How do I get rid of duplicate contacts in my LGG3 without losing information not on both?

[AC Question]

I am on my 6th phone. 1 was stolen, 1 got destroyed in an X-Ray lab and 4 stopped working. When they were replaced, the contacts were difficult for the agents to transfer. Eventually what happened was that they kept duplicating contacts when transferring from one phone to the new. Then I had duplicates. When they transferred again, they transferred the duplicates, the new ones were added. This happened again and again and each time the number of contacts transferred grew exponentially. I ended up with over 10,000 contacts. Someone at Verizon managed to get it down to 700 but said I had to do the rest by hand. There must be some way to get rid of duplicates and combine all the information on each one in one entry. They eliminated some completely and I have 16 of the same one. What happened to the safety of the so-called "cloud." More like smog. I thought that nothing got lost but I lost a lot of contacts. Anyway, now I am whining, so I would appreciate some guidance here. Thanks.

 

[B. Diddy]

Welcome to Android Central! Try Duplicate Contacts.

I take it that you aren't in the habit of saving all of your contacts to your Google account--this is the easiest way to keep your contacts safe and to sync them to a new device. If you create a contact and associate it with your Google account, it will sync automatically to your Google Contacts in the cloud, and therefore be immediately available to you on any computer or any device that you sign into. So when you get a new phone, you don't have to ask the wireless rep to transfer contacts--all you have to do is log into your Google account on the phone, and the contacts will automatically be synced.

 

[tardus]

Just today I went online to my Google account to edit a contact and I was prompted to merge duplicate contacts. Not sure if this is a new feature but it found a bunch. Nice to get rid of the dupes. Like B. Diddy said, saving contacts to the Google Account is the way to go for ease of use and increased availability/recovery.

 

[LeoRex]

Just today I went online to my Google account to edit a contact and I was prompted to merge duplicate contacts. Not sure if this is a new feature but it found a bunch. Nice to get rid of the dupes. Like B. Diddy said, saving contacts to the Google Account is the way to go for ease of use and increased availability/recovery.

If you have access to a desktop browser.... you can REALLY clean them up in the web based Gmail client. Merging contacts on your phone is just a mask... the contacts are still split, but your phone just shows them as merged. (unless they changed it recently)

If you go to mail.google.com and go to the Contacts page... you'll have a lot more control over them and it'll be much easier to administer.

 

[physioprof]

I use Scrubly to manage my Gmail contacts, and it works amazingly for merging duplicates. Note: it is a paid service. http://www.scrubly.com/

 

[tardus]

If you have access to a desktop browser.... you can REALLY clean them up in the web based Gmail client. Merging contacts on your phone is just a mask... the contacts are still split, but your phone just shows them as merged. (unless they changed it recently)

If you go to mail.google.com and go to the Contacts page... you'll have a lot more control over them and it'll be much easier to administer.

I wasn't clear - I did this from a desktop browser - not the Android phone. When I logged into my Google account I was prompted automatically to remove duplicates.

 

[xocomaox]

I am amazed at the incompetence of the Verizon representatives. Did you go to a corporate store, or an Authorized Re-seller?