I’m not super familiar with vcf files. So I plan on removing google and I will prolly need to back up my contacts somewhere in case I need a phone reset. Can I export the vcf file periodically to a cloud service and if I download it back to my phone after a crash or reset, everything will be hunky dorey (sp?) or is there something else I need to do/know. I thought i had an option to put them on the Sim, but now i see I can only save it to storage, and not to sim. My export options include *importing* from sim, but not exporting to sim.
I have a stock android phone, is there a way to have a contact list that is not google affiliated?
- Thread starter Paisley
- Start date
This is the reason i stick with Samsung phones. My GS4 and GNote3 can handle correctly the SIM contacts, i don't need to import them in the google account.
I can save the contacts in the phone, the SIM, the Gmail account, the Samsung account or the Outlook account. I have all my friends and familly on the SIM and the professionals contacts are on Outlook. i can show all contacts or only the SIM or only Outlook, very convenient, very professional.
When i have get my hand on a Nexus5 i was stunned to see that i need to import the SIM contacts on Google before i can use them.
I can save the contacts in the phone, the SIM, the Gmail account, the Samsung account or the Outlook account. I have all my friends and familly on the SIM and the professionals contacts are on Outlook. i can show all contacts or only the SIM or only Outlook, very convenient, very professional.
When i have get my hand on a Nexus5 i was stunned to see that i need to import the SIM contacts on Google before i can use them.
You can find on Google play some applications to manage the SIM contacts and make Call directly and some apps can save the sim contacts.
Oh how I would love that. I wouldn’t mind being able to use my google contacts and have them be allowed to be separate from personal contacts.
I downloaded a sim app, looks great! (Wow, what a pain now to have to save contacts to vcf, delete contacts from phone, add google account, download app from playstore, remove google account, import contacts. Lol. Thanks google, soooo much.
!)However, the app doesn't seem to be able to copy stuff to my sim, i think there's something wrong with the sim on my phone maybe, Sprint motomaker phones were having issues with the sim. Hmmm. Can you walk me through getting anything onto your sim from your nexus (or anyone with a google phone of any kind) without an app? I'll try that and if that doesn't work, i'll know it's the sprint/moto x issue.
Ah, it IS my motomaker sprint sim issue, says my sim is locked, which is what happened to sprint folks when we tried to get activated in the first place. So it looks like i won't be able to get anything onto my sim card and i'll have to do vcf.
Contact VCF can read a vcf file and use the contacts direcltly, no need to export them to google.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=by.androld.contactsvcf
Oh yeah, I know. I plan to keep copies of my contacts on vcf for the sole reason of not syncing them to google. : ). And i want to keep them on a cloud somewhere as well in case my phone crashes or i have to do a reset.
ohh, unless you're saying if i have this my contacts could be my own contacts, no longer “google contacts” and no longer recognized by google. That would be great, I could keep my access to playstore.. I'll give it a shot.
THANKS!
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I think if you install a custom rom like CyanogenMod you won't have the same issue. Since you want to keep your info from Google anyway, its makes sense.
It depend on what phone you have and may/will break your warranty. What phone do you have now?
just wanted to explain how i got my contacts onto my new moto g yesterday. if you have a live or outlook.com acct, you can have your contact list there, download the outlook.com email app from google play, enter your email and tell it to sync contacts, and when i do that, i have no numbers going up to google. hope this helps if you use outlook?
oh shoot. i think that means i have to root it? or something like that? i definitely don't want to do anything that could injure my phone or break my warranty, or do something that requires a lot of technical work, but i just read a couple of testimonials on their site and the comments sounded interesting. Moto X, but prefer not to do anything crazy. 100% would break my warranty, based on the assumption that if it commonly breaks warranties, it will on this phone for sure. Well, i'm betting.
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Thanks! Unfortunately I don't use outlook. I looked into thunderbird but their app for the android didn't sound like it was so easy to deal with. But thanks, that is much appreciated.
ultravisitor
Well-known member
You do realize that EVERYONE is using your data somehow, right? You're not going to be able to hide from it. Browsing the web? You're being tracked. Using Yahoo! or Outlook or some other similar webmail service? You're being tracked. Even simply buying an item from a brick-and-mortar store with a credit card provides the store with data that they'll use to track you. I mean, there's even that story from a few years ago in which a father found out via Target that his daughter was pregnant due to her purchasing history:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmir...teen-girl-was-pregnant-before-her-father-did/
And really...why do you think Google gives away Android? They're not angels sent from heaven simply trying to rescue people from the grip of Apple, you know. They get something out of it, too.
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They certainly do. And it just happens to be my preference to not just offer up everything if there are other options. I just personally don't like one place having so much, and give so much to one company, and there are other reasons i dont want my contacts, etc. for google. I know you and others feel differently, I think we all just have different preferences as to our personal data flow and capture by companies, and control over our phones, the data we put in them, services, etc. The hardware I paid for so hopefully there are options other than only their free service/data exchanges if I don't want to hand it all over.
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ultravisitor
Well-known member
I just think you're being naive if you think you can really hide. I used to think like you, but not anymore. Now, the way I see it is you can either pick your poison and give in to a company by choice, or don't choose and let anyone and everyone have your data and lie to yourself that it's not happening. I mean, what do you do for email? No matter what, that service has your contacts. Even if you typed the address and everything in by hand each time you sent something, they'd still have each of those contacts (and phone numbers if you typed them anywhere in the message) for themselves and they just won't show them to you in an easy to see and navigate list.
Well, I suppose you can hide. You'd just have to give up a digital life, start using cash only, and go completely off the grid.
Like i said, some people don't like one company to have so much of their data, which is not the same as to hide from all companies or tracking in general. And there are other reasons people prefer to have more control over their own hand device and the data in it.
Posted via Android Central App
ultravisitor
Well-known member
Too late for that, I'm afraid. You have an Android phone and have had Google accounts assigned to it. Google will likely hold onto your data for several months at a minimum so long as you don't sign back in with a Google account, and they even keep "deleted" data for their own internal purposes.
Yup, i know they hold on to it. I think a lot of people think of personal data/info and even privacy as an all or nothing 'privacy is dead so don't bother' sort of thing, that's just not my point of view or how i decide on my settings, services, data, etc, so I try to pay attention to what i can in my data flow, esp as things change, new policies, new advertising/sharing initiatives or if i notice things i don't like and want to change. For example, i specifically asked if anyone knew the data flow of google putting my sisters reviews on my google play store page since i don't have any sort of G+ circle with her, people weren't quite sure, so i changed a bunch of stuff, not knowing which it was, and that fixed it (although i suspect it was only because i turned on the 'don't advertise to me' setting on my phone, although maybe it's cuz i took her out of my contacts, i don't know). Didn't fix it for her, but there are changes she can make to do that. But for me it's not an all or nothing proposition. HP will always know how much ink i use because i let them. Yahoo knows whatever, okay. But for me it's not all or nothing and don't concern myself with data or settings, etc. Some people want their contacts on their sim, and some people like the google contacts and everything else data exchange for services. it's just a preference. So far yes, my contacts are no longer listed as google contacts after i put them as an accessible vcf file, which works better for me than forever having relationship data for google, and every connection i make in the future (esp given they are now treating my contacts like some sort of social media site, that's not what i put them in my phone for). Some people like cross service data exchange, some people like every contact forever data storage used for advertising, some people dont and can avoid it, esp across different services, i just like my stuff separate. I signed up for them separately, and was okay with that. Play store separate from contacts, facebook social sharing stuff separate as well. HP isn't going to send my sister my review of their printer but they know what time i print my documents (and that's pretty much all they know, i mean, IP, that type of stuff too). Now if my first and last name were attached to my youtube, THAT definitely falls under TOO LATE! lol. I do wish they'd stop asking me to merge them, i've rejected it 20x over. What's up with that?
And this was annoying too, i set my contacts not be synced to google, they still of course label them google contacts, even those i never put through google, but okay, get a new contact app, i can ignore it, but there are a few screens related to settings that set your syncing preferences. They look similar, but one you click in and you choose settings, one you click in and it starts the sync. Well, that doesn't make it easy to control my information. I know they didn't do that on purpose, but that's how it is in my phone. I prefer if i don't want to sync i don't have to remember 'which setting screen is this', "oops, press stop!", lol.
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Well if you don't want to root, and that;s understandable, especialy with Motorola devices which are still aren't very open, I think you will have to look forward to a different platform like Ubuntu.
ultravisitor
Well-known member
Right. A different platform would be preferable to a bunch of pain-in-the-*** workarounds to avoid what looks to me to be a minor issue, particularly considering how it affects the ease of simply updating the phone and its features.
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