacts in my outlook to be First:Last and now each time I sync the names are they way they should be as opposed to Last:First. So no need to use the contact changer app on the HD2 anymore, but I'll keep it on there just incase it reverts back to Last:First.
Thanks again
I tried going to edit contact -> More but when I scroll down I don't see "More", just the entries like birthday, spouse etc. Am I in the wrong place?
ftr2k8 said:
I tried going to edit contact -> More but when I scroll down I don't see "More", just the entries like birthday, spouse etc. Am I in the wrong place?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The bottom 3 data fields are Birthday, Anniversary & Link (for facebook). There's a "More" button below that.
Ah, thats in "people", not "contacts". "More" takes you to the edit menu for contacts - I see the option now.
If you go to contacts, just go edit and it's a few lines down
my god, what a long winded way of doing this !!!!!
I've emailed HTC through their support page, to see if they can release a hotfix or advise a registry tweak, to enable you to select the default contacts display option, without having to edit each and every contact !!!
I imported my contacts from my SIM card.... due to limitations on SIM memory, the names were merged into the Lastname field only, which was fine... in AllPeople they appeared listed correctly
But when I spent 3 hours manually editing every contact in my phone using the inbuilt MyPhone feature (I don't use Outlook on any of my home or work computers), and synched the phone, they all appeared lastname, firstname.... VERY frustrating
And there was NO field or setting within the MyPhone service website (that I could find anyway) that allowed me to set the correct default name-display.
VERY f**ing annoying, as now I have to go through the phone manually and adjust every single contact again !!!!
Come on HTC..... the phones advertised/marketed as being user-friendly.... more-so than other phones.... how about fixing the little name-display issue
Other than that, I don't want to use the cab file listed above, as I really dont want to keep adding new programs to duplicate existing ones that don't quite work the way they should...... and I don't want to have to keep running it every day...... does anyone know if there is a simple quick registry tweak/setting, whereby I can permanently set the default display as First Last ? I'm NEVER going to want my contacts displayed any other way than this.....
This is extremely annoying when you use Google Sync. In order for it to work, you need to edit 1 contact, switch to ActiveSync, press Sync, then go back and edit another.
If you edit more than 1 contact at a time between syncing, it reverts everything back except the last change.
poedgirl said:
This is extremely annoying when you use Google Sync. In order for it to work, you need to edit 1 contact, switch to ActiveSync, press Sync, then go back and edit another.
If you edit more than 1 contact at a time between syncing, it reverts everything back except the last change.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
just came across this while browsing and remembered you had said something about googlemail
http://www.freewarepocketpc.net/ppc-download-smssyncup.html
Havent checked it out but maybe its of some use to you
installed contact manager (for .99$) all problems sorted out, after retart also remains the same.. thx for the info..
anyone has the old .cab that is free??? would it be possible to upload here?
thanks in advance,
This seems to be another thing that I used to have on the Hong Kong rom (which was on the phone when I got it second hand) and has now disapeared once I have flashed the O2 uk Rom onto the phone.
So so far by putting the o2 UK ROM on the phone my contacts wont sync with FB, no contact images are being imported against the names. The sync all contacts with FB function has gone, so I have to do each one individually, and now I realise the first name second name thing.
Going to try and find the Hong Kong rom off the net and load it on again to see if all this comes back again. Still has the English keyboard so isn't really any different.

[unresolved] Mass link contacts to facebook

Is there some sort of application that allows me to link contacts to facebook pages from my computer, and then somehow mass updates the contacts on the phone? The link to facebook is just some XML in the contact notes, so in principle this should be possible.
The same question has been asked here yesterday - i can't post the link as there is a restriction from doing so *rubbish* but it's topic id is 636175 and isn't too far down the forum...
Anyways, it apparently works with myphone, but I don't seem the XML that everyone else does for some reason and so my facebook links don't save
wingm4n said:
Is there some sort of application that allows me to link contacts to facebook pages from my computer, and then somehow mass updates the contacts on the phone? The link to facebook is just some XML in the contact notes, so in principle this should be possible.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
when you sync back your contacts after a flash/hard reset, the data to link them to their facebook equivalents should already be there. However, the links won't start to work until you have reassigned your 'me' contact card to your facebook account. When you do that, you should find the facebook links are restored. (not the facenbook app)
i'm afraid that's not what i'm looking for, myphone backs up my contact facebook associations just fine, i'm just looking for a simpler way to create those associations in the first place, preferably through the computer
Sorry if I misunderstand you, but doesn't the people/facebook app pop up and say 'click here to associate your contacts' and most of them are already pre-checked?
Note I'm NOT talking about the one on an individual person's page, but the one on the 'all people' list.
In the two seconds that process takes, 80% of my contacts were covered. The other 20% being people who I have as 'Jon XYZ' but they are 'Jonathan XYZ' on FB (or vice-versa.)
Or are you one of those people who doesn't do first name/last name and is looking for a way to get around that?
that's exactly what i need! it didn't do that with me, is there a way launch that synchronization manually?
I'm... not sure. I'm sure there is but I don't know how.
Just to make sure you're not missing anything obvious:
Go to the People tab
Click All People at the bottom
You're now at the "All" tab within a new screen -- you should see your fb contact as "Me" listed as the second contact -- do you see this 'link your facebook contacts' around here? (If it exists on this screen, it'll be one of the top three contacts.)
If not, use the slider on that same screen to scroll over to 'Updates and Events'. You'll see yourself at the very top here, and I'm almost positive that it was on this screen where it had 'link your contacts.' It wasn't in a menu or anything, it was very prominently displayed as one of the top items.
When/if you can find that screen, it's basically a dumb match that looks for Contacts(First Name,Last Name) = Facebook(First Name,Last Name). I'm not sure if it pairs on email address, but AFAIK it needs the full name to be exactly the same.
HTH.
**This all assumes you entered your facebook credentials when setting up your phone (or from the data sync menu under the settings tab afterwards) - completely separate from any fb app you may have on your phone. I'm pretty sure you have done this since you mentioned the XML in the contacts but just to be absolutely positive.
I've been looking at this problem since you first posted, and the main problem I see is that I can't see a way to un associate the me contact from face book (in order to re associate so that the contact association screen comes up)
dashed annoying!
i see what you mean, i'm going to look for a way to do that
Have you tried Fonebook!
http://www.developingtrends.co.uk/Software/Facebook/Fonebook/Default.aspx
I can do all the sync with facebook and Outlook. Give a look at this!
samsamuel said:
I've been looking at this problem since you first posted, and the main problem I see is that I can't see a way to un associate the me contact from face book (in order to re associate so that the contact association screen comes up)
dashed annoying!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think you could momentarily switch off the Facebook connection altogether do accomplish that. It's under "Data services" (on the settings tab).
Robrecht said:
I think you could momentarily switch off the Facebook connection altogether do accomplish that. It's under "Data services" (on the settings tab).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yea, thanks, that got it, however when i logged back in (through 'me' contact card) it doesnt ask about associations as when you do it the first time. Oh well.
i just found an option do associate the contacts for you! if u scroll to the contacts tab in HTC sense then scroll to updates and events (its the picture of the person with a clock next to their head) i had a button at the tob which said 'Associate contacts: XX new associations found (xx being the number of new associations)' tap this and select the contacts you want to update (by default it selects all) then tap ok. it will create the associations for any contacts that arnt associated. it will also set the default contact picture to the facebook profile. it will make your contacts lag a bit while it downloads the info but after that it runs fine
if it helps im running 1.66 official hd2 rom from HTC, with radio 2.08
mazzarin said:
Or are you one of those people who doesn't do first name/last name and is looking for a way to get around that?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry to reopen this thread, but I'm one of those people! I would also be interested in finding a way to add/backup my fb associations on the PC as MyPhone does not seem to sync them for me I get the fb id's in the <sn> field but not in the <facebook> ones =/

Some things I hate about the EVO

I'm coming from a Touch Pro 2 with a custom 6.5.1 ROM. This is my first go at Android. As I use my device I keep coming across little quirks and things that I don't like. I usually forget for a few hours until that quirk pop-up again. I just thought I would document these things here and see if anyone can provide some input or help.
1) Google Contacts (it sucks)
2) Why does the contact manager want to give me the option for sending a message to all the fax numbers in my contacts (IE: click on a contact, and now I have 4 options for sending a mesage, - cell, fax, office and home - UGH that is SUPER WRONG!!
3)Why sort contacts by the first name.... who does that ??? Why not give an option. (EDIT: found out how to fix this... Thanks!)
4)Why store all the names as just one field, not first name and last name seperately? (EDIT: Found out how to fix this one too.. Thanks!)
5)No option for a display name in contacts
6)Can't edit a contact from "Phone" type to "Google" type. (is it because Google contacts sucks?)
As you may notice, this has a lot to do with contacts, I've been messing with my EVO for a few days now to try and get my contacts straight.... I'll add more stuff as I run across it.
Im pretty sure you can edit your contacts on the evo
...I had windows mobile ...and I hated it. android rocks!!!
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nt via the XDA Tapatalk App
I use phone contacts, not google and i it works fine for me.
1)Never used google contacts
2)This one i agree with
3)The way it is displayed, is the way it is sorted
4)Mine ask me for first and last name seperate
5)Under the tab where it says first and last name it has for dispaly name
6)No idea on, i told it to use phone not google, when i first opened contacts
BWCorvus
I like google contact better then windows...
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for first and last names, I just type the full name in the "first name" field.

Link facebook profile picture to more than one contact?

In my Contacts, if someone has more than one phone number, I store the separately because I find it easier to find and dial a specific number.
example:
John Doe (Mobile)
John Doe (Work)
John Doe (Home)
But I seem to only be able link John Doe's facebook profile to one of the numbers to use the 'contact picture'. When I try and link the same person's facebook profile to the other numbers, his/her name doesn't appear in the list to choose from anymore.
Does anyone know whether it's possible to link the same facebook profile more than once so that all three of the numbers show the contact's facebook profile pic?
To be honest, I don't think it's possible.
- and to be even more honest, I think you might be the only person on the planet thinking dividing people into more contacts than one combined is the easiest.
I just don't think HTC thought anyone would find it more logical that way...!?
FB contact pictures should be stored in Windows\FBContacts folder, try assigning those to your contacts manually
Lamsebamsen said:
... and to be even more honest, I think you might be the only person on the planet thinking dividing people into more contacts than one combined is the easiest.
I just don't think HTC thought anyone would find it more logical that way...!?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
hahaha.. i find it easier to find and dial someone's number like that... that is, one-press instead of two when someone has more than one number... may just be that i'm used to it that way..
Really, my contacts were only stored that way because the original list was exported from a whole range of different phones... some that didnt have the capability to store more than one number for a contact. There's hundreds of numbers that I really don't want to sort out individually... and of course I might end up going back to a basic phone in future.
oh wellz...
p107r0 said:
FB contact pictures should be stored in Windows\FBContacts folder, try assigning those to your contacts manually
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thanks p107r0.. i gave that a shot, but when selecting the profile picture, there's no option to go into the Windows\FBContacts folder to get the picture...
I'm guessing if there was a way to acess that folder to select a file, it might work well because the pics in that folder would get updated accordingly (but the file name would remain the same) whenever someone changes their profile pic.
Can always copy that entire folder into an "Album", but it won't update itself if someone changed their profile pic.
my advise is to sync your contacts with gmail. gmail provides you with easy way off finding duplicates and also merging contacts. you'd be amazed how easy it is.

My Guide to Clean Your Contacts *Updated 8/24/10*

Edited 8/24: The new gmail changed this guide and I have attempted to update it. Since my contacts were so clean from when I first wrote this guide, I can't say it's 100% perfect, like it was . I would really like it if people could chime in suggestions for the community!
Please note, this was in the Sticky. In an effort to save a LOT of needed space in the sticky AND to allow new
suggestions I am making this thread. Please let me know if this helps, and if there are other ways to clean up the contacts. Apologies, but I absolutely hate Facebook so others will need to chime in on how to incorporate that, if needed. Alright, on with my guide:
EDIT YOUR CONTACTS (ON YOUR PC FIRST)
If you are new to Android, the first time you logged in it was probably amazing (and frustrating) when you saw ALL of your google contacts sync with your phone.
First things you need to know, google does not allow you to stop the auto-adding of the random people you email to your contacts. Of course, those randoms are now likely showing up in your contact list (hence the frustrating part). Here is how I fixed it:
*please note, if you hide all contacts who do not have a phone number (see below) you can likely skip this, but I included for those who REALLY want to clean up their contacts*
1 - Login to gmail on your PC. Click on "Contacts" on the left border.
2 - Notice you have "My Contacts" (the good) and you have "All Contacts" below that (the bad).
*EDIT* There is no longer a "All Contacts." Google has improved this to now have "Other Contacts." This makes weeding out the people you may not want in your contacts a LOT easier. The next few steps was a workaround that is no longer needed. Simply review these "Other Contacts" and delete those you do not want, and add the ones you do to "My Contacts."
3 - go to the "search contacts" search bar and just enter one SPACE and then press enter.
4 - The middle column will now have your contacts sorted by THE GOOD (My contacts) on top and then THE BAD (All Contacts) below that. You may have more tiers, but I am keeping it simple for illustration.
5 - Scroll all the way down to the bad list. Review the names. Some may be legit people you just have not added to your My Contacts list yet.
6 - If you have a hard time recalling who someone is, you can click on their name and then click on the link "view recent conversations." This shows any previous email exchanges so you can decide to either delete or add them.
7 - Work through this list. I would suggest deleting them as you go, but not adding them to your My Contacts list until the very end (to prevent from having to do step 3 over and over). To add a contact to your "My Contacts" I just click on their name, edit their info and it showed up automatically. I did not need to click anything like "Add to...." etc.
8 - Okay, great. Lets assume you got rid of all the clutter. NOW, go to your My Contacts.... click on the "More Actions" button and then "Find & Merge Duplicates". If you have any, fix them... no reason to have several entries for the same person.
9 - Now just review the My Contacts list and make any edits or format changes. I am Type A, so you could only imagine how clean your Android Contact list is about to appear.
Great, enough with the PC. Go to your Vibrant.
Chances are it is already synching up with the changes you made.
The phone came with a bunch of #s stored on the Phone and SIM stock, I could care less about these. If you agree:
1 - Open Contacts. Press menu, go to "Display Options"
2 - Uncheck Phone and SIM (others may not agree, I just dont see the point), leaving Google as the only one checked.
*Also* You can also Delete these by long-pressing on them (wish I believe I did, and then unchecked them to now show... of course, they were deleted, so....)
Alright, almost there now. As it is, you have removed a LOT of clutter, but you may still have a ton of contacts. That is because, by default the Contacts app shows All contacts, even if they do not have a phone number. Now again, this is a personal choice.... but if I need to call someone, I would rather not have to deal with people listed who I do not have a phone number for. Also, if I am emailing them, I am using gmail, not Contacts (so again, not needed). IF you agree:
1 - Open Contacts, Press Menu and go to "Display Options."
2 - The top will say something to the affect of, check here if you only want to show contacts with phones.... Click it. Then click Done.
3 - Bam, your Contacts may not be perfect (like mine), but I bet they look a ton better. I tried to point out there is a lot of personal preferences, so please take this with a grain of salt. I like things clean.
Please read the sticky for other tips/tricks for contacts AND many other topics. Thanks for everyone helping!
You're the best. Thanks.
Great, thanks for this!
If only I'd seen it before muddling through the new contacts screens for hours getting it to work it would have saved me a lot of time.
Only comment is that step 3:
"go to the "search contacts" search bar and just enter one SPACE and then press enter."
Doesn't seem to work on the new gmail contacts screen, when I do this search it just takes me to the my contacts page. I had to click 'older contact manager' link at the bottom of the screen and then do the blank search. Also step 4, with the new interface you don't get the middle columns. Any ideas on how you'd sort the contacts with the new interface? I'm not sure how long the link to the old contacts manager will be around for...
Thanks for taking the time to draw this up.
Another great "clean up" tool is Merge contacts. After updating my Treo contacts into gMail, Find dups was not enough.
Merge is more of a manual action, but it is great to look at the entire list to see whats going on.
At the same time, "groups" is another manual action that can help organize "YOUR" (good list) contacts. At times, I had contacts lists from other peoples PDAs and phones on my treo (mine was reliable, theirs', not so much, so when they crashed and lost their contacts, i could beam their list to them).
Hope I helped someone
Anyone know how to get facebook pics to show up for contacts? When I first got this phone all my contacts who are on my facebook had their pics synced up. Not anymore though, and idk why. Fb still syncs in the updates column but not their pics.
Anyway, thanks for the guide.
The way I found that works is to follow the above instuctions (other than that I kept both the gmail friends as well as all my facebook friends and then chose to display only those with a phone.) You can then go through each contact without a photo and click on it (the one without a photo). This is the gmail contact, choose "link contact" and the Facebook contact comes up (note that this method assumes that your favorite contacts are also on facebook with a photo, if not you will need to get your own picture with your phone or camera). Again, this is assuming you have your contact as a facebook friend AND a gmail email friend.
I hope this makes sense. Good Luck
Hey, thanks for the comments. Yeah... The new gmail changed this guide and I need to update it. Will try and work on it soon. If you guys can keep making recommendations that would be awesome.
Do you know of a way to *remove* all SIM contacts on the phone? When transferring from my old phone I dumped to SIM and then loaded onto the Android device, then I dumped that to a CSV and merged it with gmail. That got things sorted out on the gmail end, however I now have a bunch of redundant SIM contacts.
Even if you uncheck SIM contact visibilityin the contact app, they do still exist, and they show up elsewhere. So far I've seen no way to actually get rid of all of them easily, short of manually removing them one at a time
I also like using the app "Contacts clean-up" to auto format all the numbers up be consistent. ;-)
Sent from my Samsung Vibrant
Jeremy, did you see if there were duplicates on the pc within gmail?
Sent from my Vibrant
Okay, I made an attempt to correct my guide for the new Gmail. I really did not have much to play with this time, so please let me know if there needs to be any changes or improvements made.
Thank you guys!
Remember the days?
Did anyone else make a complete different Phone list within google contacts, and only use this list as the list for your phone? This was on my G1.
I'm trying to figure out why we can't do that anymore. Kinda sucks
s15274n said:
Jeremy, did you see if there were duplicates on the pc within gmail?
Sent from my Vibrant
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No dupes in gmail itself, just the dupe sim contacts. Gmail did a good job handling the dupes that I had in my gmail account.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App

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