Why won't my contacts upload to my Google account?

[Persill]

Hello all, I'm having an issue syncing my contacts and I would really appreciate some help. I have my phone set to sync contacts with my Google account; however, whenever I add new contacts to the phone they are never added to my Google account. I will press sync now and everything (including contacts) will claim to have successfully synced although my newly added contacts from the phone remain local (on the phone but not on my Google account). Why won't my contacts get automatically added/uploaded? Thanks!

Sent from my SAMSUNG Galaxy Note II using Android Central Forums

 

[Lanhoj]

Are the Contacts saved as "Google Contacts"?
Open a web browser & navigate to http://Contacts.Google.com to see.

 

[Persill]

I'm not sure if they are Google contacts, but probably not. Is there any way to convert existing contacts into Google contacts so that they may be automatically synced?

 

[B. Diddy]

Agree with Lanhoj. I suspect the contacts you've been adding to your phone are being stored as local phone contacts rather than Google contacts that get sync'ed with your Google account. You can tell by bringing up a contact on your phone, hitting the menu button and selecting Edit. The top of the edit contact screen should show if it's a Google Contact or a Phone contact.

Unfortunately, you can't sync Phone contacts with Google, and with most devices, you can't even edit the contact to change it to Google contact--you have to reenter the whole contact and make sure you select it to be a Google contact rather than Phone. If you have a ton of Phone Contacts, one workaround would be to sync the Phone Contacts to Outlook on your desktop (the phone manufacturer usually has software that allows you to do this). Then export those contacts as a .csv file from Outlook and then import that file to Google Contacts. Once the contacts have been imported to Google, it will then sync with your phone.

 

[Persill]

You were right, they were being saved as "Phone Contacts" and therefore not merging with my Google Contacts. I exported the contacts to my SD card then imported them to my Google account through Gmail and now all my contacts are Google contacts. Thanks everyone !

 

[hamich]

Did you have to delete all of your contacts off of your phone or did the imported ones just change that one field when Google synced back to your phone?

 

[B. Diddy]

I'm guessing that if you keep the Phone Contacts and then import the same contacts as Google Contacts, they'll join on the phone.