Help with restoring contacts and settings

[bbob1]

I used to have a Samsung Android phone about 6-8 months ago for a little while and then I started using an iPhone. Now I'm back to an android phone.

What I had before was a Samsung Galaxy Y DUOS which had a terrible screen but with the awesome feature of dual sim cards. Now I have a Samsung Galaxy ACE2 GT-I8160 which has a much better screen but not the dual sims (oh well can't have it all I guess).

I remember what I hated most about the phone (and Android in general) was that it was really hard to get my contacts to be just my "phone contacts". I don't want all my random facebook contacts in my phone's contact list and I definitely don't want all 10000+ gmail contacts I have which basically includes every person I sent an email to in the last decade or so. I JUST want my normal telephone contacts (200 or so) and I do NOT want duplicates like 1 Bob Smith Gmail, 1 Bob Smith Facebook and 1 Bob Smith regular contact. I remember it was a nightmare to figure out how to get it right but eventually I did with much grief but I don't remember HOW. I also seem think that because it was so much trouble I found some way to save that and possibly some other settings either in an iCloud type way (is it possible?) or to a file or both.

Can anyone help job my memory? Is there a way to restore my contacts without getting a ridiculous contact list I don't want? Would be through something analogous to iCloud or only via file? If via file what would the file be called so I can scan all my hard drives?

Are my settings and apps going to restore as well or no? One of the things I like best about iPhone is that you just key in your iCloud account and leave your phone alone for 15 or 20 minutes while on WiFi and you have an instant clone of your old phone right down to the SMS messages that were in your inbox. Is there something equivalent to that for Android? If so how do I get it to restore (keeping in mind the contact issue above)? Is it a file (if so what would it be called or at least the extension) or an iCloud type service?

Above and beyond all I'd like my contacts (PHONE COTNACTS) without anything else mixed in.

When I sign into my google account there is a dialog box that says something that makes me believe it will do what I want "If you have used android before we can restore all your contacts and settings and sync it with your google account, do you wish to continue?" (or something like that) but all it does is give me the useless contact book from my gmail with thousands of entries including many dups. Very disappointing

Thanks.

 

[SkyJackpot]

One of the things I like best about iPhone is that you just key in your iCloud account and leave your phone alone for 15 or 20 minutes while on WiFi and you have an instant clone of your old phone right down to the SMS messages that were in your inbox. Is there something equivalent to that for Android?ups. Very disappointing

Thanks.

With Android you can clone your whole hard disk manually or automatically which allows you to recover your phone even when you've done something completely wild and messed up everything.

This recovery can be on your phone's internal SD card or your own external SD card. Recovery data doesn't transfer over Wifi or 3G or 4G it transfers in your phone's recovery mode so if you don't have any data access to access cloud data it will still work.

You don't need to use this method you can also use Google cloud servers to backup your applications and data settings, which needs data service.

 

[bbob1]

I don't think I made the images but is there a way to tell if I did the backup or some how backed up some of my apps and settings another way? Is there another way?

I solved the contact problem though. All articles I found talked about using SD cards and apps (some paid) and all kinds of stuff. The solution is less than one minute:

1.) Login to icloud
2.) Select all contacts and export
3.) Email file to self
4.) Open email (and file) on android phone
5.) Select phone for open/import

Done you have your contacts, less than one minute, free, no sd cards, no apps.

 

[SkyJackpot]

I remember what I hated most about the phone (and Android in general) was that it was really hard to get my contacts to be just my "phone contacts". I don't want all my random facebook contacts in my phone's contact list and I definitely don't want all 10000+ gmail contacts

Contact Editor Pro enables you to have more functionality than the stock contact editor including name fields not available in stock and storing phone contacts only on the phone, so that they will not be synced to the cloud and only available on phone memory

 

[SkyJackpot]

I don't think I made the images but is there a way to tell if I did the backup or some how backed up some of my apps and settings another way? Is there another way?

I solved the contact problem though. All articles I found talked about using SD cards and apps (some paid) and all kinds of stuff. The solution is less than one minute:

1.) Login to icloud
2.) Select all contacts and export
3.) Email file to self
4.) Open email (and file) on android phone
5.) Select phone for open/import

Done you have your contacts, less than one minute, free, no sd cards, no apps.

Very nice. I almost mistook what you wrote as the Gmail contact export process. By the way when I mentioned SD cards in detail before I was talking about the backup process, of which backing up a clone of your phone can be several Gigabytes. If you wanted to backup a clone of your phone and then restore by reason loading those Gigabytes that would be on you, but in this case I was just explaining that on Android you can restore via your whole Android system, not just your contacts, via SD card no network coverage or data access needed.

Here's the Gmail contact export process, simple and easy

 

[bbob1]

No no, sorry maybe I wasn't clear. There are two issues I was worried about:

1.) How to restore my contacts and just my phone contacts

and

2.) How to restore my apps and settings

For #1 I was saying I found lots of other things (outside of this forum) telling how to do it but with unnecessary complication and then I was just stating the fastest (freest) method I found myself for others to benefit from.

For #2 I'm not complaining about your method, it sounds great, if I had done it but I don't think I did. I was just asking if there is any chance I backed up my settings and apps so that I can restore my phone to the way it was with some cloud service wtih google or samsung that minics icloud and if so how I can find out and restore it?

Part of the confusion is when you add a google account the dialog boxes that popup make it sound like it's going to sync a LOT more than JUST contacts.

Thanks.

 

[Crashdamage]

1. Read the instructions on the Gmail website on how to use Contacts - such as eliminate duplicates, etc.
2. Read in the phone manual how to export/import phone contacts.
3. Read in the phone manual how to turn on 'Back up my data' and 'Automatic restore'.

Problems solved. IOW, learn to use the tools available to you. It's easy.

Linux user #266351. Android since v1.0

 

[SkyJackpot]

No no, sorry maybe I wasn't clear. There are two issues I was worried about:

1.) How to restore my contacts and just my phone contacts

and

2.) How to restore my apps and settings

For #1 I was saying I found lots of other things (outside of this forum) telling how to do it but with unnecessary complication and then I was just stating the fastest (freest) method I found myself for others to benefit from.

For #2 I'm not complaining about your method, it sounds great, if I had done it but I don't think I did. I was just asking if there is any chance I backed up my settings and apps so that I can restore my phone to the way it was with some cloud service wtih google other msung that minics icloud and if so how I can find out and restore it?

Part of the confusion is when you add a google account the dialog boxes that popup make it sound like it's going to sync a LOT more than JUST contacts.

Thanks.

When you switch on a new phone and enter your Google account all of your programs and settings will be restored automatically from the cloud. Google backs up your program data into the cloud automatically when you install new programs.

If you only want to store and sync contact data then you will need to go into your phone settings and switch off every option except "contacts"

 

[chanchan05]

You have a Samsung so its easy. Make a backup of your iPhone on your computer using iTunes.

Then download Samsung Kies for PC/Mac (whichever you have), install it, then connect your phone. Once your phone is read, go to the restore menu of the program, select restore from iPhone backup, select the backup file, then wait.

As for your problem on your old Android phone

keep only Google contacts, so transferring contacts won't be a hassle. Save phone contacts to Google. Then merge them with the Facebook contact so the email, number and Facebook is accessible under one entry. For example, in my phone, I have a contact named Joey. If I open her contact, I can go to her Facebook, email her or call her from one entry. This can be done by allowing Facebook sync. Or you can just not allow Facebook sync at all so Facebook contacts won't show. In the settings menu, there is also an option to turn off other contacts data and show phone only, or Google only, or any combination possible.

As for apps, all apps you had on your iPhone is lost forever and any data on them cannot be transferred unless the app itself supports cross platform sync (Astrid for example syncs Astrid iOS tasks to a web server which the Astrid Android app can still access).

Also, on your old Android phone, did you enable backup to Google? Because if you did, the moment you log in on your new phone, the old apps you had there will automatically be downloaded and installed with their data. This happened to me on my new phone.