Contact Backup

[Twilborne]

First I am a new android user. I run back up assistant and it only backs up 4 contacts, the 4 default Verizon numbers. Why won?t it backup the rest of the contacts, or how do you get it to backup the other contacts.

 

[Cory Streater]

Are you using Gmail? If so, ditch backup assistant, as they are already backed up to your Gmail account. If not, there are even better way to backup contacts via programs in the market.

 

[kvaughan#AC]

If they are Google contacts they are technically not on the phone so Backup Assistant doesn't see them. Export the contacts to your SD card then import them to your phone.

http://forum.androidcentral.com/showthread.php?t=35552

 

[Twilborne]

Yes I am using gmail. All contacts have the "g" beside them so I suppose they are linked to gmail, I don't know how that all worked but they are. Thanks for the advice I'll give it a try.

 

[superstar1213]

Okay, I followed the above post to import and export, and now I have multiple contact entries for the same person. I'd like to be able to use custom ringtones for specific people, but this is ridiculous. Can someone tell me how this all works? Now I have multiple phone and google links for each person.. and its a bit confusing. I'd like to have them in both places.. is wiping my phone and starting fresh my only option to straighten it out?

 

[Twilborne]

I did the import / export thing to, and I now have two entries for each contact. One for the phone and one for gmail.

 

[superstar1213]

Here in lies my problem. If I try to edit my "phone" entry, and say, add a picture for caller ID, I get a force close.

 

[Twilborne]

I don't have that problem. Just one entry for gmail and one for the phone. I found you can unlink the gmail and it will delete the gmail accounts. At least that is what the little message says it will do.

 

[superstar1213]

After a lengthy and multiple wipe of my contacts and restoring I finally figured out my problem. Personally this worked for me, may not be for everyone. I had my contacts syncing with my gmail account.. so I turned that sync off. I then opened my gmail account online and erased my contacts stored there, then restored via Backup Assistant. Did have to resync with Facebook/Myspace, but now my contacts are part of the phone. I had never used gmail as my personal email service until I started using Android, so no big loss to me.

 

[LiquidBreadMan]

I've kinda got the opposite problem

I originally loaded all my contacts from Backup Assistant. They all ended up on my phone with no problem, but now I'd like to get them over to GMail.

I can't seem to find any easy way to move all my phone contacts over to GMail.

 

[TripSixes]

I originally loaded all my contacts from Backup Assistant. They all ended up on my phone with no problem, but now I'd like to get them over to GMail.

I can't seem to find any easy way to move all my phone contacts over to GMail.

You might be able to Export your Phone contacts to your sdcard.. then send that file over to a PC (email/data cable), then possibly be able to import that file into the GMail Contacts. Once they are in there, you could theoretically delete them from your phone, then when you add your Google account to the phone and tell it to sync contacts, they should all come into the phone from the cloud.


I did something like this PRIOR to getting my Fascinate.. I was on WindowsMobile. I had to sync my contacts to Outlook, then export them from Outlook to a file.. then import that file into GMail, then when I synced gmail account they all showed up on phone.


Keep in mind though, that GMail contacts on this fascinate do not currently have the capability of assigning per-contact ringtones.

If you assign per-contact ringtones to only a few people on your list.. then I'd do all the above, so that you have gmail contacts.. THEN, for ONLY the contacts that you want per-contact ringers, re-add a "phone" contact for them with first/last name only (no data), and the phone should auto-link it to the GMail contact.. you can then assign the ringtone to the phone-account, then when the person calls and the phone sees it on the gmail number, it will use the phone ringtone for that user..

clear as mud?


I too did the GMAIL Export -> Phone Import, and now every contact is linked with duplicate data (2 mobiles, 2 work, 2 emails, ...) .. trying to figure out how i want to clean this all up.

 

[LiquidBreadMan]

Ok. I'm going to give this a try right now (nothing to lose, I've backed everything up with Backup assistant already).

 

[LiquidBreadMan]

Worked great, but I had to clear all the contact data and then resync with Google.

The other problems I encountered:

:: lost my group settings
:: lost my contact pix
:: had to relink FB, Flickr, and Twitter accounts

 

[TripSixes]

Worked great, but I had to clear all the contact data and then resync with Google.

The other problems I encountered:

:: lost my group settings
:: lost my contact pix
:: had to relink FB, Flickr, and Twitter accounts

Sorry to hear about those items...

now that I think about it.. I too probably didn't have any groups/pics pulled over either.. as for the groups, I don't use them much, so, wasn't a big deal, and for the pics, I had local copies of them on my phone, so, I probably just went ahead and reassigned them...