How to Sync AT&T/Yahoo e-mail contacts to Android phone

[FuzzyLogician]

Hi all,

My mom's e-mail account is with AT&T, which I believe is powered by Yahoo (she signs in to Yahoo.com to check her e-mail in the browser). She is using a Pixel phone, and up until recently, had no issues syncing her contacts to her phone. I had an account set up through the gmail app and all was good. Recently, all of her contacts disappeared from her phone, and I can't figure out what heck is going on.

I deleted her email account from her phone and re-added it. When I look at the account settings in the gmail app (where it shows the option to sync email, contacts and calendar), the check boxes for contacts and calendar show up for about 5 seconds, and then just disappear. It's totally bazaar.

Anyone experienced something like this before?

P.S. Please don't suggest switching email providers, that's another battle I won't win today

 

[Rukbat]

There's a Google account and an email account. They're not the same thing. Make sure she has a Google account in the phone, and that she can access it. (If necessary, delete it, then add it again. The Google account, not an email account. It's in Settings/Accounts. It's basically a google phone, it won't work properly without a Google account.)

As for her contacts, check at Google Contacts (and at Google Calendar for the calendar). If she entered all her contacts as Google contacts (the first thing in the Add screen), they're there. If not, they're gone and she has to add them all again, but this time have her add them as Google contacts, so she has a backup. Phone, device and SIM contacts don't sync to Google.

Nothing wrong with Yahoo as an email provider (provided you don't have an issue with Yahoo itself, as I do.) I talk to a lot of people who have email addresses ending in yahoo.com.

Ever have that happen? No. But she's not the first it's happened to. It's not common, but we get questions like yours once in a while. Why does it happen? When it happens to me, I'll find out and post it.