Help with moving contacts from "Phone" to Google

[Tyree]

I have read some about how to move "Phone" stored contacts to Google. They all seem to revolve around exporting all the contacts to the SD card and then importing them again into Google.

The question I have is, what about all the extraneous contacts, say from facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, etc? Do those also get exported and then imported into Google essentially creating a duplicate contact for each contact that is sync'ed from those other services?

What I want to do is just take the few contacts I have run across that are "Phone" contacts and move them to Google. Basically, I don't want ANY phone contacts. Only Google contacts which I can then join to LinkedIn and facebook contacts.

Does that make sense? I just don't want to try this export/import and end up with a ton of duplicate contacts and be in a worse mess than I have now! :-D

By the way, I am on a Galaxy S3 under Verizon.

Thanks!
Matt

 

[anon(847090)]

Not sure where you heard this "They all seem to revolve around exporting all the contacts to the SD card and then importing them again into Google." but moving your contact to google is a checkbox away in settings.

Go to settings-->Sync-->[Your Account]--> [Check Contacts] (I use JB so its a bit different.. but it will be something like that in ICS)
and let it sync... Go to Gmail in web browser and open Contacts, then you should see all the Phone contact in there under "My Contact"
Anything under "My Contact"(Gmail) you will see it in your phone's ... Any contacts under "Other Contact" will remain in Gmail... I made all my contact with phone number under "My Contact" and merged all email and phone number(Its an option in Gmail web to merge it easily)..

Google+ contact will automatically sync to your phone and its a settings if you want to display that. Open Contacts in phone and
Menu-->Contacts to Display-->[You have option to select the contacts to display like Google+ or Google Or All contact]

You can even customize to show only what you need....

As far as Facbook and Twitter the option should show there as well but I am not sure since i dont use twitter or facebook

 

[Tyree]

Virtually everything I saw on a google search said move contacts to the SD card and then import to google. Several of those hits were on these forums! :-D

I did have contacts set to sync to google (gmail), but there were still duplicates. I'd click on one of them to join them and one would say "Phone" and one would say "Google." So, it was my intention to move all these "Phone" contacts to google and not have any contacts that said "Phone" anymore.

This is a new phone, so all of the contacts on it came down from Google when I first linked the phone to my google account. So, even the contacts that say "Phone" still have to be coming from Google. It's just annoying to see the duplicates, one saying phone and one saying google. Just hoping to condense them. Guess I'll need to go into Gmail contacts and clean it all up manually.

Thanks!

 

[anon(847090)]

There is two part to this...
1.cleanup contact in gmail contact in web browser.
2. In phone Contact app make the app only show what you want to see. By default it will show everything... make it only show google contact and there wont be any duplicates seen.

You dont have to do all manually!!! Go to Contacts here https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?tab=wm#contacts

Click More-->Find and Merge Duplicates
name for email and Phone number should be same for it to find dulicates.

for example if you have name "John smith" in email and phone number. if you click find and merge duplicates it will find and ask for a merge but if its just "John" for email and phone then it wont.. I believe its for avoiding unwanted merge.

You can also select two contact and click More-->Merge Contacts

 

[Tyree]

Thanks! Just got done doing all that actually. There are still a few oddball contacts here and there. But, I think that has more to do with how Google+ contacts are integrated.
I went through and kicked some contacts out of the "My Contacts" category too.

This was all after I exported to vcf file and imported into Google to get all the phone contacts, not just the google contacts. So, then on the phone there were some duplicates. One for the "Phone" contact and one for the contact that had been imported into Google. So, then I was able to delete all the "Phone" contacts and have only Google contacts. So, I think I finally have it situated the way I want.

Incidentally, facebook, skype, and linkedin contacts are NOT copied to the vcf file during export. So, no worries about that for anyone else who may have been curious.

Thanks for the tips!

 

[anon(847090)]

I get what you are saying about Google + duplicates.. unfortunately there isn't a way to merge it.. Its odd Google didn't merge Google Contact with Google+ contacts since its their own product.. anyway you can hide Google + contact in contact app... that's what i did because Gmail contact already had Google + contact...

Glad you were able to merge it.. It took me some time to do the cleanup...

 

[Rukbat]

I find it much easier to use MyPhoneExplorer (donate-ware) to manage my contacts.

 

[webboftruths]

I would love to learn how you deleted all of the "Phone" contacts. I can't figure out how to do it on my Galaxy Note 4.

 

[B. Diddy]

Welcome to Android Central! You might be better off creating a new thread for your question--this thread is over 2 years old, and is about moving contacts from the Phone account to a Google account.

In your People app, select one of your Phone account contacts. Tap the Menu button--do you see a Delete option there?