Contacts export file size

[BudDroid]

I back up my contacts by exporting them to a VCF file, then copying that file to my computer.

For about a year, the file size was hovering around 1 MB. Then, several months, it jumped to 5 MB. Since roughly the beginning of this year, it's been about 165 KB. I have no idea what's up with that.

This has me wondering the recent exports have all my contacts. The export seems to progress correctly on the phone, working up to the correct number of contacts when it finishes.

How can I check this VCF file without actually importing it back into the phone? I'm a little leery of doing that, for fear that it has a problem and will blow out all my contacts.

Is there another way to back up contacts?

 

[Hadron]

If your contacts are stored as Google contacts then they should already be backed up to your gmail account. To check, go to GMail on the browser, click on the red word "GMail" and select "Contacts" instead.

There are a number of other apps which can back up contacts, such as MyBackup Pro.

vcf file sizes could vary for a number of reasons. If you had duplicate contacts but cleaned them out it would shrink, without anything obvious changing when you look at the phonebook on the handset. Or if the number with contact pictures were to change significantly that could have a big effect on file size.

You could try copying the vcf to a computer and importing it into a contacts app, or even opening it with a text editor (perfectly readable as plain text apart from any stored contact pictures, but they will make it a lot less readable).

I would make sure that it is exporting all of your contacts, not just one contact group.

 

[BudDroid]

It would appear that it's exporting all my contacts, since the count is big enough. Anyway, I don't have any groups.

I already knew that GMail has my contacts. Just wanted something on hand on my own backup drive. Call me obsessive.