Tel nos have gone, deleted contacts keep coming back

[Loadsadogs]

I recently moved from an old (VERY old) phone to a Moto E3. I carefully keyed in all my old tel nos into Contacts, but now I realise they are gone. There's a selection of email addresses left, and some tel nos, but others are gone. Also, I keep trying to delete certain obsolete email contacts, but they keep returning, time and time again. I have been into Gmail.com and the contacts list there is much smaller than on my phone.

My photos are driving me mad too. Having taken lots of pics, I want to store them all safely, but delete some from my phone to make space. I can see them all on Google Photos and Google Drive, but if I delete anything from my phone, it also gets deleted from Photos and Drive. I've tried connecting the phone to my laptop with a USB lead, hoping to copy the photos across and store them there, but the laptop first of all said the folder was empty. I was eventually able to see 26 photos - the most recent ones - and copy them, but where are all the others?

I am out of my depth with this new phone and really need some help. I've tried doing a chat thing with Tesco Mobile, but I don't know what questions to ask, and can't understand their answers either. When I've been in the phone shop, they take the phone and fiddle with it, leaving me further in the dark, so I can't go back there.

 

[Fred Talmadge]

You don't mention your previous software. Sounds like you are using Google, which means when you you sign in your contacts in Gmail and the phone should be synced and you don't have to do anything. Personally I'd do all my contact work on the PC as it's just easier for me.

Regarding pictures open Gallery and it will find all your pictures no matter where they are located on your phone. Hopefully you have backups so nothing is lost.

 

[Loadsadogs]

Fred, thank you for replying to my post.

My previous phone didn't connect to the internet at all. My new one does indeed have a Gmail account. I don't use that for my email, preferring to stick with Outlook and Hotmail on my laptop. I was hoping Hotmail on my laptop, my phone and Gmail Contacts would all update when I amended anything in my Contacts on any one of them, but when I posted yesterday they all seemed to be doing their own thing - worse, they may have been overwriting one another. Right now, this minute, my phone is behaving, after my husband tweaked something, but I'm still loathe to key in all my tel nos again until I understand how it all works.

Re the photos, I have Google Photos, which I believe might be instead of Gallery. Working on my laptop or my phone, I can see all my pics in Photos. I can also see them all in Google Drive, which I think may be where they are backed up. However, I can only see 26 photos if I view my phone from my laptop via a USB lead. Where are all the rest?

I've now got all my photos backing up to Google Drive. Trouble is, I see that Google Photos is a folder within Drive, so I don't know how safe they will be there, because when I delete a pic from my phone it disappears from Photos. Why do I need both Drive and Photos? What's that all about?

I want to put the photos somewhere safe where I can keep them forever, so that I can delete them from my phone and clear some space. How do other people manage that pls? Is there a way of saving them automatically to my laptop, for instance? I can't seem to manage it using a USB connection. Or do I have to view them in Photos or Drive and somehow copy them across?

Hope all this makes sense. My head is scrambled trying to visualise what's happening with this phone.

 

[Fred Talmadge]

Since I used Gmail it was all pretty seamless for me when I got this phone. This link explains hot to sync your contacts.
Moving Hotmail Contacts Into GMail

Motorola Gallery is an app that only finds photos that are pysically on your phone, either in the internal storage or the sd card. You can use it to delete photos as well, but I'd practice on a couple first.

It sounds like you have Google Photo synched with your phone, so it all acts as one. That may have happened automatically since it's all Google. My personal choice is to this manually and I use Flikr. You can probably turn off the sync function in Google Photo.

 

[Loadsadogs]

Many thanks again, Fred. That looks like a useful link for sorting out my Contacts - will take another look at it later.