Remove contacts on SIM from text messaging contact list?

[iceman718]

I have my phone set to display only numbers on the SIM (or only on the phone.. doesn't really matter) so that in the contacts app and the contacts section of the phone app I don't have duplicates of everything.

However, even when this is working correctly, in the contacts section of the text messaging app, it still shows two of everything.

Any way to fix?

 

[suprsidr]

IMO this is a giant fumble.
Managing contacts on android is a mess.
I painstakingly went through and removed all the double and triple links in my contacts, not to mention the hundreds of anonymous and no-reply contacts in gmail, but they still show up in certain places like text msg and add to favorites.
I am considering wiping my phone and only importing my real contacts from my SIM only and not letting google get involved at all.

 

[iceman718]

Yeah it's pretty lame. I don't use Google contacts or anything, I just took out my SIM from my old phone and plugged it into the new one, and it automatically copied everything to the phone. Of course it also decided to remove all but one number stored with each name on the SIM, so for a name where I'd normally have 3 number associated, I now only have one. I dowloaded Kies last night and am going to give that a try for contact managment, but it sure seems like there should be a better option.

 

[iceman718]

Anyone else have an idea how to fix this?

 

[3gAndroid]

My question is in regards to how Android 2.1 handles contacts. Prior to buying my first Android phone I heard its tricky. So when I got my phone I asked for a new sim thus starting fresh with no contacts on it.

Once I had the freshly activated phone I went into my empty contacts application and created just one contact. The choices were save to sim, or phone, both of which I understand. The third and final choice was save to the Google acct I have associated with the phone. It's important to note I created a new Google account for the phone which had no messages or contacts yet.

There's where I'm at. What's the best way to proceed?

If while at my laptop I enter them into my new Google acct, does that mean I have to have a web connection to
Retrieve phone numbers or? I do not want to store them on the sim.

Thanks

 

[sremick]

You can store your contacts in various places, but each has its pros and cons:

SIM: stays with your card, can easily move from phone to phone (even non-Android), but limited field options and can't have multiple #s per contact

Google: links with your Google/Gmail account, so yes you have web access. Lacks full features on the phone though, such as being able to assign a custom ringtone.

Phone: most options per contact, but you need to use another means to backup/sync your contacts elsewhere.

 

[3gAndroid]

You can store your contacts in various places, but each has its pros and cons:

SIM: stays with your card, can easily move from phone to phone (even non-Android), but limited field options and can't have multiple #s per contact

Google: links with your Google/Gmail account, so yes you have web access. Lacks full features on the phone though, such as being able to assign a custom ringtone.

Phone: most options per contact, but you need to use another means to backup/sync your contacts elsewhere.

Thanks for this clear explanation. Now I'm leaning that's storing contact info on the phone.

For backup AT&T offers their address book service, in the cloud. It's designed to sync with one's phone automatically. Its free.

Has anyone used this service?

 

[kak]

Thanks for this clear explanation. Now I'm leaning that's storing contact info on the phone.

For backup AT&T offers their address book service, in the cloud. It's designed to sync with one's phone automatically. Its free.

Has anyone used this service?

Previous phones probably stored your numbers there or they used it to backup your list when you swapped phones. It was a headache for me.

I just used "Contact Remover" from the market to remove all of my sim entries at once. You can't filter them out by category, but (in my instance) all of the entries were listed SIM then Phone. Such as..

John
John
Kate
Kate

The first of each name was the sim entry. I'd recommend exporting a copy of your contacts out through the menu as well (menu, more options, import/export). You can always import them back in if you mess up.