Help Contacts - joining SIM and Gmail contacts

[Pailong]

Hi all,

Just recently got the S3 and had synced all my contacts from my gmail account. I then exported all these contacts to my SIM card (so it's only on GMAIL and SIM, not the PHONE) and I noticed that the phone automatically 'joins' the contacts together, so they have a gmail icon and a SIMcard icon next to their names in contacts. I could never do this manually with the SIMcard contacts and Gmail - it just seemed to do it automatically one day (it only joined half the contacts when I first started using the phone and then a few weeks later I checked again and it had automatically joined all the contacts with the same names)

Then today I had to reset my phone. I re-synced my contacts from Gmail (again, have contacts on just Gmail and SIMcard) and noticed that the contacts are not joining automatically, so they are separate contacts even though they should be one and the same (so if I make it display 'All Contacts' it will show duplicates in the form of Gmail contacts and SIMcard contacts). I tried to join them manually but whenever I go to the Gmail contact and click join, it doesn't display the list of SIMcard contacts to join.

Does anyone know how this works and why it automatically joined it before and why it isn't working now? Is there a way to join the SIMcard contacts with the Gmail contacts?

 

[GTWalling]

Hi all,

Just recently got the S3 and had synced all my contacts from my gmail account. I then exported all these contacts to my SIM card (so it's only on GMAIL and SIM, not the PHONE) and I noticed that the phone automatically 'joins' the contacts together, so they have a gmail icon and a SIMcard icon next to their names in contacts. I could never do this manually with the SIMcard contacts and Gmail - it just seemed to do it automatically one day (it only joined half the contacts when I first started using the phone and then a few weeks later I checked again and it had automatically joined all the contacts with the same names)

Then today I had to reset my phone. I re-synced my contacts from Gmail (again, have contacts on just Gmail and SIMcard) and noticed that the contacts are not joining automatically, so they are separate contacts even though they should be one and the same (so if I make it display 'All Contacts' it will show duplicates in the form of Gmail contacts and SIMcard contacts). I tried to join them manually but whenever I go to the Gmail contact and click join, it doesn't display the list of SIMcard contacts to join.

Does anyone know how this works and why it automatically joined it before and why it isn't working now? Is there a way to join the SIMcard contacts with the Gmail contacts?

After you sync your Address book with Google you would then have to turn off sync for the Address book.

 

[davidmanvell]

Id recommend keeping your contacts in just 1 place so you wont have to worry about them joining or keeping them separate.

 

[GTWalling]

Id recommend keeping your contacts in just 1 place so you wont have to worry about them joining or keeping them separate.

+1

 

[Pailong]

Just to clarify, once my contacts have been synced with my google account, I should then TURN OFF sync and then it will automatically join with the SIMcard contacts? Is that right? Quite a strange thing no?

I was thinking that maybe I should just forget about copying contacts to the SIMcard, seems too inconsistent and unreliable to have them join properly and to maintain, so might just leave it at the google account.

 

[davidmanvell]

Leaving it on the google account is backed up. lose your phone and all you have to do is get another and readd the same google account. All the contacts will be instantly reimported.

Cant hurt though to make a backup onto some computer somewhere once a month of all your contacts just in case you ever lost your google account.