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Help Google Contacts Merged When Downloaded to Bionic

N

neil154

Android Enthusiast
When my Google contacts are synced with my Bionic some times 2 or more Google contacts are merged into one Bionic contact. It seems that it tries to figure out if they have very similar names or telephone numbers or email addresses and then may merge them.

How can I stop any merging or if any are currenly merged I would like to unmerge them (but I have 2500 contacts so I am really not looking to do it 1 at a time).

Would appreciate your help.
 
Are they merging them from different sources, such as Google contacts plus Facebook contacts + Twitter contacts, or all the contacts from your Google account?
 
The merge is from Google. In Google on web I have about a dozen more contacts than I have on my Bionic. I was able to find some of the merged contacts and unmerged them but I did not find them all and since I have 2500 contacts it would take a lot of effort to go through each one manually. An example of merged contacts were several contacts for may company which had different information but had no person name only company name.
 
Also check to see which groups they are in and if those groups are being shown in your phone.
 
I have never had anything like that happen to me - more likely it is for me to have a duplicate contact start appearing in Google contacts online. I wish I could help, but I can't think of anything.

The only other thing that I can think of is to hit (within the contacts app on the phone) menu->display options. Tap the Google option for your account and make sure that the contact groups you want are all displaying - perhaps they are not, and the ones that you think are merged are just not showing up.
 
neil154 said:
I have no groups in my Google Contacts
Click to expand...

I think everybody does - there is one called "My Contacts" and there is another for all you have communicated with (i.e., received email from) called "All Other Contacts". Anyway, it's worth checking?
 
Yes, I have the "My Contacts" but that is all I have since I have no other categories or groups.

Also, I have done some additional searching and there are people complaining of similar problems.
 
Big question then. Are these contacts also merged in your Google Contacts when you view then online in a browser on your PC?

If not, then possibly an app is merging them, and we need to inventory your phone's apps. If yes, then we need to start checking the settings of your Google Contacts and seeing why they are being merged.

Also, of these 2500+ contacts, were they all entered via your phone, via email collection, or were they imported the first time you bought an Android phone?

We don't mean to sound unhelpful, but i have many duplicates that have never been automatically merged. In fact, i have to do quite the opposite, merge them myself. So, I'm (more than a little) curious as to how it is happening automatically for you. I'd love for it to happen to me lol...and i have only 25% of the number of contacts as you do
 
The contacts are not merged on the Google web account but are merged on the phone. I imported the phone contacts into Google from my Outlook and then syced Google with the phone
 
OK, so it is the phone only that is merging - that means we need to figure out how you got your phone to do this lol.

What apps do you have installed that have anything to do with contacts, messaging, etc that are not stock apps?
 
I've found that it's easiest to manage multiple contacts from your GMail account on your home computer or laptop, as it will sync automatically with the contacts on your phone.

Also, I would recommend that people shift how they display their contacts. I'll use myself as an example. I always used to either use just their first name, create a separate contact for cell and home (or business), or just a fun nickname. This was fine when phones were just phones. But they are so much more now. The fact that Google and other services merge contacts is something that will save a whole lot of time, but the contacts have to be laid out in an order they can understand. You have to have contacts displaying their first and last names in order for the contacts to merge correctly. It's a shift in perception if you will. And for those people who get creative with their names on Facebook and such, they don't get merged automatically, but that's where you have the ability to join them.

And for those who aren't aware, keep in mind that you have control over your display options. Don't forget that menu softkey will bring you to the individual settings of every app you're in. From Contacts > Menu > Display Options.
 
Yo, ltns!

His contacts are fine in Google Contacts, only merged on the phone, hence the issue.

He does NOT want then merged, but they are merged on the phone anyway....but not merged online.
 
I do not have contacts from multiple sources, this haapens when I have the Google Gmail account downloaded to my Bionic. The contacts are fine in Gmail but merged on the Bionic. My contacts have complete names and not just first names and some of the merged have different names but maybe same physical address bit there are other that merge for no apparent reason.

Since I have seen this issue posted by other I have contacted Motorola and they are escalating the issue so hopefully they can come up with a resolution.
 
Good deal. I still cannot understand why it is happening, but maybe they can figure it out.

Keep us posted.
 
I don't have a lot of hope based of their first response to the issue but I will let you know once they get back to me. I was told it will be a few days until they call me and when they call I expect I will first have to explain the issue once again so they can look into the issue.
 
More than likely. Still, as soon as they call back it will be progress.

You said you're found others complaining about the same issue? Would you mind linking me to those posts? I'm going to still research this from my end as well, as it is very intriguing, and perhaps if Motorola cannot help we can find a solution ourselves.
 
I have the same aggravating issue as Neil. Some contacts continue to merge on the Droid but stay seperate on the PC. Case in point: Today I found that two contacts had merged without any common denominator other then the last name of Wilson. Was was Stephen Wilson (a Doctor) and the other Steve Wilson (a State Trooper). EVERYTHING was different but the last name of Wilson. Different spellings for the first name, differnt phone numbers, different addresses. I have over 1300 contacts myself and have no idea how many of the contacts have been corrupted.
 
SLH1089 - You say that you are merging from the PC but can you be more specific. Do you have you contacts in Outlook (ver ?) and then sync with a Gmail account then sync between the gmail account and an Android phone (what kind of Android?). I would like the additional information so that if Motorola ever calls back I can give them additional details of other people.
 
Spoke with Motorola (level 3 ) and they agreed that some contacts with similar information is merged incorrectly but they have no solution for the issue and there is no log file to find which contacts were merged.

They said they would give information to the engineers but gave me zero confidence that anything would be fixed (even in ICS).
 
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