Help me understand linked contacts and how to merge all into Google contacts.

[Astrodroid]

In this recent thread I learned that there are several types of contacts, at least including Google/Gmail contacts, SIM contacts, and Phone contacts. When you go to create a new contact you have to choose from these types. I thought all of my contacts were Google/Gmail contacts but they're actually a mix of G/G and Phone (and a few Twitter, which is sort of different). I don't know where the local ones are coming from with the exception of 2 or 3 I added manually (assuming I was creating Google contacts). I don't see the point of having different kinds of contacts stored different places and want them all in one central place - Google - and want all of the info from contacts for a given person to be merged into that one record. I want any Android phone I use to draw from and add to that single central source and not create any local dupes.

And I want to understand Linked contacts on my Dinc2. I'm not sure I see the point or function of this. If there are contacts for the same person in different places, I don't just want to link them temporarily while I own this phone, I want to merge them into a single record and I want all of that to sync with my same Google/Gmail contacts that I access through Gmail.

Is there an automated way to convert all of the contacts on this phone to Google/Gmail contacts all at once? And as part of that, can it merge the cases where I have both a G/G contact for someone and a Phone contact for them? Adding Twitter in too would be great if there's a field for it. I don't want to just link them, which seems temporary and limited to this phone - I want to merge all and centralize. What do?

 

[CSI Guy]

WOW I want to know the answer too. I have 1500 Google contacts now I have 1500 Phone contacts I think. How do I make just one set all Google contacts and not get so confused?

 

[Tarpit_Carnivore]

The reason "phone" contacts still exist is because you can technically still use this phone without a google account. No google account means no GMail Contact sync so the contacts have to be stored somewhere. Remember on dump phones there is no account syncing so people are accustomed to transferring contacts over when they're buying their new phone at the stores. I'm guessing SIM contacts applies the same but with world numbers.

I believe the Linked Contacts thing you're referring to is something that HTC has built into sense. When I was running a non-Sense build on my Eris I was never presented with that feature. The Linked Contacts come into play when you have the phone syncing multiple accounts via settings (twitter, gmail, exchange, facebook, last.fm, etc, etc, etc). By linking the contacts you're creating unified contact for that particular person where you can have their email, sms, flickr, last.fm, and so forth phone number or user name.

Why these don't sync back to google is because there is no need to. GMail Contacts serves very basic purposes right now and doesn't fully integrate with other social services. Based on that there is no reason for someones twitter name or flickr username to be dumped into your google contact.

 

[puckhead]

I would like to know this as well. Except I have trouble with my phone and facebook contacts. I try to link the two but it doesnt seem to work. I can disable the facebook phone book but then only have whats on my phone. I just want to combine into one! lol. I want to do that also so the pictures merge.

 

[farmman]

There is a very simple way to do this.

1. Save your contacts to your sd card (import/export from menu button)

2. Mount your device to your pc with the USB cable and select mount as a hard drive.

3. Log in to your google account and scroll down to contacts then click manage contacts.
A new screen will pop up with your contact information in it, in the upper right corner then will be a clickable
link: Import.

4. click import and a file selection window will pop up, click browse and select computer, and a list of drives will
pop up select the one that is your device (ie removable drive (G 1.78 gig of free space)

5 select the file pcsc_pcsc0001 (it should say vCard File in the file type column and the appropriate file size ie 39 mb)

6. once selected this will import all contacts to your google gmail account and allow you to use the new google voice
commands to text and email. you can further manage these contacts if you wish from google on your pc

 

[puckhead]

hmm...I will have to check that out. Thanks! I just never really use the gmail so I will have to play with it.

 

[98koukile]

I would like to know this as well. Except I have trouble with my phone and facebook contacts. I try to link the two but it doesnt seem to work. I can disable the facebook phone book but then only have whats on my phone. I just want to combine into one! lol. I want to do that also so the pictures merge.

Go to people, select specific contact, click link in upper right corner, link to facebook for htc sense, select the right person and you're good. That's the ONLY reason I have fb on my phone, I definitely don't need all my fb friends showing up in my contacts.

 

[Meticulous2006]

Google has totally messed up the address book; which is one of the most fundamental applications of a smart phone!! Samsung has made it worse by sticking their half-dead brain into matters they dont understand!! Google wants everyone to use the Google ecosystem - GMail, Google Contacts, Calendar etc; I would love nothing more than that, despite the privacy policy! However, Mr. Google, IMPROVE your product and all of us will be glad to use it. The specifics:

1. Why do you insist on merging (linking) totally unrelated contacts as one contact on Android phones - you guys cannot have the slightest knowledge as to which contacts are same and which are different, despite similar names etc!
2. I dont see any functionality to having my friends FaceBook handle as part of my contact in the phone - this may be important to you so that you can 'steal" that info; but not for me. So if you still want me to use that as part of the contacts on Android, allow me to manually put in the FaceBook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Skype, Yahoo, AOL and other id's of my contacts; all of us are smart to be able to do that! Not many people go to their contacts to send someone a WhatsApp message or a Facebook message! They just open the app and post the message from there itself. So it will be rather nice to have all the info about a person in one place but not important - if you are providing a facility to keep all in one place, do it so that its perfect 100% of the time, if its is automatically doing it or ALLOW me to to update it manually. That way I will do it if its important to me!
3. Get off your high horses and realize that people are definitely going to use other email providers - you are not always the best; so stop insisting on linking the calendars to gmail accounts only!

IMPROVE YOUR PRODUCT AND PEOPLE WILL GLADLY USE IT AS THEIR FIRST CHOICE!!!!

 

[Rukbat]

stop insisting on linking the calendars to gmail accounts only!

Google calendar? Oh, yes, they have one. I don't, I use Cozi Family Organizer. the whole family does, so if I want to schedule something for me, I can see if anyone in the extended family needs me on that day first. (Granted, its search capability is off in the future somewhere, but it's still a good event keeper. Google calendar is good to look up dates - like "what's the first Monday in July next year?")