Transferring "starred in android" contacts

[AC Question]

Several years ago I had an old cell phone(not a smart phone). I got a droid 3 years ago and was able to transfer the phone contacts from the old phone to the droid. The trick was that I didn't want the bazillion contacts showing up from my gmail contacts. I think I did this by checking the box to only display contacts "starred in android". I now have a samsung galaxy S6 edge. I found that same check box but only two contacts are showing up. Should be about 50 (gmail contacts would be thousands). Any suggestions on work around much appreciated.

 

[B. Diddy]

Welcome to Android Central! Are all of those contacts saved to your Google Contacts, or to the local Phone account? If they're in your Google account, go to contacts.google.com on your computer browser, find those contacts, and make sure the star is highlighted there. That should sync to the phone immediately, and then they should display when you select the Starred in Android contacts to display only.

 

[ErikFe]

Thanks B. Diddy. Unfortunately the majority of the contacts aren't in my gmail account. Anyway to just transfer contacts from one phone to another (not doing it via gmail)? Though I suppose for email I would want those gmail contacts all in there, so I don't want them to go away completely. If it's set up in one phone a certain way it must be transferable somehow.

 

[B. Diddy]

If you have contacts that are only saved to the local Phone account, then I'm not entirely sure if they can be "Starred in Android," since this might require the contact to be a Google contact. What if you change the Contacts to Display to All Contacts--are you able to star those locally stored contacts?

 

[ErikFe]

I was able to figure it out. My contacts were not associated with a gmail account, so all the google ways weren't very helpful. I found an option of import/export contact on my old phone and could select "only visible" contacts, which was the subset I wanted. This created vcf cards that I could then transfer over via bluetooth(couldn't get that option to work) or via email attachment(worked first try). Your suggestions helped me think through and eventually get it to work, so thank you B Diddy.