Help Can I change a phone contact to a Google contact?

[Bob Loblaw]

Is there any way to convert my a phone contact to a Google contact? When I got the phone I just put in people a phone not knowing that if they are Google contacts, they are automatically backed up in my gmail. Now I want to reset the phone but I don't want to have to redo all my contacts. If they are Google they will be automatically put back on when I sign into gmail after the phone resets, correct?

 

[pdragon]

Haven't found a way to change a contact from Google to Phone and vice versa. Just had to recreate them and choose the right option. If you've got a lot of them to fix, it would probably be easier to put them in your Gmail account on a computer instead of entering them in the phone. Next sync, your phone would then have them.

You are correct, if the Contact is a Google Contact, it will automatically sync when you enter your account info after a reset. I'd just double-check and make sure all the Contacts you want are in your Gmail account before doing the reset.

 

[Bob Loblaw]

Crap. That's what I was hoping wasn't going to be the answer. You'd think as smart as this phone is you'd be able to simply edit the contact and change it to Google. Thanks.

 

[T Mac]

I just went all through this issue myself last night and this morning. I was trying to sync outlook and google contacts. There is no easy way that I have found. If you enter a contact through the phone it is a phone contact type and doesn't sync with the google contacts. ??? Stupid if you ask me. And, the HTC Sync program is garbage. It duplicates all of your contacts and just doesn't work good at all. The best thing that I found was to export all of my contacts from both outlook and google into .CSV files. Then delete all contacts from both places. Then import both .CSV files back to google contacts. (this was easier than doing it through excel) Google contacts automatically formatted all the info from both files, and also merged quite a few of the matching contacts pretty nicely. And after that, it is very quick and easy to either merge duplicate contact info together or delete duplicates through google contacts interface. By the time I was done with the manual merge, the phone was already automatically synced to google. Tonight I will have to take back the newly exported google contacts .CSV file and import in into Outlook. Then I'll be in sync. It's just too bad there is nothing through google that will do this similar to the google calendar sync that works this well and is free!

Hope this helps.

 

[T Mac]

....oh, by the way. Once you import the completed file back into the google contacts and it syncs to your phone, they will all be google contact types in your phone.

 

[moish]

i think i made a huge mistake.

 

[jdawg0024]

I have exported my outlook contacts to a .csv file and imported them into my gmail and it synced to my phone just fine but none of my contact pictures were there. When I use HTC sync the pics are there from outlook. Am i missing something when I create the.csv file, I would love for my phone to be all Google contacts

 

[dbpaddler]

you would think. Kind of annoying because if you add contacts from a webpage or program they automatically go to google. So I end up opening up web outlook and adding it then deleting the google contact. Same with calendar entries. Something goes from personal to work or vice versa, I have to manually change it.

Crap. That's what I was hoping wasn't going to be the answer. You'd think as smart as this phone is you'd be able to simply edit the contact and change it to Google. Thanks.

 

[cij1916]

If you enter a contact through the phone it is a phone contact type and doesn't sync with the google contacts.

Actually, it's whichever you choose, be default (at first) it's set to phone, but all u have to do is hit the down arrow and choose Google...next time Google will automatically choose Google as default...but look at each contact as you are entering the info.

 

[cajunman4life]

Actually, it's whichever you choose, be default (at first) it's set to phone, but all u have to do is hit the down arrow and choose Google...next time Google will automatically choose Google as default...but look at each contact as you are entering the info.

The only option I have in the dropdown is "Phone." Something must be wrong...

 

[pdragon]

The only option I have in the dropdown is "Phone." Something must be wrong...

Do you have a Google account set up in the phone?

 

[jimeller]

alas there is an app (uk anyway) that converts phone contacts to google contacts. ive used it and it worked perfectly. struggling to remember the name though as i uninstalled once the job was done.

i will have a root around and try and find it.


EDIT: its called contactsync. there is a warning for hero users about it causing instability, but i had no problems at all. just do a nandroid beforehand to be safe.

 

[slowmotion]

ability to change contacts between local and google is a feature in Android 2.0... and one of the reasons i am IMPATIENTLY waiting for Sprint to get a move on with this update!

 

[cajunman4life]

Do you have a Google account set up in the phone?

Yes. I didn't know you could get by without one

 

[cajunman4life]

ability to change contacts between local and google is a feature in Android 2.0... and one of the reasons i am IMPATIENTLY waiting for Sprint to get a move on with this update!

Seconded.

 

[ikonosin]

I ran into this same problem just yesterday. I couldn't figure out how to just change them, so instead I just exported my phone contacts using "ExportContacts" (free in the market). It exported all my contacts to a csv file. I then deleted all my contacts. Next I imported that csv file into gmail (on my pc). Then when my phone synced with gmail, it pulled all the contacts over as google contacts.

Now whenever I get a new contact, I have to add it to gmail then let my phone pull it. Kind of a hassle though.

The only option I have in the dropdown is "Phone." Something must be wrong...

same here.

 

[nick325i]

I have exported my outlook contacts to a .csv file and imported them into my gmail and it synced to my phone just fine but none of my contact pictures were there. When I use HTC sync the pics are there from outlook. Am i missing something when I create the.csv file, I would love for my phone to be all Google contacts

The .CSV file is only text and will not pull a picture. I don't think there is a way to do it other than by hand.

 

[daman7676]

Yes. I didn't know you could get by without one

I've been considering the whole google contact vs phone contact issue too. I however do have the option to select either a google or phone as a contact type when I add a new contact.

I'm a heavy Outlook user so I'm just unsure how google contacts will affect everything. I definitely am not a fan that google doesn't separate the name field between first and last.

 

[slade]

Is there a performance difference between the two types of contacts? I have 300+ contacts and I keep them as phone contacts because I sync with outlook and have gmail contact sync disabled to save battery life.

Is one faster loading within the phone than the other? Does one have more fields available? e.g. birthdays, notes, physical address, et al?

Personally, I see no benefit to the gmail sync unless you need it to look up email addresses or something. Anyone have a different view?

 

[cij1916]

I use Gmail sync because in the past year, I have lost 2 phones...without backups of my #s, I'm SOL because I remember NOBODY'S #. With gmail syncing, I don't have to do anything, within seconds it's in my gmail account.

 

[durandetto]

I currently have a Blackberry Curve and I will soon have a Sprint Hero. So I dled google sync to my BB and synced my contacts to my Gmail account. So will my contacts on my Gmail automatically sync to my Hero once I set it up? If not what should I do to transfer my contacts? I have over 100 contacts most of them have addresses and e-mail and that would take away a lot of play time with my new phone to have to redo.

Ted

 

[dbpaddler]

you're good to go. once you enter your gmail info into your phone it will automatically sync everything.

 

[durandetto]

Good to know. Thanks for the info.

 

[Bob Loblaw]

Figured out a way to fix mine last night. I downloaded an app called ExportContacts. It exports all your contacts in your phone to the sd card in a .csv. I then imported this into gmail. Then I had to delete the repeat phone contacts. Kind of a pain but it worked.

 

[ColynK]

EDIT: its called contactsync. there is a warning for hero users about it causing instability, but i had no problems at all. just do a nandroid beforehand to be safe.

Thanks very much for this... you've saved me hours of editing! I've just used ContactSync to change 300+ phone contacts into Google contacts, and I'm in the process of using Google's amazing de-duplicating features to tidy up my contacts.