If I delete a Gmail contact from my phone, will it delete it from Gmail as well?

[Sprockethead]

That is, if I re-sync it? Or will it just add the contact to my phone again?

I do not like syncing with Google, because I have a lot of garbage there. I like to sync phone to outlook. (Not phone to google to outlook.)

Anyway, if I just delete all the google garbage from my phone, will google just add it back again?

 

[adseguy]

It's a two way sync. You delete on either side it will push that new info to the other. A quick way woul dbe to do it on the computer. Go to gmail then contacts and adjust as needed. The new info will be pushed. Or go to (on your phone) settings, accounts sync, your google account, and uncheck the contacts. Taht will remove all syncing with google contacts

 

[Sprockethead]

Yes, but you can't help but sync with it at least once when you log into the phone. You can only prevent it from syncing subsequent times. So I went through all my contacts on the phone and deleted the duplicates and the incorrect info.

If I now turn on the sync with gmail feature again, which takes precedence? Will the stuff I deleted from the phone be deleted from Gmail? Or will Gmail just push the contacts back to my phone again? (That second one would really suck a big fatty.)

 

[adseguy]

Gmail will push back (2nd one). Set it up correctly once and be done with it.

 

[codered78]

I set up a seperate account for my phone, that way I'm not getting all my garbage from my main account

 

[adseguy]

I love how people just "deal" when if you just set it up correctly once everything will work fine

 

[Sprockethead]

I love how people just "deal" when if you just set it up correctly once everything will work fine

I hear what you are saying. However, when using Outlook in a business context your contacts are constantly changing and being tweaked everyday based on emails and whatnot. Keeping them completely in sync apparently means manually updating Gmail each time you change an Outlook contact. There is probably a solution out there, but I'm no expert yet.

For people who work out of Outlook, there is NO reason to ever need Gmail to get into the mix. So what happens is that your pristine Outlook contacts are downloaded and mixed in with your Gmail contacts, which may or may not be pristine. So you wind up with a couple outdated numbers, missing info, etc. Not a big deal, but if you have hundreds and hundreds of contacts it is difficult to eyeball it and figure out where to make the corrections.

I think the work "garbage" was making it sound like all of the Gmail contacts were a mess, which is not the case. They just aren't updated when Outlook is updated.

 

[adseguy]

Gotcha. I only use gmail, but this sounds like a common problem so I'm sure there is some app out there. Google search a little and let us know if you find a different contact manager that works better.

 

[Sprockethead]

Ok, here's my best effort at this. Remember, I'm somebody that NEVER relies on Gmail for any kind of contact info. So this obviously is not a good solution for everybody.

First, I went through Outlook and made very, very sure that all my info was there. No info is in Gmail that is not in Outlook.

Second, I deleted ALL of my Gmail contacts.

Third, I synced my phone to Gmail. This basically removed all Gmail contact info from my phone. All of my contacts are now UNLINKED. (I don't have Facebook set up either, so no link for Facebook.)

I now have 2 choices.

The first, and the one that I did, was to follow this process to manually export my Outlook contacts to a file that you can manually import into Gmail. Now they are the same.

Otherwise, I could just keep my Gmail contacts always deleted. Then I won't have to worry about the cloud messing me up . I'm old-school like that, I guess.