Database Users

Does flashing a rom delete contacts?

I just order the vibrant and cant wait to root and flash a rom. If i flash rom, does it delete wipe everything on the phone? (contacts, setting, etc)

I flashed hundreds of times. Text message and phone record logs, yes. Names and numbers, no. Those are stored on the SIM card.

thank you... thats all i wanted to know

on simcard or your google account, depends where u have been creating/savimg them to

FYI anytime you save a contact i would recommend picking Google account instead of saving to the phone or the sim card. Anytime you log in with a phone that has Google support, all of your numbers should sync with it. (if you saved them to Google)

I didn't know people still saved contacts directly on the phone anymore. Why would you want to if saving them in a google account can have such info sync'ed to any phone automatically... especially on an Android handset. Even the crappy-ass iPhone has a method of doing this.
Sent from my HTC EVo

digitall321 said:
I didn't know people still saved contacts directly on the phone anymore. Why would you want to if saving them in a google account can have such info sync'ed to any phone automatically... especially on an Android handset. Even the crappy-ass iPhone has a method of doing this.
Sent from my HTC EVo
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+1, plus it makes it easier to manage your contacts from the google contacts page.

Sms backup will backup all of your text messages to gmail.

[Q] Is it better to save contacts to phone or google?

Just wanted to know which was better and why. I have a samsung I9000
Thanks

well if you save to google, and then you get a new android phone your contacts are always there when you login to your google account from your phone. i always save to google

save it on google. If anything happens to your phone, you will not need to worry about losing your contacts. It'll always be there and it's easier to edit contact on Google anyways. This is also helpful if you switch roms a lot. You wont have to copy out your contact and copy it back in everytime.

With applications like Google Sync, I was able to take my contacts and import them into my old Blackberry. When switching to my Android phone the import of contacts was automagical.
Save it to Google, and then export from there into a csv file an additonal backup.

My only issue with saving to Google is you can't assign custom ringtones to non-phone based contacts =/
Anyone know if this is fixed in 2.2?

I've lost my iPhone couple weeks ago and thanks gods all my contacts were in clouds!
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App

RadAway said:
My only issue with saving to Google is you can't assign custom ringtones to non-phone based contacts =/
Anyone know if this is fixed in 2.2?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What do you want the ringtone for if it's not from a phone?
Another reason to like google vs phone ... It's damn convenient to add a contact on the web page as needed, especially if someone emails you the information and you can just copy&paste it.

I've used Google for mine ever since I bought the G1 when it came out. Come to think of it if I wouldn't have I'd probably not have all of my numbers.
Good stuff.

One question
I synced my contact to my Google account, and since it is syncing, if I accidentally deleted all my contact in the phone, it will probably delete the contact in my Google account too, right?
Or it can restore the backup?

tjhart85 said:
What do you want the ringtone for if it's not from a phone?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Uh...I think the OP was referring to the difference between the Google contacts and the phone contacts. Meaning that you cannot set ringtones for Google (non-phone) contacts, not contacts without phone numbers.
Although, if there is one thing I really miss from when I initially switched from a Blackberry to the G1, two years ago, was being able to basically setup "filters" for incoming calls, emails and SMS, a customize how each filter was handled.

Emama said:
One question
I synced my contact to my Google account, and since it is syncing, if I accidentally deleted all my contact in the phone, it will probably delete the contact in my Google account too, right?
Or it can restore the backup?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Depends on the definition of "deleted"...
I don't think it is even possible to accidentally delete all of your contacts. They could be erased by some external means or memory failure, but the sync algorithm does not see that as a delete. A delete is selecting a contact and selecting "delete contact" from the context menu.

devcurious said:
Depends on the definition of "deleted"...
I don't think it is even possible to accidentally delete all of your contacts. They could be erased by some external means or memory failure, but the sync algorithm does not see that as a delete. A delete is selecting a contact and selecting "delete contact" from the context menu.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Accidentally Delete means someone press delete all on the phone..

The sync will not remove contact from google if you delete from phone. As for ring tone, we'll just need some dev to port stock android contact over. In stock android contact you can set ring tone for individual contact without having the contact on the phone.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App

Sounds like google is the way to go but how do I get my numbers in "groups" if its linked to google, such as doctors, freinds, family, work? I see that the google ones are a group themselves

Emama said:
One question
I synced my contact to my Google account, and since it is syncing, if I accidentally deleted all my contact in the phone, it will probably delete the contact in my Google account too, right?
Or it can restore the backup?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can use backupify,com to backup your google contacts at certain intervals.
That's a nice option to have if you ever accidentally delete your contacts.

If you delete a google contact from your phone it WILL be deleted off of your account. It is a two way sync.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App

Does anybody know how to sync contacts that are saved on the phone to google?

mrsbelpit said:
Does anybody know how to sync contacts that are saved on the phone to google?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not directly.
There is no way to sync a phone contact to your Google contacts. You will have to create a separate Google contact.
I think a previous commenter gave the best advice to just use a ROM that has the vanilla android contact app. I think the TWIZ hybrid ROM has the vanilla contacts app.
I have the same complaint. I trying to hold off until there is a vanilla FroYo before using a custom ROM.

Does this mean that none of you are saving your contacts to your sim card?

DanRo80 said:
Does this mean that none of you are saving your contacts to your sim card?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's the least advanced way to save a contact because you can only have a name and number, that is all.
I use to save all contacts to sim with my old phones. As soon as I started using my google account I stopped saving to the sim. Mind you I've been with t-mobile for five years with the same sim.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App

Phone contacts vs gmail contacts

Hi All,
This is easily the most frustrating issue I'm having with my phone. How the f*** do I make all my contacts just save to gmail, I don't want ANY saved on the phone, my phone died recently, when I got it back I was expecting HTC sense & google to have my contacts stored in their clouds, HTC sense wouldn't log back in (piece of crap) and apparently all my contacts were just saved to my phone...
I've been digging around and can't find anyway to move everything to gmail, the only way I know is to manually change the 'contact type' if it gets manually created.
Any help much appreciated!
Cheers,
G.

This may not be the answer you want but you will most like have to do it manually. The good news is you only have to do it once then it'll be on gmail automatically synced.
Go to contacts/menu/display options. Select to only view phone contact and then on your pc go to contacts in gmail and compare it with your phone.
You may be able to extract the contacts and import them to google but its been a while since I did this.
Does this make sense?
Sent from my HTC Vision using xda premium

MarkyG82 said:
This may not be the answer you want but you will most like have to do it manually. The good news is you only have to do it once then it'll be on gmail automatically synced.
Go to contacts/menu/display options. Select to only view phone contact and then on your pc go to contacts in gmail and compare it with your phone.
You may be able to extract the contacts and import them to google but its been a while since I did this.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think this is what you'll probably have to do. AFAIK theres no "move all to google contacts" button or setting.
You're kinda gonna be stuck moving them manually. After that you're good to go.

Contacts - menu - import/export .... this option is in contacts on cyanogenmod

[Q] cleaning contact list (Nubbie question)

I think this should be a simple fix, but I don't fully understand what I am seeing.
- When I look at my contact list, I see a single google icon on most. When I open those, they show as a joined contact with phone and google icons.
- Others show two or three google icons. When I open those, they show as a joined contact and a google icon.
Goal: I want to clean up my contacts list so I have a single copy of each entry that is synced to my google account. My google contacts are de-dupped and merged, so this is not a reflection of dups there AFAIK.
History: Initially I had most of my contacts in the phone. I went to the sprint store figuring this would be a simple queston for one of the Elves. 20 min later, I had 2-3 copies of every contact in my google account. In response to "where is the vcf file you just saved?" The elf told me, "There where no files on your phone and that there is nothing stored on my SD card." Anyway, the mess on google was corrected quickly from my computer. However I missed the oportunity to fix this mess when I recently flashed CleanGB and restored too much...
I have 2 questions:
1) What is the meaning of the multiple icons?
2) How do I just wipe the contacts on the phone and resync to google w/o wiping the google contacts?
Samsung Epic 4G, CleanGB 1.0

I had the same problem a while ago. I think I used the "contacts" section in gmail. That's where your phone syncs with. I found something in there that could delete duplicates or something. Or merge them? Sorry I'm not around a computer right now but that's the key. Hope it helps
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App

Login to your google account had the same problem a while back. Just go to google.com/voice and you can manage your contacts better
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App

in contacts hit menu>settings> check display only contacts with phones?

Thanks to all who replied.
I ended up doing the following:
1) backed up google contacts (as csv from gmail.com)
2) broke syncing of phone contacts.
3) wiped all contacts
4) re-enabled syncing
Joy.

[Q] How did Google get this info

Ok, so I got a new Nexus 4 and started it.
It asked me for my gmail account which I entered. However after the initial setup was completed I was shocked to find my phonebook contacts exactly the same as my old phone on my Nexus 4.
Does anyone know how did Google get hold of my phone contacts ?
Few things:
- The contacts I see on the phone are not gmail contacts. I have 400+ gmail contacts. The contacts I automatically got on the phone were the exact contacts in my previous Android phone (HTC HD2 rooted with ICS CM Nexus ROM)
- In my old phone I never synched contacts. I always had mail checked in sync settings. Calendar, contacts etc were not checked.
- I also own a Nexus 7 tab and that does not have any setting to store contacts.
- When I ordered the phone I selected the option to not link it to any google account.
Any idea ?

Well, phone contacts have been synced to your Google account for a long time now. You must have synced them at least once on your old phone.

Must have synced to your account before you turned off contacts sync.

It's possible that they're saved on your SIM Card.
Sent from my awesome fridge

FormerSlacker said:
Well, phone contacts have been synced to your Google account for a long time now. You must have synced them at least once on your old phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
While that is certainly a possibility but I am skeptical of that because
- As a practice I never sync anything except EMAIL on my gmail, hotmail, yahoo accounts. everything else is unchecked.
- My phone contacts are not synced with hotmail or yahoo but appear to be only on gmail even though I had the same settings across all accounts.
- There are contacts I have on my gmail which I didnt have on my previous phone. These are not present on the new Nexus 4.

you probably synced it on ur old phone when u flashed ics, since default is to sync when you got ur contacts back on ur old phone it probably didnt automatically
google didnt "steal" your info or anything unless you think of what they do with info as stealing
contact sync is actually awesome and really helpful, i wouldnt see this as a bad thing if i were u but everyone has their own opinions

thanks for the replies so far.
While I agree it is a good feature to have, but I use a third party app to achieve this or do export to SD and then import from SD to back up contacts.

metal675 said:
thanks for the replies so far.
While I agree it is a good feature to have, but I use a third party app to achieve this or do export to SD and then import from SD to back up contacts.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just use Google contacts, and unless you're some kind of super spy or something and foreign governments are hacking your contacts because everyone you know is so important.
Sent from my Nexus 4 using xda app-developers app

Funny enough i watched my daughter painfully putting all her contacts in 1 by 1 on her new z10 today lol ... female=100's of contacts

juicyjones said:
Just use Google contacts, and unless you're some kind of super spy or something and foreign governments are hacking your contacts because everyone you know is so important.
Sent from my Nexus 4 using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Funny
Sent from my Nexus 4 using xda premium

metal675 said:
...
- I also own a Nexus 7 tab and that does not have any setting to store contacts.
Any idea ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Actually the Nexus 7 does have Contacts, its under the People App...
I have 2 N7 and both have contacts on them...
Just imagine all the Information they have about you, that your unaware of...

metal675 said:
Ok, so I got a new Nexus 4 and started it.
It asked me for my gmail account which I entered. However after the initial setup was completed I was shocked to find my phonebook contacts exactly the same as my old phone on my Nexus 4.
Does anyone know how did Google get hold of my phone contacts ?
Few things:
- The contacts I see on the phone are not gmail contacts. I have 400+ gmail contacts. The contacts I automatically got on the phone were the exact contacts in my previous Android phone (HTC HD2 rooted with ICS CM Nexus ROM)
- In my old phone I never synched contacts. I always had mail checked in sync settings. Calendar, contacts etc were not checked.
- I also own a Nexus 7 tab and that does not have any setting to store contacts.
- When I ordered the phone I selected the option to not link it to any google account.
Any idea ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
When you initially setup an android phone it asks you if you want to backup and sync your data with Google's servers and you've must have done this before in the past. I also think contact sync is set to on by default its in settings>accounts>google>[email protected] I actually like the feature as all my apps and contacts are automatically downloaded to a new phone right at the start.