How to keep contacts from being assigned to Google (Vs device)

[uws101]

Android Moto E5 play - Android 8

I import contacts from a VCF file (at this time I am not logged into google account).
All my contacts are displayed as from "Device" under Contacts.

I log onto Google account and all my contacts are now assigned to google account - auto Sync is turned off - but all my contacts are being synced to my google account - I want to keep separate contacts.

How can I keep my contacts as from "Device" and also logged into google account?

Android version 8.0.0
Software channel: Comcast

I had this issue on Moto E4 - but after importing from VCF followed by logging into Google fixed the issue - not anymore.

 

[B. Diddy]

Just to be clear -- these contacts aren't already in your Google Contacts in the cloud, correct? If they are, then when you log into your Google account, the phone will sync those Google Contacts to the phone, and then Google Contacts will merge duplicate contacts. This could by why those contacts you imported to the Device account seemingly disappeared -- they might have just become merged with the same contact from your Google Contacts in the cloud.