Help Back Up Contacts To Sim

[stthrobber]

Hi all, I'm new to the forum and have done a search both here and on Google and can't see a satisfactory answer to my question.

I've had my Magic for about 3 months now and I do like it a lot, but I want to back up my list of telephone contacts to the sim card so that in the event of a change of handset in the future, my contacts are safe and can be restored to another phone.

I can import from the Sim card ok, but how do I do this in reverse?

I don't want to sync with Google, I want a copy of my contacts safe elsewhere. Is this possible?

 

[devilz]

I had the same problem, only way I found to add contacts to the SIM was to use another cellphone that actually does normal cellphone things like allow you to edit SIM contacts.

One more thing Google forgot, you'd think they'd add every function that every other cellphone has had since the begining of SIM days and then add there own google functions.. but no..

Because of course where ever you are you always have access to your Google contacts from every cellphone in the world right?? Who would ever need contacts on a SIM card because google is everywhere... Well thats the way i guess google are thinking when they leave out a feature like editing SIM contacts.

 

[justjimjpc]

I had the same problem, only way I found to add contacts to the SIM was to use another cellphone that actually does normal cellphone things like allow you to edit SIM contacts.

One more thing Google forgot, you'd think they'd add every function that every other cellphone has had since the begining of SIM days and then add there own google functions.. but no..

Because of course where ever you are you always have access to your Google contacts from every cellphone in the world right?? Who would ever need contacts on a SIM card because google is everywhere... Well thats the way i guess google are thinking when they leave out a feature like editing SIM contacts.

Most SIMs even newer ones are limited ... try putting 600-1000 contacts and all their phones, addresses, notes, emails, etc on a SIM DUMB !!! export them to a csv file and the are available for import to almost anything ...

I would never want to depend on the limits of a sim ...

You always loose them when the phone is lost or stolen .... not where I want my contacts ...

 

[punkzanyj]

Most SIMs even newer ones are limited ... try putting 600-1000 contacts and all their phones, addresses, notes, emails, etc on a SIM DUMB !!! export them to a csv file and the are available for import to almost anything ...

I would never want to depend on the limits of a sim ...

You always loose them when the phone is lost or stolen .... not where I want my contacts ...

Good point.

I don't know if this is still true (my sim is from 1999) but I know that at least some sim cards can't save multiple phone numbers under one name. I don't know how it deals with this if you try to import, as I've only just started having multiple #s under one name.

Exporting to .csv is way better.

 

[justjimjpc]

Good point.

I don't know if this is still true (my sim is from 1999) but I know that at least some sim cards can't save multiple phone numbers under one name. I don't know how it deals with this if you try to import, as I've only just started having multiple #s under one name.

Exporting to .csv is way better.

What mine has done in the past is you will get the same name for each ph# .. so a contact with 4 numbers will yields four of the same names one with each of the 4 different numbers

Not At all desireble ...

 

[stthrobber]

Most SIMs even newer ones are limited ... try putting 600-1000 contacts and all their phones, addresses, notes, emails, etc on a SIM DUMB !!! export them to a csv file and the are available for import to almost anything ...

I would never want to depend on the limits of a sim ...

You always loose them when the phone is lost or stolen .... not where I want my contacts ...

I prefer to use my contacts on the phone. In the old days I would bluetooth from one phone to another.

It may sound like a dumb question, but how do you export your contacts to a CSV file? I've done it via Outlook Express.

Presumably you are sync'ing your contacts somehow. I don't have Outlook installed on either of my computers

 

[punkzanyj]

I prefer to use my contacts on the phone. In the old days I would bluetooth from one phone to another.

It may sound like a dumb question, but how do you export your contacts to a CSV file? I've done it via Outlook Express.

Presumably you are sync'ing your contacts somehow. I don't have Outlook installed on either of my computers

if you're syncing with your google account, you just export from google contacts. If you're not, all you need to do is sync it one time and then do the export from the contacts menu.

 

[MoreYummy]

I am looking for a way to export phone contact into the sim, it might be kind of old, but it is useful since I have more than 1 sim to store phone # physically somewhere easily by export/import between sims.

So now the only way is use gmail to store contact, and if need to export to a computer, we must use csv file? Or there are more ways of doing it as a backup.

 

[justjimjpc]

I am looking for a way to export phone contact into the sim, it might be kind of old, but it is useful since I have more than 1 sim to store phone # physically somewhere easily by export/import between sims.

So now the only way is use gmail to store contact, and if need to export to a computer, we must use csv file? Or there are more ways of doing it as a backup.

Use an old nokia, se, motorola style phones ... can buy them new for $20
SO 1990's thinking .... get use to the cloud-Data-Age ...

Sims and phones are lost and stolen everyday ..

 

[punkzanyj]

I am looking for a way to export phone contact into the sim, it might be kind of old, but it is useful since I have more than 1 sim to store phone # physically somewhere easily by export/import between sims.

So now the only way is use gmail to store contact, and if need to export to a computer, we must use csv file? Or there are more ways of doing it as a backup.

Only other way is to check the market, someone may have created an app that does what you want.

 

[dkaufman1]

I am not sure why the poster said they don't want to sync with Google. You have a phone designed to do just that. In fact for those unaware, if your phone were smashed to pieces, you could get a new Android phone, log in, and it would start downloading your contacts, appts, etc.

Your phone is backed up constantly.

If you still want another option....Google on your PC offers Google Sync which should help you sync things with another app on your desktop, keeping your phone, web and desktop all in sync. (outlook perhaps?)

Hope this helps.

 

[MoreYummy]

Sometimes when the original phone is down/repair, you use a older phone as backup. So the contact can be moved using sim card, not all the phone can support this way of synchronize at the moment,
It might be possible in future all phone can import/export contact/data this way, but at the moment, it is good to use it. It is one way of using it.

So need to do some search on apps that can do it.

 

[dkaufman1]

Sometimes when the original phone is down/repair, you use a older phone as backup. So the contact can be moved using sim card, not all the phone can support this way of synchronize at the moment,
It might be possible in future all phone can import/export contact/data this way, but at the moment, it is good to use it. It is one way of using it.

So need to do some search on apps that can do it.

That is a limited use case for sure. I could see a developer maybe solving your needs, but likely not the OS. Tmobile USA has a tool on their website for backup and writing to the SIM, so maybe that would serve your needs if you are a USA customer.

 

[MoreYummy]

Is it for tmobile customer only? Or just an app that comes from tmobile?

 

[dkaufman1]

Is it for tmobile customer only? Or just an app that comes from tmobile?

It is actually a website that you access as a customer with your phone number and a password. It is for all Tmobile customers and what's funny is I thought from my standpoint, who with a G1 would ever need it? Apparently you are one of the people who do.

 

[stthrobber]

if you're syncing with your google account, you just export from google contacts. If you're not, all you need to do is sync it one time and then do the export from the contacts menu.

Thanks for this, I have been able to export both as a CSV and VCF file from my contacts on Google mail. I could only see this option on my PC not on my phone.

I still think there needs to be a better way of backing up contacts as although the Magic is an internet phone, I don't necessarily want my email contacts mixed in with my phone contacts, but at least if I do get another phone I can import the VCF file and delete the contacts I don't want.

 

[MoreYummy]

yea i would second that.

sometimes email and phone are 2 different set of list.

Unless I want to create another gmail account just for the phone contact.

Anyone know if the password store on the phone for gmail/contact is recoverable/hackable when the phone is lost?

 

[punkzanyj]

I still think there needs to be a better way of backing up contacts as although the Magic is an internet phone, I don't necessarily want my email contacts mixed in with my phone contacts, but at least if I do get another phone I can import the VCF file and delete the contacts I don't want.

Well, you're swimming upstream on this one. Google probably assumes the only people interested in this phone would want to sync their contacts and have them available on the web. It's the whole "cloud computing" thing. Essentially there is a better way to back up your contacts, trouble is, that's not the way you want to do it. It's not really a flaw in the design if the user doesn't want to use the features of the phone.

 

[stthrobber]

Well, you're swimming upstream on this one. Google probably assumes the only people interested in this phone would want to sync their contacts and have them available on the web. It's the whole "cloud computing" thing. Essentially there is a better way to back up your contacts, trouble is, that's not the way you want to do it. It's not really a flaw in the design if the user doesn't want to use the features of the phone.

That's a fair comment I guess. Perhaps I was badly advised on which handset I should have got, but I did want a phone with easy internet access which I have now, but I wanted it more for browsing than email.

How much of a problem would it have been though, to add the facility to export contacts from the phone to a sim card? Maybe not everyone would want to do it, but it would make sense to me to have a kind of backward compatibility with other phones.

 

[justjimjpc]

That's a fair comment I guess. Perhaps I was badly advised on which handset I should have got, but I did want a phone with easy internet access which I have now, but I wanted it more for browsing than email.

How much of a problem would it have been though, to add the facility to export contacts from the phone to a sim card? Maybe not everyone would want to do it, but it would make sense to me to have a kind of backward compatibility with other phones.

Most SIMS are very limited in amount of memory ... so those who have large contacts lists and many numbers for each contact will fill a SIM in no-time-flat ...

 

[punkzanyj]

That's a fair comment I guess. Perhaps I was badly advised on which handset I should have got, but I did want a phone with easy internet access which I have now, but I wanted it more for browsing than email.

How much of a problem would it have been though, to add the facility to export contacts from the phone to a sim card? Maybe not everyone would want to do it, but it would make sense to me to have a kind of backward compatibility with other phones.

I don't think it's a question of difficulty, I think it's a question of philosophy. Android is very bare-bones in terms of features -- it's designed that way.

Simple.

Remember, it's open source on purpose: it was designed with developers in mind. For example, there's no contact SMS export feature. This is something I had on my last phone, but never, ever, ever used. It was a program needlessly taking up space. My T-Mobile Wing had tons of that: apps I would never use, but could not get rid of without hacking the phone at the risk of bricking it. I'm thankful that google didn't pre-load a ton of software. Essentially telling me what I needed on my own phone. This al-a-carte style is much better, now I only have the features I want on my phone, with very little clutter. And because of that, there are several contact SMS-export programs. You are free to decide which one best meets your needs based on space and function. This may seem inconvenient, but it gives the user more control over the device, making it customizable to their needs.

 

[dkaufman1]

I'm thankful that google didn't pre-load a ton of software. Essentially telling me what I needed on my own phone. This al-a-carte style is much better, now I only have the features I want on my phone, with very little clutter.

OFF TOPIC - Why can't we delete the AmazonMp3 app? What's the real difference between Contacts and Dialer? Programs like Alarm Clock, IM, Music, should be able to be removed since there are replacements. Just my .02.

 

[justjimjpc]

OFF TOPIC - Why can't we delete the AmazonMp3 app? What's the real difference between Contacts and Dialer? Programs like Alarm Clock, IM, Music, should be able to be removed since there are replacements. Just my .02.

You can not delete default apps because they are in protected folders ...

Only way to not have them is to not include them in a custom Build ... same issue with default sounds ...

 

[dkaufman1]

You can not delete default apps because they are in protected folders ...

Only way to not have them is to not include them in a custom Build ... same issue with default sounds ...

Jim - please! Of course I know you can't, the discussion was about how open the platform is, and my point was that the Amazon app for example is not critical to the phone operation but yet we are forced to keep it active and in memory and visible.

 

[justjimjpc]

Jim - please! Of course I know you can't, the discussion was about how open the platform is, and my point was that the Amazon app for example is not critical to the phone operation but yet we are forced to keep it active and in memory and visible.

Dave !! I was pointing out the fact that you can't and that one of the lures of creating your own Build version and can include/exclude apps, sounds and features that suit You !!!

So make friends with your fave Dev and have them make the DK-Build ...