How to Convert a Google Contact into a Phone Contact - Droid Turbo 2

shandycat

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I went from an iPhone to a Droid Turbo 2 last night and I'm having trouble with my contacts. All contacts came over as Google contacts, so I have no "phone" contacts. Problem is, I haven't used Google contacts in years so most of those contacts are old and outdated. I want to take the ones that are current and convert/move/change them into phone contacts so I don't have to scroll through literally hundreds of old useless contacts everytime I want to make a call.

Right now the only process I can figure out is to look through the hundreds of Google contacts, figure out which ones are correct and current, copy them down on paper, and then manually add each one as a phone contact.

It seems to me there should be an easy way to select a Google contact and tell it to make it a phone contact, but hours of searching online and playing with the phone have turned up nothing to this effect. Are there any apps out there that would help me do this?

Thanks!
 

B. Diddy

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Welcome back! It's actually not an easy process to change the account that a contact is saved to. In general, you have to export the contact, then import it into the new account. You can't just change an entry in a contact field.

I would also caution you against relying on contacts being only saved as local Phone account contacts, because these don't get synced anywhere automatically. So if something happens to the phone, you've lost all of that important information. My suggestion would be to take some time and go through your Google Contacts, so that you can delete or modify the ones that are out of date. It's much easier to edit using the web interface at contacts.google.com.
 
Aug 20, 2016
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I did just the opposite and moved everyone to Google contacts so this info is available on my other devices. You may find it easier to edit a large number of contacts on your tablet or laptop vs your phone.
 

shandycat

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Ok, so I took your advice and cleaned up my Google contacts. Now when I go to APPS > CONTACTS > "Contacts to Display" and choose Google, I see only my nice, clean Google contacts here. However, when I go to make a call, I still see every single old deleted contact in that list. How do I get my phone list to show only my Google contacts? I thought that's what choosing which contacts to display was for.

- Every sync option is enabled in APPS > SETTINGS > ACCOUNTS > GOOGLE.
- I have manually told it to "Sync Now."
- I have turned the phone off and back on again.
- The "auto-sync" option is enabled in APPS > SETTINGS > ACCOUNTS
- I have removed my Google account and re-added it.

When I delete a contact from my phone list I get a message that says "You can't delete contacts from read-only accounts, but you can hide them in your contacts lists." Does this mean they're not really being deleted? They do disappear from the list, but I'm concerned they're lurking somewhere and will re-appear at some point.

Any additional suggestions before I just delete every contact and manually re-enter the ones I want?
 

B. Diddy

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Which deleted contacts are you seeing--the ones you deleted from your Google account, or the ones you deleted from the local Phone account?

Also, when you're in the Phone app, are you seeing those deleted contacts in the Contacts tab or in the Favorites tab?
 

pbike908

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Phone contacts are in general a bad idea. I don't even sync phone contacts. Best to keep all your contacts in one of the big 3 clouds -- Gmail, Hotmail/Outlook, or Icloud and then create/edit there and sync there. That way whenever one changes a device -- even a different platform -- one can easily sync their contacts.