Cleaning up contacts

[JGT1942]

On my Samsung Note 8 as I view the contacts I sometimes find a contact that is not getting updated from my Windows PC. As I explore the issue I discover that the account will be either associated with Phone or Gmail or something else, I assume that this is the account it assigned to. Is this a correct statement?

For the contact to be updated via my PC it must be assoicated with the "Exchange activesync" account. How do I get the contact assoicated with the "Exchange Activesync" account so I can sync it with my PC.

To see what account the contact is assoicated with I perform the following

• Open the phone or contact app (normally I open the phone app)
• tap on a contact
• select Details
• Tap Edit
• At the top of the screen I then see what account it is assoicated with
• Very often I see other accounts like Google (sometimes multiple times), Phone, Exchange Activesync, Duo Preview

Should a contact be assigned to all those accounts?
I think I only need it assigned to the Exchange Activesync because this is the only account that syncs with my PC which is currently running Microsoft 2013 Outlook.

I'm totall confused and don't know what to do. Please give me the dummies instructions.

 

[TheMetalman]

When in contacts, look to the upper right and you will see three dots. click on the dots then Manage contacts then Default storage location. There you can choose where you want to save your contacts.
You can also go into Sync contacts and select the account you want to sync.

 

[GDany]

Contacts shown on your phone Contacts app, may come from different sources, that is, from almost all your accounts that contain contacts (ex: MS account, Yahoo account, Samsung account, etc). When you add a contact in one of your accounts and if your account contacts are synced with your phone, then the new contact will show on your phone's contacts list. If you do not ever want to see contacts from a certain account, then you should disable the contacts syncing of that account. Otherwise, if you only want to disable temporarily the display of a certain account's contacts, then you can do this from the settings of your phone's contacts app (accessed by pressing the 3 points on the upper right of the screen and then choosing Contacts to show).
If you set-up a default account for contacts as TheMetalman explained, then every new contact added by using your phone's contacts app will be automatically added to the contacts list of that account. But if you do want to add a new contact to a different account by only using your phone's contacts app, then before you save the new contact you can change the account where it will be saved and synced.
The phone's contacts app will also identify for you and for every contact, automatically, the other apps where the contact is registered to (ex: whatsapp, google, viber etc) so you may contact it by means of their specific app.

 

[Bricorn]

Hijacking the thread a little here, sorry.

I have the opposite problem; I clean up contacts on my PC, get rid of old ones, but they come back, presumably when it syncs with my phone. Any ideas how to make them stay gone?

Thanks

 

[GDany]

I do not know how exactly you sync your contacts from your pc to your phone, that is, what programs/apps/accounts you are using, but it is possible that in your case you set up the sync function in only one way. Sometimes, programs have three possible ways to sync: in one direction, in opposite direction or in both ways. So check to see if the program you are using on your pc is set up this way.

 

[Bricorn]

I do not know how exactly you sync your contacts from your pc to your phone, that is, what programs/apps/accounts you are using, but it is possible that in your case you set up the sync function in only one way. Sometimes, programs have three possible ways to sync: in one direction, in opposite direction or in both ways. So check to see if the program you are using on your pc is set up this way.

Weirdly, when I checked, the old ones are gone from my PC now (google contacts), I've deleted them on my phone gain (Samsung contacts). I'll see if they stay gone this time.

 

[JGT1942]

When in contacts, look to the upper right and you will see three dots. click on the dots then Manage contacts then Default storage location. There you can choose where you want to save your contacts.
You can also go into Sync contacts and select the account you want to sync.

Sorry for my slow response, I've been in computer hell trying to resolve issues there. OK I opened my contacts (I tapped the green phone icon), under the search bar I see "Recent", "Contacts" and "Places" Just above "Places" in the upper right corner I see the three dots (I think this is called the "hamburger", I tap it and see a menu with the following options. I did NOt select any contacts before starting down this path.

1. Delete
2. Share
3. Speed dial numbers
4. Settings

AH... I just found the orange "Contacts" icon and when I click on the hamburger (after tapping the Contacts Icon) I do see "Manage contacts" and nothing was selected for the "Default Storage Location". I selected Microsoft Exchange ...." it is the account that syncs with my PC. Thus I have some good progress.

 

[JGT1942]

Contacts shown on your phone Contacts app, may come from different sources, that is, from almost all your accounts that contain contacts (ex: MS account, Yahoo account, Samsung account, etc). When you add a contact in one of your accounts and if your account contacts are synced with your phone, then the new contact will show on your phone's contacts list. If you do not ever want to see contacts from a certain account, then you should disable the contacts syncing of that account. Otherwise, if you only want to disable temporarily the display of a certain account's contacts, then you can do this from the settings of your phone's contacts app (accessed by pressing the 3 points on the upper right of the screen and then choosing Contacts to show).
If you set-up a default account for contacts as TheMetalman explained, then every new contact added by using your phone's contacts app will be automatically added to the contacts list of that account. But if you do want to add a new contact to a different account by only using your phone's contacts app, then before you save the new contact you can change the account where it will be saved and synced.
The phone's contacts app will also identify for you and for every contact, automatically, the other apps where the contact is registered to (ex: whatsapp, google, viber etc) so you may contact it by means of their specific app.

OK I'm beginning to see what is going on but still I'm lost.
I now have my "Contacts" open (the orange icon), I clicked on the hamburger > Manage Contacts > Sync Contacts and I see that 5 accounts ((1)my gmail email (it has a blue icon, circle with person inside), (2) Duo (whatever this is, blue icon with movie camera), (3) my gmail address again with Google icon, (4) my exchange account (5) Duo , are listed and ALL are turned on. Possibly after I understand this I will understand some of the strange things that I see when viewing my contact data.

At this point I need some dummies guidance before I go any further an screw things up. I'm not sure but I think I only want to sync through the Exchange account (Why would I want to sync to the other accounts?). However I do want to ensure I can easily recover everything if I have phone issues. I will not go into the long sad storiies of my phone issues and losing my contacts.

BTW in the past when I referred to "Contacts" I assumed that the green phone icon gave me the same view and functions for the contacts as the newly (for me) discovered orange contacts icon. Until today I never used the "Contacts" icon, I always used the green "Phone" icon.

I now have more questions but feel I need to get this under control and see if it clears up my other issues.

 

[JGT1942]

When in contacts, look to the upper right and you will see three dots. click on the dots then Manage contacts then Default storage location. There you can choose where you want to save your contacts.
You can also go into Sync contacts and select the account you want to sync.

I forgot to mention. I just tested adding a new contact and it looks like it is working as I need. I tapped the green phone icon, selected a recent call from a number that was NOT in my phone (contact list), at the bottom of the screen I tapped "+ Create contact". At the very top of the screen (I had to pull the screen down) I can see that it will be added to my MS Exchange account.

This is a huge positive step forward for me. MUCH THANKS
Now to continue the progress.

 

[TheMetalman]

Sorry for my slow response, I've been in computer hell trying to resolve issues there. OK I opened my contacts (I tapped the green phone icon), under the search bar I see "Recent", "Contacts" and "Places" Just above "Places" in the upper right corner I see the three dots (I think this is called the "hamburger", I tap it and see a menu with the following options. I did NOt select any contacts before starting down this path.

1. Delete
2. Share
3. Speed dial numbers
4. Settings

AH... I just found the orange "Contacts" icon and when I click on the hamburger (after tapping the Contacts Icon) I do see "Manage contacts" and nothing was selected for the "Default Storage Location". I selected Microsoft Exchange ...." it is the account that syncs with my PC. Thus I have some good progress.

Yes, go through your Contact app to edit contacts.
Glad to hear you've gotten it all sorted out.

 

[JGT1942]

OK new question regarding my contacts. I've tapped the green phone icon, searched for a person, tapped the person, tapped EDIT (at the top of the screen), this opened the contact. At the top of the screen I see the various accounts it appears in (holly cow!), I see the following:

1. Google
2. Google (yes there are two)
3. Exchange Activesync
4. Phone
5. Duo
6. Duo Prevew

How do I clean up this mess?

 

[TheMetalman]

OK new question regarding my contacts. I've tapped the green phone icon, searched for a person, tapped the person, tapped EDIT (at the top of the screen), this opened the contact. At the top of the screen I see the various accounts it appears in (holly cow!), I see the following:

1. Google
2. Google (yes there are two)
3. Exchange Activesync
4. Phone
5. Duo
6. Duo Prevew

How do I clean up this mess?

Ok, go back into the orange contacts app then Manage Contacts, then look for Sync Contacts, then deselect the contacts you don't want to see.

 

[JGT1942]

TheMetalman - before I deselect the accounts I don't want, is there any way to dump the accounts to my Windows PC in a format I can work with and verify that I don't want some of the contacts put into the Exchange account? I know there are differences between the account. On the phone (green icon) I can see that some are not in the Exchange account.

 

[TheMetalman]

TheMetalman - before I deselect the accounts I don't want, is there any way to dump the accounts to my Windows PC in a format I can work with and verify that I don't want some of the contacts put into the Exchange account? I know there are differences between the account. On the phone (green icon) I can see that some are not in the Exchange account.

Not that I know of.
If all the accounts are selected thy will be linked together. You will be able to see this in the contact app when you open a contact.

 

[JGT1942]

OK I'm back
I opened my Contacts (orange icon) > Clicked on the hamburger, > selected Manage Contacts, >

• Selected Default storage location > Selected Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync
• back one level, selected Sync Contacts, everything but "jgt1942.192.68.0.168" is off

Went back to the main contact screen, selected a contact, selected Details, Selected Edit. At the top of the screen is see Phone, Exchange Activesync, google, on some entries I still see Duo and Dup Preview.

How do I remove all but "Exchange Activesync" for ALL of my contacts? I see that I can do it for one contact at a time but with over 1,000 contacts I really don't want to do this one-by-one.

Sorry to be so dense.

 

[JGT1942]

Contacts shown on your phone Contacts app, may come from different sources, that is, from almost all your accounts that contain contacts (ex: MS account, Yahoo account, Samsung account, etc). When you add a contact in one of your accounts and if your account contacts are synced with your phone, then the new contact will show on your phone's contacts list. If you do not ever want to see contacts from a certain account, then you should disable the contacts syncing of that account. Otherwise, if you only want to disable temporarily the display of a certain account's contacts, then you can do this from the settings of your phone's contacts app (accessed by pressing the 3 points on the upper right of the screen and then choosing Contacts to show).
If you set-up a default account for contacts as TheMetalman explained, then every new contact added by using your phone's contacts app will be automatically added to the contacts list of that account. But if you do want to add a new contact to a different account by only using your phone's contacts app, then before you save the new contact you can change the account where it will be saved and synced.
The phone's contacts app will also identify for you and for every contact, automatically, the other apps where the contact is registered to (ex: whatsapp, google, viber etc) so you may contact it by means of their specific app.

When I go to "Sync Contacts" I see the following

1. my gmail address - sync turned off (blue icon that represents a person with a circle around it)
2. Duo - Currently I have no idea what this is but it is turned off
3. Messenger - sync turned off
4. my gmail address with google icon, it is turned off
5. the exchanged address I've setup for CodeTwo public folders, the sync is turned on for this and should be - it is used to sync to outlook. In the past I used it to also sync to other PCs
6. Duo (this is a 2nd one, don't know why, blue iconn that looks like a movie camera), sync is turned off

Based on this I'm only syncing via the CodeTwo Public folders but when I open a contact and select EDIT at the top of the screen I see different things (e.g. Phone, Exchange Activesync, Google) that changes as I look at different contacts.

What I would prefer is to only see "Exchange Activesync", this syncs with Outlook on my Desktop PC and when I get my laptop working again then it will also sync with my desktop.

I would not object to the other syncing if they were 100% in-sync with what I have on my Desktop PC. The desktop PC, currently is my master PC.

 

[bbgpsuser]

When I go to "Sync Contacts" I see the following

1. my gmail address - sync turned off (blue icon that represents a person with a circle around it)
2. Duo - Currently I have no idea what this is but it is turned off
3. Messenger - sync turned off
4. my gmail address with google icon, it is turned off
5. the exchanged address I've setup for CodeTwo public folders, the sync is turned on for this and should be - it is used to sync to outlook. In the past I used it to also sync to other PCs
6. Duo (this is a 2nd one, don't know why, blue iconn that looks like a movie camera), sync is turned off

#2 is Duo
#6 is Duo preview

Google Duo is a an app which allows you to make video calls cross platform. Sort of like Facetime without the Apple restrictions.

 

[Rob46350]

Jgt1942, I have the same problem with having one contact in multiple places. Its nerveracking

 

[JGT1942]

Jgt1942, I have the same problem with having one contact in multiple places. Its nerveracking

This is especially true for me as a dumb user. I just had a new thought, possibly a revelation for me!
When I go to contacts > Manage Contacts, I see a list of apps to sync with. The revelation for me (hopefully I'm correct), if I'm using those apps then I "should" sync with them. This then ensures all of those apps are mirror images of each other with respect to the contact list.

New question: Should I now see the same contacts in the "Contacts" app and the "Phone" app on my Note8? I think yes but I'm not sure.

 

[JGT1942]

Possibly I just answered my question. I went to my "Contacts" (orange icon), searched for "felicity", nothing was found. I then went to my "Phone" (green icon), searched for "felicity". Why don't I see her entry in the Contacts? What the heck have I done wrong?