Adding international prefix to all of my contacts

Steve Swift

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Jul 28, 2013
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Nearly all of my contacts phone numbers are UK numbers, which start with a "0". A few of them have international prefixes, such as +45

Is there an easy way to update the phone numbers in my contacts, so that numbers which start with a "0" have the leading "0" replaced by "+44"
 

SpookDroid

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Jul 14, 2011
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The only way I can think of is to export your Contact list to a file (VCF), open that list in Excel, use the 'Search/Replace' function to do what you need, and replace your current contact list with the edited file.

There's no easy way of doing that natively or on Google's site (I had to manually edit each of my contacts when I moved to another country).
 

Steve Swift

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Thank you for the information. When I export the contacts file as vcf, then use it to replace the original contacts file, presumably I'd find it easier to use the excel app in one of my Android devices, rather than using my Windows 10 PC?
I'm wary of transferring files between systems, as I might run into code page variations.

I'll give it a shot and see how far I get.

I'll see if I can take a copy of the contacts data before I start, as I live in fear of screwing up my phone or tablet. My android skills are puny compared to my Windows skills, but I've wrecked Windows systems in my time...
 

SpookDroid

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As long as you keep a copy of the VCF file you should be good, and in the event of 'disaster', if your contacts are backed up to your Google account, you can always go back to any previous day within the last 30 days.