Contacts syncing with Google question

[omniusovermind]

I have my contacts synced to Google and recently synced them all to my new phone. I noticed that the photos I was using on my contacts also synced over even though I didn't transfer them from my old phone's SD card. So where are they residing now on my new phone's storage? If the answer is that they aren't, does this mean that my contacts list is constantly drawing from Google servers in order to display the pictures associated with them?


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[zkSharks]

There are, in most cases, locally-cached copies of the primary contact photo for each contact that is synced to your phone. A Google Contacts contact can have more than one photo, but if one or more photos are present it will have a "display photo". The current display photo for a contact is stored in a file on your device, while the thumbnail-sized versions of all other photos for that same contact are stored directly in the database rows (and not as a file on the device).

As for the location of the display photo files on the device, I can't say for sure. I'll see if I can locate them later today, but no guarantees.

 

[omniusovermind]

No need Patrick, I got the answer now, here it is in case anyone else asks in the future:

"The pictures you use for your contacts were synced up to Google servers for use in your contacts list. So a copy resides on Google's servers. Now when the contacts were synced to your new phone, the pictures from the servers were taken with it. However you can't see them in your storage because they are now embedded into the same files as the contacts. Basically, the contact file contains all the info+pictures. Like the way how an embedded album art and music exist as one mp3 file."


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