Confused on Contacts in Gmail and Sync

[qu1nn]

Hello.

at some point in the past, I synced with gmail... but for some reason or another I didnt think that it took so I manually imported a vcf. I ended up seeing duplicates, and deleted them cause Linking them got messy.
so I ended up in MENU > VIEW >

Only Contacts with phone numbers: Disselected
Google (30) : SELECTED
Show auto gmail contacts: Disselected
Phone (79): Selected


Number of contacts in GMAIL (online) = 220

so now things got goofed up....and I have put some time in manually entering in things into the EVO to try to get things straightened out.

when I go to people and ADD a new contact, you can enter in the first and last name, and before you save it the first time you get the option of selecting a CONTACT TYPE of GOOGLE or PHONE....

Question 1)
but after you save it I cannot find a way to change the CONTACT TYPE again without deleting and recreating from scratch. Am I missing something?

What is the main difference in the CATEGORIES?

Question 2) currently I am not syncing with GMAIL for fear of confusing the issue more.... but if I were to sync, do you think it would take both GOOGLE and PHONE contact TYPES and then MERGE them with the existing GMAIL(online) contacts with all duplicates containing links?


regards
qu1nn

 

[jamesrshaffer3]

I actually am confused about this as well... glad I'm not the only with this issue... let me know if someone responds, I will also check back!!

 

[tony bag o donuts]

From what I understand, google contacts merge, but phone ones are just that, on the phone and do not sync at all.

 

[mmmike]

From what I understand, google contacts merge, but phone ones are just that, on the phone and do not sync at all.

Correct...phone only contacts do not sync with gmail, while gmail contacts do. Unfortunately, you cannot change the contact type once selected.

 

[mmmike]

The best thing to do, imo, would be to get everything right in gmail, not necessarily on the EVO, and then wipe your contacts on the EVO and resync with gmail. When I first got my EVO Sprint moved my contacts over and I ended up with tons of duplicates in gmail when I did the first sync. I cleaned my gmail, wiped my EVO, and did the resync and its been full speed ahead since then. I learned the hard way also that saving contacts as google and not as phone only is usually the way to go.

 

[Katherine Bueler]

I have a new Samsung Galaxy Exhilarate, running Android 4.0.4. I did as you suggest: I got everything perfect in Gmail. Then I deleted all contacts on the phone, and chose the "Merge with Google" option. It pulled in my Gmail contacts, but also many, many others. These many others seem to be people who I've been in touch with who have Google profiles? (I'm guessing; I don't know how to tell). I looked at my Google Account page, and my Dashboard there, which lists "Contacts" and "manage contacts". I was surprised that whereas Gmail shows I have about 250 contacts, the dashboard showed I only had 121. So I backed up my Gmail contacts using "Export to csv" and then restored, thinking something in Google Account was glitchy. This did work, sort of: when I clicked the Dashboard's "Find and merge" option, it showed that 121 were duplicates, and after merging, Dashboard and Gmail matched. So I went back to the phone, deleted all contacts again, again chose "Merge with Google", and it pulled in the Gmail contacts like I wanted BUT ALSO ALL THE OTHER PEOPLE WHO AREN"T SHOWN ON DASHBOARD OR GMAIL CONTACTS. What gives? Any ideas out there? How can I get rid of the ones who aren't in my contacts list? Thanks for any help you can provide.

 

[Katherine Bueler]

I think I figured it out, mostly. Gmail apparently by default adds "other contacts" that you reach out to. I turned off that option on the Gmail Settings General tab, moved any of the "Other Contacts" I wanted into "My Contacts", deleted the remainder, and my phone and Google Account kept up with each change. So I'm good now.

 

[akbkstar]

yeah,i agree with you.Gmail apparently by default adds "other contacts" that you reach out to it