Can I change my Contacts "connection" from Device to Google?

[FrankJoan Collins]

Most of my Android contacts are listed as "device" under the "connection" heading. About 10% of my contacts are listed as either "google" or as "google" and "device". The contacts that are have google under the Connection heading auto-sync to Google+, the remaining 90% of my contacts don't sync.

Is there a way to edit/change the Connection type to add Google to all my contacts? Thanks!

 

[AndroidProf]

there's a possiblity the 90% are not on Google+, they might be having an account with Gmail but have not yet activated their Google+ accounts. You will also need to add them to your circles for the Google+ icon to be seen.

 

[B. Diddy]

Welcome to Android Central! It sounds like the "device" contacts might be stored on the Phone Account, which doesn't sync to Google. You should be able to export those contacts to a .VCF file, and then import them back into the People app, making sure to import them into your Google account. See this article for more information: http://forums.androidcentral.com/ge...-android-2014-part-iii-managing-contacts.html

 

[freedda]

While I appreciate your advice, this is just one more instance of lame functionality from Google and Android. A more elegant way of dealing with this would be to to let people make the change right inside the contact info, instead of having to do the export, then enter again. I suppose Google is just too busy figuring out how to track and sell us stuff to come up with decent apps.

 

[B. Diddy]

The Phone Account is actually not present on the Nexus 5 (and I would presume on the Nexus 4 as well, although I don't know that for sure). So it seems to me that Google is moving away from that anyway. I would speculate that the Phone Account is specifically added either by the manufacturer or the wireless carrier--so maybe it isn't Google's fault! But yes, I agree, the Phone Account is pretty lame. That's why I prominently caution everyone against using it in that Guide.

 

[KeepItReal]

The same concept applies to the stock Calendar app as well. Change the settings to save in Gmail, and your calendar entries are backed up to your Gmail account. However, one noticeable difference is your calendar entries can be changed from being on the device, to the Gmail account. There is an app called Super Backup that backs up the internal calendar entries, and creates an .xml file. Gmail (on your PC) may import this file type, or find an app that converts it, then upload to Gmail.

Posted via Android Central App

 

[mero212]

Yes, you can do it easily: Go to Contacts and select Merge Accounts: Merge with Google.
In latest android, go to Contacts then Move device contacts to Google.