Getting a Droid next week, do I need to clean up Gmail contacts

[GLMontyWV]

I'll be getting a Droid about the middle of next week. Most my Google contacts don't have phone numbers attached, just e-mail addresses. I also have a Google Voice account and number and plan on using it for most of my phone traffic (which really isn't all that much). About a dozen of my contacts are in there now with their e-mails and phone numbers.

Most my e-mail contacts (a couple hundred) aren't divided into groups right now.

Do I need to clean up my contacts before getting the Droid and syncing things up? Any tips for doing so if needed? I don't want to mess up my Droid right off the bat if there are some things I go do in advance to make getting up and running smoother.

Thanks!

Monty

 

[MustangChris04]

I would try and fill in as much information for each contact as you can. It just makes your experience with android so much nicer. I entered first and last name of each of my contacts with their cell phone # and if they had an email I would enter that.

Everything is so much easier when your contacts are organized, and its easy to do on the google contacts website.

 

[allanlaw]

I bit the bullet and merged a bunch of separate contact lists into my Google Contacts and then cleaned it up. It made life much easier when my Droid went live.

 

[UncleMike]

I would recommend doing it now also. Right now you CAN'T play with your Droid, so take advantage of this time to organize your contacts. Because once you're Droid arrives you'll want to play with it, to the exclusion of everything else. The last thing you'll want is to not be able to use it because none of your contacts have phone numbers.

The way your message reads, it sounds like you have two different Google Accounts - one has contacts with only email addresses, and the other has a much smaller set of contacts that contain email and phone numbers. If that's the case, please confirm, and hopefully someone else with multiple Google accounts can chime in with any helpful hints.

 

[GLMontyWV]

The way your message reads, it sounds like you have two different Google Accounts - one has contacts with only email addresses, and the other has a much smaller set of contacts that contain email and phone numbers. If that's the case, please confirm, and hopefully someone else with multiple Google accounts can chime in with any helpful hints.

Thanks for all the feedback, I'll take the time while watching some football this weekend to organize my Google contacts.

I actually only have one list of contacts, I thought there was a difference but it is just that my iGoogle widget only pulls those contacts in that have phone numbers so I thought it was slightly different.

Dang, now I think I'm going to have to run into work to get all my phone numbers

Without posting a separate thread, anything else I should do to prepare for Droid?

Thanks!

Monty

 

[brbruce0]

This is what I did as well. It really helped out, if you also have facebook, it can choose to sync it to your current contacts as well, such as having pictures attached to the contacts, it will take a little cleaning up and a little time, but worth it in the end.

 

[kpiskin]

I didn't realize Gmail was going to do that and I ended up having to go through 600+ contacts I had emailed through two accounts over the past couple years. It doesn't really matter if you do it before or after you set the phone up, but is much easier to do on a computer through the regular web version of Gmail. Don't worry, your phone will be immediately sync'd up. The one thing you will certainly need to do is import any contacts from your regular phone to a CSV file that might not be in your Gmail account. I had duplicate contacts, but for my phone I mainly had numbers, and for my Gmail I had email addys. It's pretty simple to merge those contacts together as one.

 

[digitized]

Also consider cleaning up your Gmail account if it's messy. Setup labels to sort mail. I used to keep most newer messages in my inbox, but not since I got the droid.

 

[GLMontyWV]

Also consider cleaning up your Gmail account if it's messy. Setup labels to sort mail. I used to keep most newer messages in my inbox, but not since I got the droid.

Got about 5000 unsorted e-mails in my inbox, about 3000 unread, this going to create a problem?

Monty

 

[digitized]

More of an annoyance than anything. Personally, I just wanted to sort mine to make things easier. Also, the first two weeks of droid ownership caused me to cancel more email subscriptions than I had ever thought I signed up for!!!

 

[MisterEff]

Everyone that you email becomes a contact...A contact that I don't even use. I wish the droid would ignore them.

 

[digitized]

You can tell it to only show contacts with phone numbers. Good enough? Maybe?

 

[Wakey]

Everyone that you email becomes a contact...A contact that I don't even use. I wish the droid would ignore them.

See if this helps Disable automatic contacts - Gmail Help

 

[aileendq]

Without posting a separate thread, anything else I should do to prepare for Droid?

YES- download and read the user's manual. I had read it through multiple times before I got th Droid.

Also, be sure to read through the tips and tricks threads, etc. I took notes so that I could be ready for each step of unboxing, charging and setting up my Droid. I came from a WinMo phone, and it was imperative that I could use the phone at least on a beginner's level once I got it.

I suspect this is part of the reason why I am so happy with the phone and never got frustrated with it.

I hope you enjoy yours as much as I am enjoying mine!

 

[GLMontyWV]

YES- download and read the user's manual. I had read it through multiple times before I got th Droid.

Also, be sure to read through the tips and tricks threads, etc. I took notes so that I could be ready for each step of unboxing, charging and setting up my Droid. I came from a WinMo phone, and it was imperative that I could use the phone at least on a beginner's level once I got it.

Thanks! I'll download and print out copies of both so I can highlight and mark them up getting ready.

Monty <-----was born down the road in Holyoke

 

[Christine]

Also, if you have facebook you can add your facebook events to your Google Calendar now.

 

[MisterEff]

I am kind of upset that I have to clean up my Gmail contacts. I mean, I never use the contacts so I just deleted pretty much all of them and then created the ones I want, but the fact that a contact is made every time I compose an email kind of sucks.

 

[Wakey]

I am kind of upset that I have to clean up my Gmail contacts. I mean, I never use the contacts so I just deleted pretty much all of them and then created the ones I want, but the fact that a contact is made every time I compose an email kind of sucks.

Did you see post #13?

 

[MisterEff]

I had forgotten I had posted that and I looked at it now, I also like disabling contacts that don't have a phone number.

Edit:

You cannot disable it anymore...why would google take that feature out?