Syncing All Contacts vs. My Contacts

[Brewtorial]

Hey all,

I'm getting ready to pull the trigger either on the Bionic or Razr next week. I've been a Blackberry guy for years so I'm fired up about the change.

My question is this:
I've synced my contacts from my BB into Gmail. I've cleaned up all of my contacts in Gmail. I have three main groups in Gmail now - My Contacts, Business Contacts, and Other Contacts. I really only want My Contacts and Business Contacts on the new device. Can I choose which groups of contacts are synced from Gmail to my new phone?

If I can choose which contacts I want on the phone, what's the best methodology for doing that?

 

[Yaish]

All contacts in your Gmail will be automatically synced to your phone. However, in the display options you can make several selections based an various criteria.

You can select (or not) to show contacts from various social networks, applications (like Skype of Tango), as well as other email accounts synced to your phone.

Digging deeper into the menu, you'll have the option inside the gmail selection to display contacts associated with different categories you've designated, such as "my contact", "family", or "work". (they are still synced, but you can choose to display them or not)

 

[Brewtorial]

Thanks very much, Yaish. I think I'm going to need to just dig into the OS once I get the device in-hand.

Pretty sure I'm going Razr.

 

[bkorver]

When you set up the phone it will ask you to sign in to your google (gmail) account. All of your gmail contacts will automatically appear, and when you sign in to FB or Twitter, it will ask you if you want to show all contacts in your contact list or just sync with existing (gmail) contacts.

If you create a new contact on the phone, it will prompt you to save as a google contact or a phone contact. If you save it as a phone contact, it WILL NOT sync with your gmail...

Hope that helps.

 

[Brewtorial]

Good to know about FB and Twitter.

The vertical integration of the new device is going to be so much more prominent than anything Blackberry has ever put out. I think it's definitely a good thing, but it'll take some getting used to.

 

[viper8315]

Glad to see another BB using converting! I came from a storm 2 to the Bionic. Trust me, you won't look back. From the sounds of it, you were smart by going right to gmail with your contacts. I made the unfortunate mistake of using the verizon contact backup. Long story short, I couldn't get everything perfect, I had to wipe out everything, restore the phone to factory and now I'm happy. So whatever you do, don't bother with the verizon backup thing.

As far as your choice of phone, I'm happy with the Bionic, contrary to what you see sometimes in this forum, it really is a great device. If you can live with a sealed battery of the Razr, then so be it. Personally, I cannot, especially with the number of charge and discharge cycles that modern smartphones go through. Either way, I suggest being patient and going into the store once the Razr comes out and play with both devices.

Oh yea, one thing I can suggest for you is the simple sound profile widget. It lets you setup sound profiles just like we had on the BB...I'm not spamming, just a cool thing that helped my transition...

https://market.android.com/details?id=net.zalio.android.spm&feature=search_result#?t=W251bGwsMSwxLDEsIm5ldC56YWxpby5hbmRyb2lkLnNwbSJd

Well, good luck, and if you need any other help, let us know...

 

[Arelunde]

Here's a WARNING before you activate your Bionic or Razr - When the screen shows up asking you to set up/activate your My Verizon account ... SKIP IT!! Don't activate the My Verizon backup. It will throw all kinds of old data, deleted data, wrong data, duplicates, etc., into your clean Gmail contacts list.

What happens is Vz backs up your contacts, but doesn't sync to changes (or maybe syncs on its own schedule). It also randomly adds addresses that are associated with miscellaneous email. The end result is a MESS that you will have to physically clean up in Gmail.

The answer, even if you have NOT activated the My Vz backup, is to check your My Verizon website. Look at the contacts it has stored there and DELETE them all! Don't panic - your real contacts list is preserved in Gmail's cloud.

You will have to go back into your Gmail account to clean it up if things have gotten weird with lots of "linked" contacts (a definite clue My Vz is interfering). AND, you need to check the My Vz contacts list periodically to make sure it isn't storing contact info again (if so - delete it all).

I discovered this the hard way...