Duplicate Contacts

[shanstrom]

My new HTC Aria will not hide my SIM Card contacts. When I click the phone button on the home screen it brings up a list of my contacts and shows the phone numbers stored on my phone and my SIM Card. I have unchecked the SIM Card in the People application, but they are still showing up.

Any ideas? Any help is appreciated.

 

[wxjoe]

I'm still trying to figure it all out, but I'll see if I can help.

One of the first things I did was copy my SIM contacts to PHONE. (You can choose Google or Phone.) To do this, go to 'People,' then click on the MENU button, choose 'Import/Export' and select 'Import from SIM.' This way, all of your SIM contacts are on the phone... which means there are now two of every SIM contact.

To resolve this, go back to the MENU screen (when viewing your contact list). Hit 'view' and then uncheck SIM, make sure Phone is selected... and also double check other things (Google+Gmail, Facebook, Twitter). These can give you duplicates until you link the contacts up. To link, hit any contact and in the top right, you will see a link button (with suggestions if it has any). The manual (online at HTC's website) has more info on this.

I hope that helped, or at the very least it can help someone. It's a little confusing... there should really be a built-in walk-through/tutorial/wizard to help set your contacts up. (I don't think the store reps or probably even the customer service people know much about this... yet.)

 

[OJsakila]

It is confusing...I think the key is going to google on your pc and cleaning up contacts there.

You can also export a .CSV file of your Outlook contacts and import them into your google account...do a quick google search on exporting outlook contact to a CSV file onto your desktop. It took me all of 45 seconds to do this. From your google contacts page, an option is available to import a CSV file into google contacts...

Also, the key would be to AS WELL going and linking duplicates up individually thru the device. I had facebook friends showing up as doubles when they were ALSO a normal contact. Once I figured out how to COMBINE/MERGE the two contacts, I was able to get rid of doubles. Also, as an added benefit, now my "normal" contacts that I call that are also facebook friends are now updating constantly as these same folks change their profile pics on facbook...



it is quite confusing at first....there is a slight "learning curve" here....proberly not the best interface but once you grasp it, it's really cool and unique

 

[wxjoe]

Has anyone figured this out:

I have my facebook contacts there... but I don't want them all. How do I pick and choose? I can't delete contacts that are from facebook! (without turning off that feature). Maybe if I create another contact to merge the facebook one with, then deleting will work???

 

[Ambictus]

I'm actually fixing this issue right now. I'll let you know my methods when I'm done. However it will involve deleting your contacts from your SIM... just forewarning

I'd tell you how to do it now but I haven't got it full worked out. It's gonna be a bit of a PITA.

 

[Ambictus]

Alrighty, actually it wasn't anywhere near as painful as I expected. Here's what I did.

Disclaimer: I don't plan on using another phone that's not Android, but even if I do I can reverse all these steps to bring it back to the SIM. Also you need to have your Gmail account setup on your phone.

1. Go to 'People'
2. Hit Menu->Import/Export and choose Import from SIM card
3. Choose your Google Account
4. Hit Menu->'Select all'
5. Import your contacts. Note: It will take quite a while to sync the contacts with gmail depending on how many you have and how good your 3G/Wireless connection is. I'd give it 30 min to an Hour.
6. Once the sync is done verify your contacts are in your gmail account then go back into 'People', hit Menu->View.
7. Un-check everything except for SIM and hit done.
8. Hit Menu->Delete
9. Hit Menu->'Select All'(Verify that everything selected has the SIM icon next to it) then hit Delete
10. Once the Delete is done go back into 'People' hit Menu->View and put a check next to Google and hit Done.

There you have it, now all your contacts are hosted on Google and you won't have to worry about duplicates or importing contacts from a SIM again(as long as you have Android). I'm not quite sure if that's what you were looking for but it's wonderful to me

Edit: Also this way you can edit contacts in Gmail and have the changes sync to your phone, much easier than editing contacts on a phone.

 

[Vault172]

How does this work with an Outlook contact sync? I have allot of contacts from work that are coming into my phone via Outlook.

 

[Deleted User]

I'm still not sold on a solution here. I have a FB contact who was not on my SIM or Google contacts...but he is in my list now and thought it would be funny to tell FB that his number is 911. I'd like to find a way to delete just him as I don't dontwant a false 911call.

 

[Ambictus]

I don't think you can actually assign a number to a FB contact without creating a Google or SIM equivalent. So to fix the problem go into people, hit menu and then view make sure SIM and Google are checked and uncheck FB and hit done. Once you're back in People scroll to find that particular contact and then edit their info or delete them since you'll still have them as a FB contact.

 

[billysbrew]

Thanks Ambictus! That worked well. I was connected via wi-fi so step 5 was snappy.
Cheers!

 

[Deleted User]

Alrighty, actually it wasn't anywhere near as painful as I expected. Here's what I did.

Disclaimer: I don't plan on using another phone that's not Android, but even if I do I can reverse all these steps to bring it back to the SIM. Also you need to have your Gmail account setup on your phone.

1. Go to 'People'
2. Hit Menu->Import/Export and choose Import from SIM card
3. Choose your Google Account
4. Hit Menu->'Select all'
5. Import your contacts. Note: It will take quite a while to sync the contacts with gmail depending on how many you have and how good your 3G/Wireless connection is. I'd give it 30 min to an Hour.
6. Once the sync is done verify your contacts are in your gmail account then go back into 'People', hit Menu->View.
7. Un-check everything except for SIM and hit done.
8. Hit Menu->Delete
9. Hit Menu->'Select All'(Verify that everything selected has the SIM icon next to it) then hit Delete
10. Once the Delete is done go back into 'People' hit Menu->View and put a check next to Google and hit Done.

There you have it, now all your contacts are hosted on Google and you won't have to worry about duplicates or importing contacts from a SIM again(as long as you have Android). I'm not quite sure if that's what you were looking for but it's wonderful to me

Edit: Also this way you can edit contacts in Gmail and have the changes sync to your phone, much easier than editing contacts on a phone.

What happens if the Google "Cloud" ever goes down?

 

[Ambictus]

What happens if the Google "Cloud" ever goes down?

You'll still be fine as there is a copy stored locally on the phone.

Edit: Unless you mean Google going out of business, in which case I'm sure I'll be able to figure something out. Though I don't see that happening any time soon.

 

[Deleted User]

You'll still be fine as there is a copy stored locally on the phone.

Edit: Unless you mean Google going out of business, in which case I'm sure I'll be able to figure something out. Though I don't see that happening any time soon.

No, I just mean an Google server failure.

 

[Deleted User]

Here is my question, I DON'T want to hide my SIM contacts. I do however want to link my SIM contacts to their Facebook profiles....how do you do that?

When I edit a SIM contact there is no option to link it to anything.

 

[Ambictus]

It appears that you can't link to SIM contacts. I'd assume because of the way the Aria does the linking. It applies a tag in the notes of the contact indicating which FB contact to link to and the SIM doesn't have a note field.

 

[Deleted User]

It appears that you can't link to SIM contacts. I'd assume because of the way the Aria does the linking. It applies a tag in the notes of the contact indicating which FB contact to link to and the SIM doesn't have a note field.

So then, I need to import the contacts from my SIM to phone memory and then link to facebook and/or google? Then hide SIM contact?

 

[Ambictus]

So then, I need to import the contacts from my SIM to phone memory and then link to facebook and/or google? Then hide SIM contact?

That would work, but you'd end up with duplicates if you ever searched for a contact.

 

[Deleted User]

That would work, but you'd end up with duplicates if you ever searched for a contact.

Why? Any contacts that also had a facebook or google contact I would link together preventing any duplicate names in the contact list. Right?

 

[Ambictus]

Why? Any contacts that also had a facebook or google contact I would link together preventing any duplicate names in the contact list. Right?

For whatever reason when you perform a search you'll see all contacts on the phone, even the ones that are hidden. So when you do a search or try to manually put someone's name in a text message it will pull up every contact, SIM included. That's why I did what I did above. It was terribly annoying.

Edit: However, as a disclaimer I'm NOT claiming this is the only way to do it. It's just the only way I knew of.

 

[PC_3]

I'm still trying to figure it all out, but I'll see if I can help.

One of the first things I did was copy my SIM contacts to PHONE. (You can choose Google or Phone.) To do this, go to 'People,' then click on the MENU button, choose 'Import/Export' and select 'Import from SIM.' This way, all of your SIM contacts are on the phone... which means there are now two of every SIM contact.

To resolve this, go back to the MENU screen (when viewing your contact list). Hit 'view' and then uncheck SIM, make sure Phone is selected... and also double check other things (Google+Gmail, Facebook, Twitter). These can give you duplicates until you link the contacts up. To link, hit any contact and in the top right, you will see a link button (with suggestions if it has any). The manual (online at HTC's website) has more info on this.

I hope that helped, or at the very least it can help someone. It's a little confusing... there should really be a built-in walk-through/tutorial/wizard to help set your contacts up. (I don't think the store reps or probably even the customer service people know much about this... yet.)

I believe I was having the same problems as you and this post helped me!
thanks for posting

 

[Bhaumik Dave]

I have two different databases i.e. (1) Contact saved locally on my android phone (2) Online Google contacts.

Now I want to merge contacts of these two databases and make single master database on my Google account.

In this process, I will face following problems:

(1) After merging, some of my contact will get duplicated. So, how do I de-Duplicate them without merging Google contacts?

(2) What logic does Google use while merging OR De- Duplicating contacts?

(3) Is there any solution or facility in Google contacts that allows me to select fields which I want to retain and remove other unnecessary fields while merging / De-Duplicating?

(For Example:


There are two entries for Contact A , where both the entries have different data in address field as well as mobile number field. I want to retain mobile number from one entry and address second entry. Kindly guide me how do I achieve this.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Crashdamage]

1. After importing the local contacts into Google, to your contacts online click on 'More' near the center of the screen and select 'Find/merge duplicates' in the drop-down. AFAIK there's no other way to eliminate duplicates except manual selection/deletion.

2. That is a question for Google. But logically I have to think it starts with the name.

3. Not that I'm aware of. I'd be surprised if there was.