[Q] Contacts annoyances (with GMail) - Galaxy S I9000 General

Hi,
I'm a bit annoyed by the way the Galaxy S works with Contacts:
All contacts are synced to Gmail instead of My Contacts
Gmail Groups are not synced, all Gmail contacts are in one group
No easy way to convert phone contacts to Google contacts or to merge contacts into a google contact
Essentially, I want to use GMail exclusively to manage contacts and have all of them synced between GMail and the phone.
I would appreciate any suggestions on how to achieve this, or maybe there is a better Contacts app out there?

This is not SGS issue, but the Android platform has been designed in the way that it's cloud computing centralised, in this case, Android phone is just the "client", you still need to maintain your contact in Gmail (web).
I tried delete a GMail contact in the phone, but that action will not delete the Gmail contact in Gmail server, sadly.

I've searched for solutions and found that the first two issues are solved on some phones, but that the Samsung Galaxy does not have the option to change the sync behaviour.
I want to maintain my contacts in GMail, but the problem is that the phone does not respect the GMail groups and it syncs "All contact", which means everyone I ever sent a mail. It should sync "My contacts", which only contains Contacts I created in GMail.
I hoped that there is maybe an alternative contacts app that does what I want.

_Fabian_ said:
I want to maintain my contacts in GMail, but the problem is that the phone does not respect the GMail groups and it syncs "All contact", which means everyone I ever sent a mail. It should sync "My contacts", which only contains Contacts I created in GMail.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I was also annoyed by that fact. But fortunately you can select to display only contacts with phone numbers associated in the contacts
application.
Just hit menu button while showing the list of contacts -> Display options -> only contacts with phones.
This at least solved my major issue with the google synching. Nice: typeahead in the gmail app still works for all people you ever sent a mail.
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App

Try this , it did the trick for me

_Fabian_ said:
I hoped that there is maybe an alternative contacts app that does what I want.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have tried Contacts Evolved in the Market. It is a littly buggy, not even sure if it is actively supported. But it does display Gmail contact groups, segregated in tabs.
The actual syncing is still being done by the brain dead Samsung Contacts app, which cannot be uninstalled. It apparently does download the groups data element from Gmail contacts, but fails to do anything with it.

When I tried jp3 2.2 firmware the google groups showed, looks like it will be fixed in the 2.2 update.

Thanks for the answers. Displaying only contacts with phone numbers helps, and if the group thing is fixed in Froyo, thats alright for me.
Now I only need to convert my phone contacts to Google contacts, there should be an easy options like Phone to SIM and vice versa, but I could not find it. Looks like I may have to do it by hand.

This is like the only bad thing for me. Do more people confirm that it is fixed in Froyo?

Related

My Contacts VS. All Contacts

I think this is the answer many of us are looking for to only have My Contacts Sync not all contacts.
Go to People->Menu->View->uncheck "Show auto Gmail Contacts" and "Google"
So you should only have Only contacts with phone #'s and Phones if you want.
Also here is a link to the Google Gmail Contact help section discussing this problem with 1.5 so a few things you will notice are different.
http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/gmail/thread?tid=3836f88898c31b01&hl=en
Hope this helps.
This solved the problem of syncing just My Contacts. This will not sync all contacts!
when i do it, it doesn't do anything.
with "Google" unchecked, the accounts sync doesn't do anything because the People app isn't even searching through my Google account for the contacts (but it is checked in the Data & Synchronization setting screen)
If Google is selected then it will pull All Contacts, The only downside to syncing Only contacts with #'s is if you only email someone they wont show.
See, Google expects you to keep your contact list clean and in good order. They figure that if you have a contact in all contact then you probably want them on all synced devices. So if you want it to work a different way you have to be tricky. This is an amazing phone and Android does have some limitations but we can't have everything. I also think that people would start complaining that this contact or that contact is on their phone if Android had to many options and one got switched on accident. So this is my work around and anyone that i know that I contact that doesn't have a # I put in a bogus one and then they show up.
i have a more shoddy way of working around it, though i'm experience problems with contact sync in general right now
what you could do is just use another Google account and use that one to solely sync your contacts. just export from your main account and import to the contact only one, and sync from there
however, my problem right now is that the phone won't do any sort of contact sync at all with contacts. anyone know why this might be?
Did you flash the 2.1 file? If so try to reinstall it.

syncing gmail groups

I can not figure out how to just sync the 'My Contacts' group instead of ALL the gmail contacts. I have 3000 contacts and I don't want them all. I also can't figure out how to sync groups at all.
Anyone solve this problem yet?
the best I have seen is to check "only show contacts with phone numbers".
that's just not going to get it done....
I can't believe I am the only person who has this problem?
Nope, you're not the only one. I, too, have this issue and would love to get the original contacts app back (the one where I can select which group of contacts should be used from the list of contact groups defined on google)
I hate the new Contacts app..
I don't have a SGS, but if your rooted couldn't you remove the current contact.apk and grab the original one from a stock build an install it via ADB or such?
Just throwing out ideas to help.
You are not alone in missing this! I find this very annoying after creating a trim my contacts list in gmail and syncing that with the g1. Samsung better fix this oversight because I haaate scrolling through my hundreds of contacts!
Did you guys overlook, that you also cannot assign a ringtone to your contacts that were synced from G1 to Gmail to Vibrant? Cannot put your gmail contacts as groups. Also, the checkbock for send directly to voicemail is gone.
for now..
.. I installed aContacts from the market. It isn't great, but it makes life a bit easier.

How to limit Gmail contacts to 'My Contacts'?

Is there anyway to prevent all the contacts with whom I've ever contacted from showing up as contacts that are synced?
hit the menu key and you should be able to pick the groups that are displayed.
The menu key shows I have 3 display options - phone, SIM, and Google.
In Gmail, I have 'My Contacts' (160 contacts) and All Contacts has 1300 contacts. All 1300 are being synced. How can I limit to the My Contacts that show up just as they should online within Gmail??
I even have smaller subgroups such as family and co-workers, which also do not show up on the phone. ??
Thanks...
Try the checkbox "Only display contacts with phones"
Otherwise the stock contacts app isn't very good at sorting.
exoplasm said:
Try the checkbox "Only display contacts with phones"
Otherwise the stock contacts app isn't very good at sorting.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That DOES limit to those with only phones. However, the list still does not match up to the list of 'My Contacts' in Gmail.
Hell, even the iphone synced perfectly with Gmail's contacts. What in the world is going on here?? Surely others are experiencing this weirdness too? I just don't see the option to sync to subgroups the way others see this.
There is no option to do this. Big oversight on Samsung's part. Coming from a G1 where I could sync a specific list this is a step back. Hoping they add this to their update.
See that's what I don't understand coming from the iphone. Isn't there a stand-alone contacts app that can properly sync with Gmail's 'My Contacts'?
I'm as flabbergasted as the rest of you all. This is the one aspect of TouchWiz that so far feels like a huge step backward from G1. Maybe some don't like the auto-sync to the cloud aspect, but for me it was a huge selling point of Android as I didn't have to hook it up to any computer and it was always in sync with my online address book. This is just lame.
Do any of you with more Android experience see this to be corrected in an impending update, possibly before 2.2?
I was able to change mine throug display options, listing google and phone, and selecting only contacts w/ #'s and mine works great!!!
You might try a third-party app in the Market called Contacts Evolved. It does not replace the brain-dead Samsung/T-Mobile Contacts app, which cannot be uninstalled. But Contacts Evolved can be used as an alternate user interface.
The advantage is that the Groups from Google's Gmail contacts are displayed, and the contacts are segregated by group into handy tabs. (The syncing done by the native app seems to pulls down the Groups data element, but that app ignores it.)
One downside is that Contacts Evolved seems a little buggy. There are some force-close issues.

Can't put contacts in groups

While cleaning up my contact list from transitioning from my old blackberry, I was trying to add contacts to specific groups (family, friends, work, etc). However, when in the contacts app, I click on groups at the top, click on a group, then tap Add Member, which takes me to a blank screen that says No contacts.
Does anyone know what I'm doing wrong? Going to gmail and editing my contacts' groups on my computer doesn't change it on my phone.
Yep. I have the same problem and so do a lot of other people from what I've heard. Haven't found a way to fix this yet. The only workaround I've found is add a new contact to your phone with the same name and link it with your existing contact.
There are two ways to fix this. One is to create at least 1 "dummy" contact for each category. THEN you can manually move contacts to categories correctly, though this is very tedious...
Or, you can use an app. Look for GROUPY in the market. This will allow you to reassign all contacts to the groups you desire.
I think found out the issue. You can't put the contacts that are from your google account into groups, they have to be contacts stored on the phone. This is just stupid, and I can't find a way to copy all of my contacts to the phone.
I tried out Groupy as you suggested, masterotaku, and it doesn't seem to do what I'm looking for.
I was able to move all my google (and facebook, and twitter, and phone stored) contacts to categories with Groupy, so I guess I don't understand what you mean...
What this app appears to be doing is creating phone stored contacts that link to the existing sync accounts (google, facebook, myspace, twitter in my case). I've been able to categorize all of these contacts seamlessly with Groupy. Took me a couple of minutes to un-mess the whole affair.
masterotaku said:
I was able to move all my google (and facebook, and twitter, and phone stored) contacts to categories with Groupy, so I guess I don't understand what you mean...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Groupy puts your contacts into a folder on your home screen. What I'm looking for is a way to get my contacts (all of which are either from my google account or facebook account) into groups inside the Contacts app on the Vibrant, which you can see on the pic I attached I took of the groups screen in the app itself. It appears you can only do that using contacts that are stored on the phone itself.
hurrpancakes said:
Groupy puts your contacts into a folder on your home screen. What I'm looking for is a way to get my contacts (all of which are either from my google account or facebook account) into groups inside the Contacts app on the Vibrant, which you can see on the pic I attached I took of the groups screen in the app itself. It appears you can only do that using contacts that are stored on the phone itself.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
And I'm telling you that this app does precisely that.....All of my contacts are in the Contacts app's categories. I've since removed Twitter and Myspace contacts from the contact sync because it was entirely too many lol.
Groupy creates phone stored contacts and links them to their existing sync groups...notice the contact in the second snapshot..it's linked to the google and facebook sync's. Groupy does this....
I'm thinking you've downloaded some other app. search for "com.kigate.groupy" This app has NOTHING to do with putting contacts in a folder on the home screen.
masterotaku said:
And I'm telling you that this app does precisely that.....All of my contacts are in the Contacts app's categories. I've since removed Twitter and Myspace contacts from the contact sync because it was entirely too many lol.
Groupy creates phone stored contacts and links them to their existing sync groups...notice the contact in the second snapshot..it's linked to the google and facebook sync's. Groupy does this....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I see why I didn't notice. I searched for Groupy, and downloaded Groupie. lol
Thanks a bunch, GROUPY is doing exactly what you said.

[Q] Desire HD Contacts sync

Hey everyone,
hope everyone's doing great.
I have a general question about android and the gmail contacts sync.
At the moment, I have my main gmail account, which is where I get all my emails, have my calendar, etc. And I have a separate gmail account which is especially made for my contacts and only contacts. I keep them nicely maintained in there, it's very tidy and I have no issues with it whatsoever.
My issue, though, is that I have my ~800 contacts from my main gmail account that I don't really want. I have disabled syncing of contacts on the main gmail account but they're still there.
This gets annoying (and a bit untidy) when trying to send a message, I type the first few characters of the contact and I get multiple entries of the same person, all duplicates.
Is there a away to get rid of all the contacts from my main gmail account and only keep the ones from my other (contacts only) account???
Thanks in advance,
Mike
I have not tried this, but it may work with a bit of playing around.
In your GMail account, go into 'Contacts' check the box next to all the people you want to appear on your phone.
Click on 'Groups' Tab and click on add to Android group or HTC Favorites.
If all your contacts are already in these two groups, uncheck the ones you do not want.
Try sync see if you only get this group.

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