• After 15+ years, we've made a big change: Android Forums is now Early Bird Club. Learn more here.

Address Book Shennanigans

J

JonMakeSmash

Lurker
Hello Everyone

I'm a self-employed PC Technician with a large client list. I used a pen and paper dayplanner for years to keep all my contacts' addresses and phone numbers, but wanted to digitize the list for obvious reasons, I finally settled on one that would keep the list segregated from my personal life contacts. I found an app simply called "address book" by Nader Ahmed which i liked, and proceeded (over the course of 8 months) to input all my contacts into, I just finished and started trying to look up ways to export the list for backup purposes, and to transfer to a new phone when that inevitably happens. Unfortunately, I can't seem to find any info whatsoever about how to do this with this app, anyone have any ninja solutions?

Thanks in advance
Jon
 
So I guess you've looked through the app's settings and there is no way to export or back up the data?

OK, then what you need is a more general process for backing up app data. You could let Google do it, by enabling the option to back up app data to Google's servers. Or you could use a backup app such as Helium to back up the app's data, then restore on the new device.
 
It's in the usual place for app data: /data/data/com.nadir.addressbook/databases.

That's why I suggested those backup procedures, because they work for app data which are not otherwise accessible to an unrooted user - though I admit I'd not actually installed it to check it wasn't on the /sdcard somewhere until you posted that, just assumed they would be stored as app data ;)
 
1428445623358.jpg saw this today and thought of you Hadron ;)
 
I was astonished that there would not be SOME type of export feature on an address book app. I checked out the Play comments and noticed someone named Desiree Martinez posted the same complaint and rated the app "one star" as a result.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.nadir.addressbook&hl=en

Since you indicate you may have some time before your next phone, perhaps you can email the dev to request some kind of export capability. The worst they can do is ignore you. In which case you can start figuring out Helium.
 
Thanks for the input guys, I'll look into getting something like helium, I already have google doing the backup thing (i think), but i'm not sure what all it backs up. I was hoping It'd be somewhat like windows, where you just go to where the program or the program's user-based data resides, and copy it to the new phone, putting it in the same place, but it seems android is far more complicated and difficult than that.

Jon
 
I'm kinda thinking about looking into a different address book app. Ideally something that I can create the database on windows (with a keyboard) then export to my phone somehow is what I'd want, but i looked for something like that when I first got this phone, and it didn't appear that anything existed, but i'm also pretty hopeless with android stuff. I actually tried a few different apps originally, but they all took way too long to input data, which is fine if you're adding 1 or 2 people, but 600 or 700 would have taken an obscene amount of time, so i settled on this one, assuming I'd be able to figure out how to export when the time came.

Jon
 
JonMakeSmash said:
I wasn't aware of google calendar and contacts, I'm starting to mess around a bit with it now.
Click to expand...

If you use a PC then you can use Outlook or Thunderbird to keep track of/enter your contacts then use MyPhoneExplorer to sync the phone and PC. MPE syncs to the google contacts storage so there are then a million contacts apps that can use them, no proprietry databases. And being on the PC you can back them up any way you want.

I use DW Contacts as a contacts/address book app on the phone as the dev. updated the code at my request to include all, apart from one, phone number options that Outlook supports. (The one missing is one that Android doesn't support, Home2 or something minor).

Oh, yes, and you can use groups or categories to keep them seperate from home use.

HTH

Dave
 
I second the suggestion of using Google, it's easy to work with & you can have it sync automatically so your phone & pc are both always up to date. I have access from any computer or my phone just by signing into my Google account.

Whenever I reset or change phones, I don't have to worry about backing them up, everything I need just appears on the new phone.
 
Thanks again everyone for all the great info and insight, I think I've decided to use google contacts, and manually enter my contact list into it, I played around with it a bit and it's pretty seamless, contacts I enter show up in my phone moments later, and I can search by typing part of the first or last name, which I can't do with the other app I was using. I wish I'd started with this instead of spending crazy amounts of time with the other one, but you live and you learn i suppose.
 
You can also define "groups" (e.g. "personal" and "clients"), add your contacts to them, then if you just want to show one or other you can go to the "groups" tab of the phonebook app and just look at that group.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom