Importing Contacts Issue

[Space Cowboy]

I attempted to import my contacts from my old HTC Touch Pro phone by using an application to export them to a .csv file, then importing them into a gmail account. That part all worked fine. However, when I linked the gmail account and sync'd up the contact information, there are a couple of problems. First and most important, its not bringing over all of the information. It brought over the contact name, but when you tap on the name, it only shows a gmail link and none of the other information. Second, gmail is using only the first name for the full contact. example: the contact it titled 'George' instead of the persone full name like "Butler, George'.

How can I fix these two issues?

Thanks

 

[MrTony]

It depends on what your old HTC phone was. If it was a WinMo phone, sync it with Oulook and then export Outlook data to .csv, that's imported correctly to Google. Google and Oulook use a standard, I don't know about the app you used to export directly from your phone.

As for the first name, last name - go to Contacts, hit the Menu button, select More, select Settings, select Order of Display Name, and choose "Last Name First Name".

 

[Space Cowboy]

It was a Touch Pro and I used TBExport to save the contact data to .csv (which is a nifty program btw)

All of the data was imported correctly into GMail. It's not sync'ing all the data though into the phone.

The full name is not caused by the phone, its caused by how GMail imported the contact information. Instead of using the Display Name (which is Last, First), it just used the First name of the contact to display, so thats how the phone sync'd it as well.

 

[MrTony]

IIRC, I opened the .csv in Excel. The columns were something like "Display Name", "First Name", "Last Name". I changed the first cell in "Display Name" to a formula something like =D2&", "B2&. This made the "Display Name" cell contain a concantenation of the Last Name witha comma and a space ", " and then the First Name. Copy and paste the formula from that cell to the other Display Name cells and you'll have it formatted the way you're used to. Save the .csv and import it into GMAIL. Sorry I don't have the specifics, I'm at work and the .csv is on my home PC. I went through this because I liked the LastName, FirstName view on my WinMo phone as well, so I feel your pain.

 

[Space Cowboy]

Cool... I was thinking about doing the same thing, but I'm at work as well. I think that will fix it... just have to delete all the contacts out of GMail, fix the .csv, then re-import to GMail.

Now if I could only get the most important issue fixed

Thanks for the feedback!

 

[coldbeer]

I had this same problems. I ended up syncing my touch pro with google via active sync to get all my contacts into google. That way they imported correctly. Then they synced with my captivate fine.

 

[MrTony]

I had this same problems. I ended up syncing my touch pro with google via active sync to get all my contacts into google. That way they imported correctly. Then they synced with my captivate fine.

How did you get ActiveSync to sync directly with Google? I thought the only way was to export to .csv from Outlook and import into Google.

 

[mIQ Live]

Another option is to consider the applications out there that are capable of helping make this easy!

The free MIQ app from Best Buy, will back up phone data and makes it simple to upload contacts ect. directly to your phone.

You just need to download the app, and it will back up all phone data.(select contacts, texts, calender, photos, videos, bookmarks ect.) You can log into your account online and import gmail, outlook, or other sources of contacts. Once they are imported to your account they immediately push to your phone!

When you switch phones you just download the app again and log in, this brings all your content to the new phone... Pretty slick!

Hope that helps you out!