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Managing contacts?

T

TheMaverick53

Member
Have got my contacts from my Blackberry to my android by syncing the BB with Outlook then importing the outlook contacts. I have ended up with up to 8 entries from each contact. I have downloaded Contacts 2 and run the delete duplicates option and the merge contacts option, but it has had no effect on the no of entroes for each contact. Can anyone help?
 
Log in to your Gmail account via a PC and edit them there. This is by far the easiest method.

Google saves your phone contacts server side in your Gmail account... so even if you factory reset your phone, your contacts will be auto uploaded back to your phone once you add your Gmail account info and have it Sync. :)
 
As mentioned above, you may want to delete all of your contacts from Gmail (through the web interface) and make sure that the phone syncs to to that Gmail account (effectively deleting the contacts from your phone).

Note that there are three types of contacts in Android.
1) "Google Contacts" which can sync with Gmail.
2) "Corporate Contacts" which can sync with Hotmail/Live Mail, or an Exchange Server.
3) "Facebook Contacts" which are synced with Facebook.
4) "Phone-only Contacts" which are stored only on your phone, and not synced with a server.

Many times people get duplicate contacts because they somehow (usually at the phone store) get their contacts transferred over as "phone-only" contacts, but then also end up with duplicate "Google Contacts" and/or "Corporate Contacts". To check the contact type, go to a contact, hit the settings button and select "Edit". In the editting screen the contact type will be listed.

If somehow you got "phone-only contacts" onto your phone, you'll have to delete them manually (or through a free program like MyPhoneExplorer) since phone-only contacts are not synced with the cloud.

If you rely on Outlook like I do, you should consider syncing your contacts and calendar using this Hotmail-based method. It works great. It works automatically. It's free. It doesn't require you to use Hotmail for email. And it requires no app on your phone or third party software on your PC. This is what I use to sync contacts and calendar (though I use Gmail for email).

If you want to sync your Outlook contacts to Gmail (and then back to your phone from the cloud) you may want to consider using the open-source Go Contacts Sync Mod. If you go to the Hotmail-method link above and skip to page 5, posts #235 & #246, you'll see a comparison of the pros and cons of the Hotmail method versus the Go Contacts Sync + Google Calendar Sync method.

Good luck!
 
NoNameFace said:
What are "Phone-only Contacts" and were are these added?
Click to expand...
I don't know how to manually add a "Phone-only" contact to the phone. In my experience "Phone-only" contacts are typically added through either of the following two methods:
1) When the people in the store sell you the phone and they help you to set it up, they MAY transfer your contacts from your old phone to your Android phone as "Phone-only" contacts.
2) You may deliberately transfer contacts to your phone from your PC (e.g. from Microsoft Outlook) as a "Phone-only" contact using PC-based software, such as "MyPhoneExplorer". Some people who are worried about privacy do this becasue they don't want their contacts on Google's cloud.

I think that in the stock Android contacts app, all three types of contacts (Google, Phone-only, & Corporate) end up getting merged into the same contacts folder. As far as I know, you can only determine the contact type by going intot an individuatl contact and hitting the settings button and selecting "edit". For duplicate contacts you may see them listed as two or more different types of contacts.
 
RazzMaTazz said:
I don't know how to manually add a "Phone-only" contact to the phone. In my experience "Phone-only" contacts are typically added through either of the following two methods:
1) When the people in the store sell you the phone and they help you to set it up, they MAY transfer your contacts from your old phone to your Android phone as "Phone-only" contacts.
2) You may deliberately transfer contacts to your phone from your PC (e.g. from Microsoft Outlook) as a "Phone-only" contact using PC-based software, such as "MyPhoneExplorer". Some people who are worried about privacy do this becasue they don't want their contacts on Google's cloud.

I think that in the stock Android contacts app, all three types of contacts (Google, Phone-only, & Corporate) end up getting merged into the same contacts folder. As far as I know, you can only determine the contact type by going intot an individuatl contact and hitting the settings button and selecting "edit". For duplicate contacts you may see them listed as two or more different types of contacts.
Click to expand...

Seems I vaguely remember that setting in Android 2.2.1 on my Intercept, and then it disappeared when Virgin Mobile pushed the 2.2.2 update to it. The only contact type I see on my current phone for 2.3.7 is Google..... unless I'm just missing it?

Just checked my daughters phone (had to pry it out of her hands with a crowbar) and her's is the same as mine, but she's running 2.2.2.
 
NoNameFace said:
Seems I vaguely remember that setting in Android 2.2.1 on my Intercept, and then it disappeared when Virgin Mobile pushed the 2.2.2 update to it. The only contact type I see on my current phone for 2.3.7 is Google..... unless I'm just missing it?

Just checked my daughter's phone (had to pry it out of her hands with a crowbar) and her's is the same as mine, but she's running 2.2.2.
Click to expand...
The contact type is listed at the top of the contact. If you don't have any "Phone-only" contacts or "Corporate" contacts then you won't see it listed. I'm on 2.2.1. My daughter is on 2.3.3. No difference. Though in checking her phone I realized that there is at least one more type of contact, "Facebook Contacts".
 
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