Why I am unable to store long contact names?

[justinpdrayton]

I have just acquired a Galaxy Note 4 Exynos version with a purchased 128GB sd card.
I am living in a culture where my customers that I deal with have very long names. I am storing my contacts on the SD card. I am not being able to enter the full name of my Asian customers and businesses. The full name is required as a small extension of the similar name refers to someone else.
Is there a feature / app to allow for full length names to be stored on SD cards on android phones??

 

[B. Diddy]

Welcome to Android Central! Can you clarify how you're saving your contacts on the microSD card? The stock Contact app will typically either sync your contacts from your Google account (which I strongly recommend), or save any locally saved Phone Account contacts to an SQLite database file in a protected system directory on Internal Storage.

 

[justinpdrayton]

That's why when my phone is off ( included of Wi Fi) and I wake it up I see several apps open ( that I did not open) and running. I don't want to use Google sync for anything. I am a long standing PC user and I absolutely find that Android has NO security whatsoever. I am saving my contacts on my SD card and in another undisclosed location. However I cannot store names longer than 14 or so characters. How do the people in China make out . Hau Xuan. Hai Yuan. and Hai Xain are three different places. They are all pronounced the same way. There are other customers with much longer names in the same fashion.
I type the name of the contact and save it to SD card

 

[B. Diddy]

when my phone is off ( included of Wi Fi) and I wake it up I see several apps open ( that I did not open) and running

Sorry, I'm not quite sure what this has to do with the contact issue, but be aware that Android prefers RAM to be mostly full of open apps. It's not like Windows, where things bog down as more programs are opened. The Android system will automatically open apps to fill RAM, based on your usage patterns (or on the app's coding). Apps open in RAM aren't necessarily active--if they're not in the foreground, then they're typically paused in the background. Keeping apps open in RAM allows the system to open or switch apps more quickly and efficiently.

I'm still not exactly sure how you're saving contacts to the SD card. Are you using the stock Contacts app, or just a note-taking app? Most Android contact apps are not designed to save contacts as individual files.

I think it's a little bit of an overstatement that "Android has NO security whatsoever," but that's an issue for a different thread.

 

[nahoku]

Curious... How are you saving your contacts to your SD card? Through an app? Are you able to save individual contacts or are you simply exporting your entire contacts file? Could it be the 14 character limit is a function of how you're saving to SD?

In the stock contacts app on Kitkat, I can save contacts with names in excess of 50 characters (including spaces). It appears I can go longer than 50, but I stopped there. Certainly, the entire name doesn't show up in the contact list because it's too long. The name is also too long to show up in the call window. However, the contact is saved for sure.

 

[nahoku]

I'm still not exactly sure how you're saving contacts to the SD card. Are you using the stock Contacts app, or just a note-taking app? Most Android contact apps are not designed to save contacts as individual files.

This is certainly true. I am most curious how the OP is accomplishing saving to SD.

 

[B. Diddy]

If you're concerned about the security of information synced with the cloud, then I would suggest entering your contacts in your Contacts app, and saving them to the local Phone Account (not your Google account or Samsung account), because these contacts get saved to the phone only, and don't get synced or backed up anywhere. They get saved to an SQLite database in a protected system directory, so the file itself can't be manipulated unless you root the phone.

The downside of saving contacts to this account, though, is that since they don't get synced anywhere, you can potentially lose all of that information forever if something happens to the phone and you forgot or neglected to manually back them up or export them on a regular basis (which is a very common issue raised in these forums).

 

[justinpdrayton]

You guys are awesome!!!. My bad. Not paying attention to what I am doing. Let me reask the question. How can I more my contacts from my device to my SD card. In my part of the world WiFi is not everywhere. If I were to get in a vehicular accident in the middle of any street in my country and stagger out my car to retrieve a contact of my lawyer. Well you can be sure that there is no internet available there and then. Google sync would be my demise as I am not able to get on the net without being in range of a free hotspot ( we rarely have free anything here). So one of my first chosen backups I would like to be my SD card. This I can take out and place in any other android device to view my contacts

 

[B. Diddy]

If you save your contacts to your Google account (which I realize you're not interested in), they sync to your Google Contacts in the cloud, but they do remain on the phone as well. So you don't need an internet connection to view them on the phone.

If you save your contacts to the local Phone account (using the Contacts app), those contacts are saved to internal storage (as mentioned previously), and therefore internet access isn't needed there either.

I am not aware of any contact apps that save contact files to the SD card in a way that you can manipulate them easily. Contacts apps will usually allow you to Export contacts to a .CSV or .VCF file, which can then be imported into another contact app or program--but the Export command is something you have to do manually. I suppose you could make it a habit to export your contacts to a file and then move it to the SD card on a regular basis (perhaps monthly). But remember, in order for the contact file to make sense, it would have to be imported into another Contacts app. If you tried to open it with a text editor, it might be hard to interpret.

 

[nahoku]

The Note 4 allows direct export of contacts to both phone storage and SD. You can do both. Just go to Contacts, click on the three dots, click on Settings, Contacts, then Import/Export contacts. A menu will open where you can choose where to export to.

However, as B. Diddy states, it's exported as a .vcf file which is only readable by a contacts app on the phone/tablet. You can also save the exported .vcf file to your PC later on but I'm not sure what program you can use to open the file which has multiple contacts. I'm limited to Outlook 2003 due to my old Office program, and that being said, Outlook 2003 can open the .vcf file, but will only show the first contact... or just one contact. Possibly, newer versions of Outlook can show the entire contacts list and readily import them into Outlook, but I have no information about that.

 

[justinpdrayton]

Ahha.. .got it. Thanks. So you're saying that contacts saved to phone or internal memory can hold more than 14 characters?

 

[nahoku]

Ahha.. .got it. Thanks. So you're saying that contacts saved to phone or internal memory can hold more than 14 characters?

I thought this was cleared up. I can save contacts with names in excess of 50 characters to my phone. If I export my contacts, it exports as a .vcf file either to a location on the phone, or to an SD card... whichever I choose. If for some reason my phone contacts get corrupted or something, I simply import the .vcf file from my saved location and all the contacts will be imported back into my contacts app. Exporting does not remove the contacts that are already present in your contacts app... it's just a backup copy you can import later.

 

[B. Diddy]

Ahha.. .got it. Thanks. So you're saying that contacts saved to phone or internal memory can hold more than 14 characters?

I'm actually still not clear on how you're trying to save contacts to the SD card where it's limiting you to 14 characters. Can you tell us exactly how you're trying to do that?

 

[Basu Bhaskar]

Long names saved how

 

[B. Diddy]

Long names saved how

Welcome to Android Central! Did you actually read through this thread first? Can you give more details about your situation?

 

[Karthik Sadasivam]

I'm actually still not clear on how you're trying to save contacts to the SD card where it's limiting you to 14 characters. Can you tell us exactly how you're trying to do that?

Am too going through the same issue. I save contacts like dial the respective number, then go to recent contacts, click on exaclamatory icon with circle symbol, then click on create new contact and then key in the name. Here , I am having the problem , unable to save more than 14 characters , due to which having lot of problems in understanding my contacts list. Earlier, i was using iPhone and I saved the contacts in the same way I did not have any problems. So, pls help. I hope this helps you better understanding our problem, to help.
Note: am not using any other apps to save contacts, so would like to refrain from having that discussion, pls.

 

[B. Diddy]

Welcome to Android Central! When you say that you're not using any other apps to save contacts, are you saying that you only want to save contacts to the local Phone account, and not your Google account?

 

[Murphy Miller]

Am too going through the same issue. I save contacts like dial the respective number, then go to recent contacts, click on exaclamatory icon with circle symbol, then click on create new contact and then key in the name. Here , I am having the problem , unable to save more than 14 characters , due to which having lot of problems in understanding my contacts list. Earlier, i was using iPhone and I saved the contacts in the same way I did not have any problems. So, pls help. I hope this helps you better understanding our problem, to help.
Note: am not using any other apps to save contacts, so would like to refrain from having that discussion, pls.

You must be saving your contacts in SIM Card, Sim Storage only allows 14 Chars.
Switch the storage of your contact to Phone Memory. Now you can save long names. Congrats.

 

[Murphy Miller]

I have just acquired a Galaxy Note 4 Exynos version with a purchased 128GB sd card.
I am living in a culture where my customers that I deal with have very long names. I am storing my contacts on the SD card. I am not being able to enter the full name of my Asian customers and businesses. The full name is required as a small extension of the similar name refers to someone else.
Is there a feature / app to allow for full length names to be stored on SD cards on android phones??

Switch your contact storage to Phone Memory. you will be able to save long names.

 

[Murphy Miller]

I'm actually still not clear on how you're trying to save contacts to the SD card where it's limiting you to 14 characters. Can you tell us exactly how you're trying to do that?

He was saving his contact in SIM Card, try saving a contact in Sim Card you will face the same problem.