Questions About How Contacts "Sync"

larrytxeast

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After reading this AndroidCentral posting about "somebody help me understand contacts," which I was in fact having questions about, I decided to tackle contacts in earnest.

My phone imported all my contacts from my GMail (I have had this GMail since 2006), including all the "automatically added" contacts--that is, "contacts" created from just about anybody I've ever emailed (including all the "sale8343xxx@craigslist.og" emails). It appears it added just about all of that to my "contacts" on my phone.

I deleted all of my contacts from my phone (no important ones there yet, they're still on my old Blackberry on the phone ITSELF or in GMail or Facebook etc) to remove all of the clutter & start over doing it right. I have been cleaning up the "other" contacts in GMail (the ones it automatically adds with seemingly every person you've emailed), mostly deleting them or moving actual ones into the "actual" contacts you've "created" in GMail. From there, what I intend to do is manually enter in ones off my Blackberry (I only have about 30 or so total) into GMail on my PC and then just sync from PC to phone.

I started this question out asking how I would wipe out all of my phone contacts (none are on the SIM) without wiping all of the phone data--but I then easily saw how to do it myself. That leaves the questions of how the phone "syncs."

How often does the phone "re-sync"--to wit, check my GMail for new contacts & import them? Also, is the sync "two-way"--that is, if I remove a contact from the phone, does it remove it from GMail, and vice-versa? Or, if I remove it from my GMail in the PC, does my phone remove it?

Lastly--I am sorry if this is too "loaded" of a question--if someone "un-friends" me in Facebook, does it remove them from my phone contacts? (NOT from my Facebook friends in the app, I figure that, obviously.) Or, if their contact on my phone has their phone number but they remove the phone number from their Facebook account, does my phone update to this & "remote delete" their number from my phone? (Again, I'm talking about the "contacts," not the friends list in the Facebook app etc.)

And--ANOTHER question I know--sometimes when I dial a number and hang up or I receive a call it gives a "add to contacts" button as an option--but after pressing it, it doesn't seem to add anything. The only way I see to add it is to copy the number into the clipboard, exit to home, add a contact the "hard" way, and then paste the number.

LRH
 
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ls377

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Did a quick test, and it looks like the contact you add pushes instantly, just like an email, and if you delete it off your phone, it gets deleted from Gmail. I'm on Cyanogenmod however, so it might be different, but I don't think it is.

Just a suggestion...there's an option to show only contacts with phone numbers in your contacts. If you don't have any email-only contacts, that would be the easiest way to go.
 

larrytxeast

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Thanks for the help. I am playing with it right now & I see how it's working. However, one other thing I just thought of (I don't think I asked)--how do I instruct the phone to "push" a new contact created on the phone to a certain account--in this case, GMail contacts?

I created a contact on the phone named "TestF" and "TestL" (first-last name) and it's not pushing to my GMail contacts. How do I have it do that?

LRH
 

ls377

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When create a new contact, does it not give you the option to choose your gmail account as its location?
 

larrytxeast

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That is correct, I can't see anywhere where that option exists to tell it you want it to be a Google account or whatever.

CORRECTION: okay, when viewing the contacts, under "More, Settings" (after pressing menu), there is an option for telling where you wish to save new accounts to, and Google is one of them (the other is phone, SIM or always ask). It had been set, somehow, to phone, I changed it to my Google account.

Also, I couldn't figure out why it wasn't re-importing my Facebook friends even after doing a sync (I had done a "delete all" & they were gone). That is done under "Get Friends" (after pressing menu).

LRH
 
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