Importing contacts woes

[Boludo]

I noticed that currently GMail contacts does not have all the fields like birthday, anniversary, etc. like Outlook and my Palm Treo 755p.

Does anyone know if this will be addressed? I hate the idea of "upgrading" my phone and lossing functionality.

Thanks - Tom

 

[pestilence]

I imported my contacts into gmail today and noticed that it did at least put the birthdays in as notes. you could always add the birthdays as repeating calendar events as well.

 

[cred05]

I can save my contacts on my SD-card and then hopefully it will come up right on the g1

 

[Huey Freeman]

I can save my contacts on my SD-card and then hopefully it will come up right on the g1

how do u save contacts on to the SD?

 

[pestilence]

It differs from phone to phone

 

[dballz]

It really takes no time if you simple just take 30 mins with all your contact migrated to outlook then upload them to your gmail account your edit time is cut in half. I just updated all my contacts. I may not have as much as you guys but I was able to add addresses, e-mail, aim screen names, and multiple phone numbers. But to answer the question about birthdays you can add them to the notes. Remeber your gmail contacts are automatically updated to your phone. This is the easiest way I know to always stay connected. Shoot if you have pictures of that person you can upload those to the gmail account as well.

I can almost truely say I'm happy with this way of updated your contacts. The reason why I "alost truely say I'm happy" I would be 100% happy when I get the phone and I have a problem free contact update and the initial bootup of the phone.

 

[cred05]

how do u save contacts on to the SD?

On my nokia i just go into contacts and select copy all to memory card

 

[kamdroid]

did your contacts also sync photo ids like outlook does?

 

[porquepine]

Fortunantly for me, I have been using gmail for a few years now, so there will not be a transition to the google world.

I am however a bit concerned with the contacts. Gmail Contacts tends to add whomever emails me, or if I email them into my contacts list. There will be a persons name in my contacts with only email addresses for contacts and no phone addresses information. These are contacts I am not too concerned about and really do not desire to have on my phone.

With the Synching option on the G1 with Google does that mean that the contacts that I have already saved onto my SIM card and put onto my G1 will not duplicate into Gmail as well? I hope not.

I have been going through my contacts online and deleting the ones that I really do not care to have. I am trying to figure out how to transition over with the contacts function and I am looking for others that have had the opertunity to already recieve thier phone to add some input.

I am considering deleting all of my gmail contacts so when my phone contacts synch I will not loose anything and then it will be the same.

Any ideas?

 

[simmcrd]

Cred05: Are you sure that you saved them to SD or just to SIM (SIM, albeit a standard is not as robust regarding fields - you get just name and phone number).

 

[cred05]

Cred05: Are you sure that you saved them to SD or just to SIM (SIM, albeit a standard is not as robust regarding fields - you get just name and phone number).

Yea it gives you the option to select SIM or Memory Card, im just hoping that its not in some kind of Nokia only format and that the G1 will be able to categorize name, number, bday, email etc

 

[Huey Freeman]

After a painstaking evening.. I finally got 90% of my contacts switched over from my sidekick to Gmail.

I went from using the sidekick sync to link with MS Outlook and then exporting those..

I also emailed all my v-cards from the tmo sidekick website to gmail, downloaded them all into Address Book on my Mac, and then uploaded/Synced them to gmail via SyncMan from Apple.

The later step didn't work so well (it only synced the phone numbers and didnt include any names). So I had to erase my Address Book and try again..

Finally got the Outlook exported contacts to Sync with Gmail correctly.. but it wouldn't take any contact that only had one name, for example, "Joe" would not sync, the contact would need to have two names, "Joe Blow"..

I was up til 3am trying to get everything right.. but It worked! lol

Lastly, I know it was said that no contacts without emails on outlook would sync to Gmail. But that wasn't true for me.. the only contacts that wouldn't transfer to Gmail, again, were the ones with a single name opposed to a First and Last name format.

 

[dkaufman1]

After a painstaking evening.. I finally got 90% of my contacts switched over from my sidekick to Gmail.

I went from using the sidekick sync to link with MS Outlook and then exporting those..

I also emailed all my v-cards from the tmo sidekick website to gmail, downloaded them all into Address Book on my Mac, and then uploaded/Synced them to gmail via SyncMan from Apple.

The later step didn't work so well (it only synced the phone numbers and didnt include any names). So I had to erase my Address Book and try again..

Finally got the Outlook exported contacts to Sync with Gmail correctly.. but it wouldn't take any contact that only had one name, for example, "Joe" would not sync, the contact would need to have two names, "Joe Blow"..

I was up til 3am trying to get everything right.. but It worked! lol

Lastly, I know it was said that no contacts without emails on outlook would sync to Gmail. But that wasn't true for me.. the only contacts that wouldn't transfer to Gmail, again, were the ones with a single name opposed to a First and Last name format.

I am a few days into this same situation. I am glad to be rid of a platform that locks up my data and makes it that hard.

I have moved all my contacts into Outlook (at a friend's since I don't have Outlook) and then exported a csv file. Then I added a "super contact" in Gmail manually, which is I made a person with a lot of contact information, more so than normal. I exported that and now will map the fields manually in a spreadsheet from Gmail's headers to Sidekick's CSV from Outlook. Then re-import.

I expect to get about 90% there and will need to go through one last time and manually add/modify any contacts that miss info or map incorrectly.

Of course the worst is doing this twice for a second sidekick for my wife. Yikes.

 

[Azad]

I also have the same problem and need to get rid of this dual contacts. I only need to see my SIM contacts NOT GOOGLE CONTACTS. It is a plus point that I could see both of them but I need mostly the SIM contacts with whom I donot connected by email so frequently. Please help us who can find a program how to save contacts in SIM card. Does anyone knows where is the contacts saving actually. Thanks for the help bro.

Azad

 

[Hilly]

I haven't tried this but I've heard it works..

You can import your contacts by using Thunderbird. Thunderbird will import all your Outlook data then by using the Thunderbird-Gmail add-on you can import them straight to GMail.

Thunderbird: http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/thunderbird/
Gmail add-on: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/7307

This article seems to indicate you can also use Lightning (Mozilla calendar add-on for Thunderbird) and sync your calendar too....
http://rickmahn.com/2008/10/15/andro...d-thunderbird/

 

[SnoWake]

I had a similar problem as those described above: When exporting my 400+ contacts from Outlook, several arrived in Google Contacts (and hence, the G1) with phone number only - no name or any additional information (though I don't have any records like that in Outlook).

So - I'm guessing some field mapping isn't quite right - noting that I, too, have some contacts with just first names, or even 'nicknames'. Perhaps these are the problematic entries - but there are a LOT of them to be resolved.

Even if I track them down: Is there a way to configure / influence the 'mapping' between fields when importing an MS Outlook Contacts CSV and Google Contacts?

 

[dkaufman1]

I am looking at the market app funambol which is an open source sync solution. I will report back...but don't hold your breath. (of course I am holding mine hopeful that it will work)

 

[dkaufman1]

I haven't tried this but I've heard it works..

You can import your contacts by using Thunderbird. Thunderbird will import all your Outlook data then by using the Thunderbird-Gmail add-on you can import them straight to GMail.

Thunderbird: http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/thunderbird/
Gmail add-on: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/7307

This article seems to indicate you can also use Lightning (Mozilla calendar add-on for Thunderbird) and sync your calendar too....
http://rickmahn.com/2008/10/15/andro...d-thunderbird/

Thanks for these links this might also help with the funambol solution too.

 

[ricktssf]

Greetings,
After almost 20 years I made the switch from using Palm PDA and Palm Desk Tops to The Droid. Why... Palm has abandoned the old desktop style system and expecting everyone to use GMail and Calendar. The New Droid is a Google software driven phone and it is much snapper than the Palm Pre. If I was going to use Google Calendars and PIM then I thought that their phone and software would in the long run work better.

So here is the Path that I use to move from the Palm Desk Top 6.2.2 to Google mail and calendar.

Start with Do a fresh sync to your Desk Top. Then put your Treo in a Drawer.

Moving Your Palm Contacts into Gmail

1: Open our Palm Desk Top.

2: Click Open your Contacts.
a: Open just ONE of your Palm Contact Categories.. This will allow you to import your data into separate categories on Google... one at a time.
b: Use a Control-alt to highlight all the members of ONE Palm category.
c: Select to Export all of that category as a V-Card. Save to your computer in a place where you can find it, giving it a simple name like "buiness2google" or "personal2google". (this is very fast)
d: Repeat step 2 until all you Palm Contact Categories are converted into Vcard files.

2: Open Your Gmail Account... Click open you Contacts.
a: Click open the import function.
b: Using the browse window... find your Vcard files that you just created.
c: Be sure to click on "Also add these imported contacts to:" so you can direct or rename your incoming Palm Vcard contacts.
e: Click "Import"
f: Repeat steps 2.a. - 2.e until all your contacts are imported into gmail contacts.

Note: By using the Vcard path all your Palm Contacts will import perfectly into gmail. This works much better that using delimited txt files. That path is totally frustrating.

That is the easy Part! Now it is time to move that Calendar.

1: I failed every time tested path through my old Outlook 2002... through Yahoo and such. I Don't want to sycn in the future, I am moving from Palm to full time google and a Droid. I found one path that is supper fast and worked with any danger to to data.

a: go to Dba2Csv Palm Calendar Conversion ... test and then BUY dba2csv. At first I really balked at the Price (about $50)... but my calendar has over 2700 current appointments so I did not want to fool around.
b: dba2csv, in about 10 minutes uploaded all my palm categorizes as their own calendars in Google. Click them on each calendar and their will pop right up on google. You can also color code them to match you palm colors if you like to keep things looking a but more familiar.
c: All my contacts (about 4000 plus) and all my Calendar item including annuals, imported perfectly.

The best part... I am now fully moved to the Droid... and loving it!

ricktssf

 

[buckinxile]

Enormous thanks for your post. I've been living on my LifeDrive for many years, and after being deadended with what I consider one of the great devices ever, I just jumped from a Moto Razer to the 'droid.

I've been dreading the data move, and you've answered almost all my questions.

What did you decide to do for Tasks and Notes? I'm thinking "Remember the Milk" for tasks, but I would like to drag the notes along.

Best regards,
BuckInXile

 

[ricktssf]

Year ago I started leaving my notes in a calendar instead of using the palm task list... so I did not worry about the task list. Gmail has a task list, but I have not used it yet.

I will miss my palm memos - I think I will use "Docs to Go" and move my memo there. There are also other note pads aps that will work too.

Ricktssf

Enormous thanks for your post. I've been living on my LifeDrive for many years, and after being deadended with what I consider one of the great devices ever, I just jumped from a Moto Razer to the 'droid.

I've been dreading the data move, and you've answered almost all my questions.

What did you decide to do for Tasks and Notes? I'm thinking "Remember the Milk" for tasks, but I would like to drag the notes along.

Best regards,
BuckInXile

 

[dkaufman1]

Year ago I started leaving my notes in a calendar instead of using the palm task list... so I did not worry about the task list. Gmail has a task list, but I have not used it yet.

I will miss my palm memos - I think I will use "Docs to Go" and move my memo there. There are also other note pads aps that will work too.

Ricktssf

AK Notepad is probably one of the most popular. I use it and it works great.

 

[jesup]

I used the separate vcf file for each contact group trick - worked great for gmail, but when the contacts synced to Droid all the group information disappears - there appears to be no support for grouping contacts in Android Contacts. ARGH!

Also, *before* importing into gmail, check for any --Unnamed-- entries - they're probably ones where you had a company name but no personal name. When imported and then moved to the Droid, they all end up in one huge mega-contact. Go in before gmail import and copy the organization name to the last name field in the VCF entry.

Also still looking for a way to sort by something other than first name...