Database Users

How should I store my contacts?

This is my first Android phone so I'm a little unsure of the following.
I've got a number of contacts that were on my sim card as well as my Google contact list, so now I've got double entries for a number of people. Is it best to just delete the Google contact ones or the sim contacts? Are there any advantages or disadvantages of one over the other? Like for example if I have no network connection does my phone still list the Google contacts?

I went for storing my contacts only on google.
As far as I know contacts are stored on the phone locally, so even if you dont have a network connection, you still have access to your contacts.
As far as duplicate entries, you can choose which contacts are shown on the phone. I would pick a method and stick with it. I've never been a big fan of storing contacts on a sim card. I prefer having them stored in the cloud.

Red Arrow said:
This is my first Android phone so I'm a little unsure of the following.
I've got a number of contacts that were on my sim card as well as my Google contact list, so now I've got double entries for a number of people. Is it best to just delete the Google contact ones or the sim contacts? Are there any advantages or disadvantages of one over the other? Like for example if I have no network connection does my phone still list the Google contacts?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Look for an app called MyBackup pro which basically helps you to store all kinds of stuff including contacts to the sd card or on its servers.
http://www.cyrket.com/package/com.rerware.android.MyBackupPro

I've moved over to storing them on Gmail. For some reason yesterday they all vanished (I had synced them with Outlook too) but the Gmail ones got sync'd back pretty quickly. Then it hooked up with Facebook and put contact profile pictures back in too

+1 for google.
knowing that they are all there and will come back as soon as i sign in, means i am not worried about trying every app under the sun for the first few weeks to see what works, what doesn't and what breaks the phone, knowing i can just hard reset afterwards if the worst happens and everything is back within seconds!!

+1 for gmail. You can edit the phonebook from any web browser. You can force-sync by turning off&on the gmail syncing on the Hero. You can turn off displaying the SIM card contacts in the Peoples app settings, no need to delete them in case you need to use the SIM in a dumb-phone later.

I opted for storing contacts all on gmail and went through the following process.
Sync'ed all my old contacts from previous Kaiser into outlook
Manually updated outlook contacts merging in all google email contacts aswell.
Used HTCSync to update phone with contacts - worked a charm and kept all contact pictures.
Forced a sync with google on my Hero hoping that all new contacts now on my Hero will automatically become updated/created in GMail.
Unfortunately this isn't the case and all emails were sync'ed between gmail and hero, but contacts still only appear on my device.
Have I missed a setting or is it not possible to bi-directionally sync contacts between gmail and hero ?

When you create the calendar/contact item, are you selecting to put it in the google group?
Create a new contact and in Contact type (just below the name) make sure to select Google. It usually defaults to Phone, which only syncs with the god awful HTC Sync software.
once created a contact in the wrong group, you can't change it. delete it and start again.

For those of us a bit paranoid about OUR data, Is there a built in way to sync/export/import data as in Active Sync?
I mean also accessing my data while in out-of-coverage areas, in-flight mode, etc.
Regards.

The data is always available on the phone, no matter whwere you store it.
Just cos it's stored on the google servers does not mean that you can not access it when you are out of service area...that would be stupid.
It just means that instead of you having to hook the phone up to your pc using that god awful HTC Sync software, it syncs automatically to the google servers.It is still stored on the phone locally as well.
Whatever gave you the idea that it would not be?

Looking Glass said:
For those of us a bit paranoid about OUR data, Is there a built in way to sync/export/import data as in Active Sync?
I mean also accessing my data while in out-of-coverage areas, in-flight mode, etc.
Regards.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Your contacts are also stored locally on your phone, so even if you don't have service, you won't lose your contacts.

rhedgehog said:
The data is always available on the phone, no matter whwere you store it.
Just cos it's stored on the google servers does not mean that you can not access it when you are out of service area...that would be stupid.
It just means that instead of you having to hook the phone up to your pc using that god awful HTC Sync software, it syncs automatically to the google servers.It is still stored on the phone locally as well.
Whatever gave you the idea that it would not be?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for explaining, but post #4 above looks scary. Since I don't have any Android phone yet, I thought they might come as the g-mail servers, if you are not online, you can not browse through your "archived" mail.
Regards.

No, they are stored locally.
also, with the mail program, that stores them locally once it has recieved the ones you choose to sync as well.
it's all good!

moved all mine to google
very easy and i love it!

rhedgehog said:
No, they are stored locally.
also, with the mail program, that stores them locally once it has recieved the ones you choose to sync as well.
it's all good!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for info. Still waiting for may Hero....... no chance to try it yet.
Regards.

Does a google contact sync to outlook from the phone?

can i DELETE ALL CONTACTS
I'm having such a hard time with contacts on my hero. Wish I would have just had Sprint transfer them over from my Touch Pro. Anyways, I want ONLY the contacts from my old phone, which have been imported into gmail. Is there a way to delete all the crap that was imported into my contacts from Windows Contacts via HTC Sync? Then I can sync only my google contacts and just live with that.
how do I delete all contacts?

Import facebook contacts

Like the title says. Anyway to import all of your facebook contacts to the phones address book?

In the bottom of every contact (editing mode), you have a selection for this. You have to do this on every contact ..

Cheers for replying!. I figured that was the only way to do it (the hard and long way!). Took me about 10mins to finish it, though much happier now its done.
The facebook integration is pretty cool

Yes it is. I wish there was a easier way to add the FB info. But when your done, its pretty cool

On the people tab you go
All People > Updates and Events (face & clock tab)
you should have an item at the top "link profiles" where it will match up your local contacts against your facebook contacts.
Tick all that apply (well default is ticked, so detick those who you don't want to join) and click OK.
All of your facebook contacts linked at once.

mr_Ray said:
On the people tab you go
All People > Updates and Events (face & clock tab)
you should have an item at the top "link profiles" where it will match up your local contacts against your facebook contacts.
Tick all that apply (well default is ticked, so detick those who you don't want to join) and click OK.
All of your facebook contacts linked at once.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Is this with an empty updates and events list? I can't see the option now the list has the entries I added in manually!

Luapo said:
Is this with an empty updates and events list? I can't see the option now the list has the entries I added in manually!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Once I added all mine the option disappeared. De-link a few people if you want to try it out.

Just tried it, the phone only found one link! Oh well, i'm guessing that might be down to how the names are formatted on the phone and in facebook?

Luapo said:
Just tried it, the phone only found one link! Oh well, i'm guessing that might be down to how the names are formatted on the phone and in facebook?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Possibly. Not sure how it makes the matches.

mr_Ray said:
On the people tab you go
All People > Updates and Events (face & clock tab)
you should have an item at the top "link profiles" where it will match up your local contacts against your facebook contacts.
Tick all that apply (well default is ticked, so detick those who you don't want to join) and click OK.
All of your facebook contacts linked at once.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks ! But it only finds ta few of the contacts this way.
Of some reason 11 of 76 was found and the rest must manually be added

scrabble8 said:
Thanks ! But it only finds ta few of the contacts this way.
Of some reason 11 of 76 was found and the rest must manually be added
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As great as the HD2 is, no phone as yet attained the ability to read your mind. Seems a decent sample size - did you notice a pattern in those that did/didn't auto match? Full name, email, phone number, etc. not matching?
It would be good to know how it's doing the matching, I've got a deady mix of being curious as to how it works ye being too lazy to de-link and subtlely modify some contacts.

MSN Live tip
Ive added all 700 FB contacts.. open MSN Messenger and within there is an option to add all FB Contacts.. then sign in on MSN on ya phone goto live and merge contacts ;-)

mr_Ray said:
As great as the HD2 is, no phone as yet attained the ability to read your mind. Seems a decent sample size - did you notice a pattern in those that did/didn't auto match? Full name, email, phone number, etc. not matching?
It would be good to know how it's doing the matching, I've got a deady mix of being curious as to how it works ye being too lazy to de-link and subtlely modify some contacts.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hehe.... thats true !
In my case, all the contact wasnt exactly as the FB profiles. I imported contacts from iPhone. And in the process some of the contact were listed as Lastname, Firstname. FB couldnt match the profiles then

Raising this thread up again.. I have some question re. the contact photo.
I have about 450 - 500 contacts. Roughly 150 of these have photos stored in Outlook that I'm quite happy with. Doing a Facebook link-up matches about 250 of these accounts. Some of these 250 linked accounts already had photos I liked. Still with me so far?!
Now I know you can go into each contact individually and select whether to use their Facebook picture or Outlook picture, but is there a way to set this behaver by default? My preference would be to use the Outlook one by default, unless there isn't one in which case to use the Facebook one. Surely this "wish" must be quite common?!
Also, is there a way pull said Facebook photos over to Outlook, so as they are stored and pop up on my laptop Outlook etc? I used a 3rd party app a year or so ago (hence the pictures in Outlook already) and while I could use this again it seems silly to have to do the link-up twice!!
Thanks in advance..

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

No Tmobile Contacts Acct With CM7, Help???

Hello,
Having big problem with contacts. I flashed Cm last night and when I went to my contacts they were not there...so I thought no big deal I would just goto Acct & Sync and then Manage acct and use tmobile...but its not there.
When I click on "add account"...there is no tmobile. Please someone help with a fix. I dont understand what to do...please keep in mind, Im kinda still new to this so if you have ideas please explain in simple terms.
Thanks in advance,
Brian
PS: am I the only one with this issue, if so why?

fst2011 said:
PS: am I the only one with this issue, if so
why?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You are not the only one with the issue. All of Cyanogen's ROM are AOSP (android open source project). They do not have this feature. That is a feature added to the MySense that T-Mo bloats this phone with.
There is really nothing you can do unless you mind using a MySense based ROM.

wait...so how do all these people add the contacts back on their phones....I dont understand...there must be an easy way.

fst2011 said:
wait...so how do all these people add the contacts back on their phones....I dont understand...there must be an easy way.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
most, if not all, of our contacts on on our Google account. and when we log into the google account [on the phone] it automatically pushes the contacts that are on our account to the phone.
it's a "no touch" method. We just log in and Google takes care of the rest.
If it is possible to extract the contacts from the t-mo website as a .cvs file you may be able to bulk import them to your google account but i dunno. I used Google Sync on my blackberry prior to owning an Android so i never had that problem.

I went to tmobile site and from what I see there is no cvs...but I could be wrong. Aside from that...how can I get my contacts back to the phone...?

fst2011 said:
I went to tmobile site and from what I see there is no cvs...but I could be wrong. Aside from that...how can I get my contacts back to the phone...?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
manually enter them?

neidlinger said:
most, if not all, of our contacts on on our Google account. and when we log into the google account [on the phone] it automatically pushes the contacts that are on our account to the phone.
it's a "no touch" method. We just log in and Google takes care of the rest.
If it is possible to extract the contacts from the t-mo website as a .cvs file you may be able to bulk import them to your google account but i dunno. I used Google Sync on my blackberry prior to owning an Android so i never had that problem.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
here is a way to export to csv...dont know how well it works...
http://yincrash.livejournal.com/188605.html

I just used the UiA Backup Contacts app from the market on my wifes phone, and imported the csv output into her Google account...
Sent from my Nexus One using XDA App

This is hopeless....I cant believe what a problem this is turning into. I might be able togo back to the Ice rom and get my contacts but the problem Im have then is...I cant get the contacts to sync with google.
Meaning....for example...I have my wifes phone, which is not flashed yet so as a practice run, I tried to sync her contacts to gmail/google and it will not take...if I can get this to work, they I might be able to fix this.
Any ideas on getting atleast my wifes phone to sync with google?

This is a pain to do, but it may help...
You can print your T-mo contacts from the T-mo website. If you install a pdf printer driver (neevia docuprinter), you can print the contacts to pdf. You can then select the data on the pdf, and cut and paste into a csv, and import into your Google contacts.
You will only get the basic information, like name, cell number, email, etc...
Sent from my Nexus One using XDA App

First thing I did when I got this phone was disabled tmo sync so all my numbers default to google. Sorry, man. I feel your pain. You sure there's no way to export contacts from the tmo website? I bet there is.
Sent from my HTC Glacier

If we did bet you would have lost...Lol, here is the problem
I spent about 1 hour on the phone with a tmobile smart phone tech...we both logged into my tmobile acct and looked at the contacts, which were about 250. He was shocked...as was I, that there was NO export...only import. We both dont understand why they would make it this way but its dumb.
ok...so he had me do one method which didnt work well but I will post it here, maybe someone might be able to fine tune it.
So, the tech had me goto my "manage contacts" page. Then look for an option to print, once that window opens you hold down ctrl+A...this will highlight all your contacts. The right click and copy.
Next, open up excel and paste into the first column "A1". Then you have to adjust each column just a little to make the names and numbers fit.
Next, you goto save as, and choose "CSV (Comma delimited) (*.csv)"
Next you goto gmail and choose import and browse to the file you just created. This will add all your contacts however here comes the part, maybe someone else can figure how to fix...when you import the contacts, it doesnt put the numbers in the right spot...it puts them in the "Notes" section.
So you would then have to goto each name and copy and paste into the correct section...yes I know thats alot of work, but it beats entering in each number by hand.
Also, I'm not some tech...Im still new and make no claim to be smart with this...so save the put down remarks.
The other option which I did...was I just flashed back to my first rom "Ice"...then I Exported contacts to SD card...next you flash the rom you want...go thru the steps the guides tell you, when done, setup google and sync...this will add all contacts.
*** Make sure thu, that when you add NEW contacts to your phone that you create under the google acct. Meaning, when you open up the new contact window, you add the name of person and then (depending on custom rom) you can choose to create under tmobile or google...you want to choose google.
And thats it...
Brian

fst2011 said:
If we did bet you would have lost...Lol, here is the problem
I spent about 1 hour on the phone with a tmobile smart phone tech...we both logged into my tmobile acct and looked at the contacts, which were about 250. He was shocked...as was I, that there was NO export...only import. We both dont understand why they would make it this way but its dumb.
ok...so he had me do one method which didnt work well but I will post it here, maybe someone might be able to fine tune it.
So, the tech had me goto my "manage contacts" page. Then look for an option to print, once that window opens you hold down ctrl+A...this will highlight all your contacts. The right click and copy.
Next, open up excel and paste into the first column "A1". Then you have to adjust each column just a little to make the names and numbers fit.
Next, you goto save as, and choose "CSV (Comma delimited) (*.csv)"
Next you goto gmail and choose import and browse to the file you just created. This will add all your contacts however here comes the part, maybe someone else can figure how to fix...when you import the contacts, it doesnt put the numbers in the right spot...it puts them in the "Notes" section.
So you would then have to goto each name and copy and paste into the correct section...yes I know thats alot of work, but it beats entering in each number by hand.
Also, I'm not some tech...Im still new and make no claim to be smart with this...so save the put down remarks.
The other option which I did...was I just flashed back to my first rom "Ice"...then I Exported contacts to SD card...next you flash the rom you want...go thru the steps the guides tell you, when done, setup google and sync...this will add all contacts.
*** Make sure thu, that when you add NEW contacts to your phone that you create under the google acct. Meaning, when you open up the new contact window, you add the name of person and then (depending on custom rom) you can choose to create under tmobile or google...you want to choose google.
And thats it...
Brian
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for your post
I recently flashed cm7.2 and I lost my tmobile sync and tried to get my g1 to sync but there was no sync so i had to figure a way to do it.
I took what you posted in the tmobile conversation and copied the contacts and saved as a cvs file. Than i exported a google file to see their format. copied and past my cvs info to the google export file and got the name to number to match. Thanks! will use google for now on for contacts!

Wow.... This was a old post of mine and really glad I was able to help you out. Take care
Brian
profen said:
Thanks for your post
I recently flashed cm7.2 and I lost my tmobile sync and tried to get my g1 to sync but there was no sync so i had to figure a way to do it.
I took what you posted in the tmobile conversation and copied the contacts and saved as a cvs file. Than i exported a google file to see their format. copied and past my cvs info to the google export file and got the name to number to match. Thanks! will use google for now on for contacts!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

To "unsync" Google contact pictures.

Awhile ago I had used the app Sync my pix while I was testing some sense roms back on the N1 and at the time it was doing what I needed it to do but I had noticed that some contacts just didn't display properly and I decided I just wanted facebook to sync all my pictures for me. the problem then became, how do I undo what this app has done? I emailed the dev months ago but no response. I have over a thousand contacts but only really contact about half that but even so thats a lot of contacts to go through and have to manually one by one remove pictures from. This morning I finally found a way to do it. This was not my idea I'm just posting what I found. I tested it and it worked fine.
"Go to google.com/contacts. Select All contacts. Click Export on the top right. MAKE SURE ALL CONTACTS are being exported. Save this file as a Google file.
Go back to the main page and delete all your contacts. If you want to clear them off your phone too, go to Settings->Account and Sync and make sure you sync your contacts all of your numbers should disappear.
Go back to google.com/contacts and click Import on the top right. Import all your contacts back with no pictures attached!"
I made three csv files just to be safe lol but all my contacts are back and without photos. Hope some of you find this useful

And I realized I posted this in the wrong section. Sorry guys.

Does this get the high qaukity photos? And does it sync as well as the syncmypix? Did you use the fFacebook app or the HTC one? Thanks