Backing up contacts

[Android Central Question]

Moto G5S Plus running 7.1

I have searched online and seen conflicting information about contacts being backed up automatically. I logged into my Gmail account on a PC and look at my contacts. I see 44 contacts, including some I just recently added on my phone, but I have 4 or 5 times that number of contacts on the Moto.

I do have my backup account set on the device and "back up my data" is turned on. I also understand how to manually backup contacts doing an export and copying the .vcf file to Drive, SD card, etc. but I'd prefer something automated.

I'm confused as to why some contacts are backed up and not others.

If anyone could shed any light on this for this new Android user I'd appreciate it!

 

[hallux]

When you add contacts, are you adding them as device contacts or Google contacts (it's a drop-down at the top of the screen as you're creating the contact)? Unless you add the contact as a Google account contact, it won't sync.

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[HighwayBob]

It was me who posted this question and I'm not sure why it posted the way it did with no user name.

Anyway, I looked into this further and found that some of my contacts are listed as "saving to" my Gmail account and many are listed as "saving to" an Outlook account I have. How this happened I don't know but I had transferred my contacts from a previous device (Blackberry Passport) when I switched over to this one.

The key issue now is how can I switch which account a contact gets saved to? I edit a "bad" contact and there is no way I can see to change this, short of deleting the contact and re-adding it which is something I definitely want to avoid.

Thank you in advance for the assistance!

 

[hallux]

Unfortunately, there isn't a way to change which account a contact is associated with once the contact has been created.

 

[HighwayBob]

Well that's bad news. I have alot of work ahead of me. Thanks for the information!

 

[Dave67]

My issue is I am planning on changing cell carriers and using my note 5 and I need to backup my contacts to google . I can not seem to find or understand how this is done. Right now the contacts are backup on Verizon cloud which I will not be able to use. I did try to backup last night on my google email but it does not do anything. I Do not know where it every backs up to on gmail.

 

[Rukbat]

Dave, contacts that are Google contacts just back up - automatically. For those that aren't Google contacts, see the Contacts section of Backing up an Android Device.