Link ALL phone contacts to Google contacts!

[Martian]

Stumbled across this hint for another phone and it worked on the Fascinate:

As many have noticed, contacts synchronized from Google and FaceBook don't actually create a true contact on your phone and don't allow you to set custom ringtones unless you create a local (on the phone) contact and link it. Obviously doing this for dozens of contacts would be tedious. but you don't have too...


Go to Contacts > Open Settings > Select More > Select Export / Import > Export to SD card

Now repeat the process only select Import from SD card > then select Phone

Now all of your contacts are linked to a local entry on your phone and you can set custom ringtones and notifications! As an added bonus your contacts are backed up on your SD card too.

Martian21

 

[kvaughan#AC]

Awesome tip. Thanks!

 

[woodyt74]

Doubles up

all the info in each contact. Was better off before I tried this. Now, how do I delete ALL my contacts in the phone, not the SD card, so I can try a new import?

 

[Martian]

all the info in each contact. Was better off before I tried this. Now, how do I delete ALL my contacts in the phone, not the SD card, so I can try a new import?

Ouch! - That is not at all what happened on my phone. First thing to try is to go into Contacts then open the menu and select "Get friends" then see if you can sync things up.

If that doesn't work I would suggest you remove your Google account from the phone and re-add it, hopefully the contacts will then all sync up.

I'm really sorry my advice didn't work, I have no idea what sent wrong.

Martian

 

[woodyt74]

Don't know how

to remove the google account from the phone without a complete reset and data wipe. Everything about the phone is linked to the google account. It looks like my alternatives are to set up the phone all over again or edit over 150 contacts. What an ugly choice.

 

[Martian]

Did you try going into contacts then accounts and setting you Google account to not sync then setting it to sync?

 

[TripSixes]

As per recommendation, I performed this process..... It did automatically link them together (good).. but every contact that I open up now has double-data within it... What used to be 1 home phone number is now 2 home numbers, identical...

... it's not "terrible".. but, it is a bit of a nuisance to see all of this duplicated data.

again, the individual names "are" linked together.. so, I only see one name per person while scrolling the long list.... but when i click on a person.. i see double-data..

 

[stayqued]

Would exporting to sd, deleting all your contacts AND THEN importing stop that double data thing from happening?

 

[SouthernShred]

I'm a bit irritated with the way my phone handles contacts...not that I'm unique, just new to Droid...I hate that synching with Google pulled in all 1500 email addresses of anyone I've ever sent a reply to...anyway to NOT have that happen?

 

[TripSixes]

I'm a bit irritated with the way my phone handles contacts...not that I'm unique, just new to Droid...I hate that synching with Google pulled in all 1500 email addresses of anyone I've ever sent a reply to...anyway to NOT have that happen?

Options:

Clean up your gmail contact list. If you go through and simply delete all the ones that you truly don't want to ever be a "contact" of yours, then that will inherently clean up the phone.

or..

From within the phone, open Contacts, then Menu, then Display Options, then check the box next to "Only contacts with phones"... thus, all of those "email-only" contacts won't be listed any longer.

 

[woodyt74]

Tried this but nothing changed.

 

[woodyt74]

Did you try going into contacts then accounts and setting you Google account to not sync then setting it to sync?

Tried this but nothing changed.

 

[tdosthp]

Yep, totally screwed up my contacts also. Duplicates of everything.

 

[stayqued]

Would exporting to sd, deleting all your contacts AND THEN importing stop that double data thing from happening?

Did anyone try that?

 

[curley]

I followed this procedure on my phone and the wifes and it was EXTREMELY EASY and worked perfectly!!

 

[woodyt74]

Is there an easy way...

Did anyone try that?

to mass delete your contacts? If someone can point me in this direction, I'll give it a try and let you know how it goes.

 

[TripSixes]

There seems to be a high-ranked app in the market called "Contact Remover"... the comments from users indicate that it works for GMail contacts, phone contacts, and SIM contacts (but does not work for Facebook/flickr/etc synced accounts)..

This may help remove the phone-copy pretty easy (haven't tried it myself yet... )

--------------------------
Update : Just tried it..

So, you cannot specify either Phone/SIM/GMAIL separate from each other ..... the App still considers them "linked" and when you delete a contact.. it will delete that contact in all places that it exists.. So, not very practical for what I am trying to do.. (get rid of only the "phone" contacts, but leave the gmail contacts as they are)..

 

[youngko]

strange.. it didn't double up info for me

 

[and.bro]

the idea is great, but the double entries are annoying

Any ideas how to prevent the double entries or how to delete the entire phonebook of the phone so I can re-sync with the gmail contacts after re-importing them into my contacts list?

 

[and.bro]

double entry clean up

so here is what I did:

-go to gmail and export all your contacts to a google csv file
-delete all you gmail contacts
-wait for the phone to sync and remove all double gmail contact entries
-use contact remover to delete all your phonebook entries
-import the csv file you just exported back into gmail contacts
-wait for the phone to re-sync with gmail

or

just remove all your gmail contacts and only keep the phonebook entries to take advantage of individual ringtones and stuff.

Not pretty but it seems to work.