Help How do I push Droid contacts back to Gmail's "My Contacts"

[dayspringgirl]

JohnBacker - you are my hero!!!! thanks!!!

 

[guammer]

What about deletions?

I believe I have found the problem with the "deletions" issue being discussed. I too have noticed that when I created a contact on my phone, but then later deleted it using Gmail, the contact would still appear on my phone.

The issue is related to the Groups within the contact list on your phone. Whenever a contact is made with your phone it adds it to your Google group as well as your Phone group. The Google group is the one that syncs with Gmail. When you delete the contact with Gmail, it IS deleting the contact from your Google group on your phone but NOT your Phone group. So if your Contacts setting is set to show "All Contacts" it will still appear since it is still in the Phone group.

The default setting (on my phone anyway) is to add contacts to both groups. It won't let me "uncheck" the box to keep it from adding new contacts to the phone group. Does anyone know how to prevent new contacts from being posted to both groups?

 

[goodsignal]

The following is a list of my findings while trying to solve the android contact management woes:

* Android seems to manage multiple contact databases within the phone. One for each account that's registered and two contact databases for the phone itself.

* If you only register your phone with one account (or just google accounts), it seems that all contacts created on the phone are automatically created under the primary google account (or possibly both google account and the phone simultaneously).

* If you register an account that can sync contacts other than a google account, you will now have the option as to which account a newly created contact will be filed under. For example if you choose to keep some of your contacts synced using the syncML format via funambol, you will generally have three choices as to where to file a newly created contact from your phone: In the local phone database; in one of your google accounts; or in your funambol account.

* If you have multiple phone syncing accounts enabled but don't happen to see the option when creating a contact, it means one of the non google accounts have set itself to take new contacts by default. To get all your options back, go to: Settings>Applications>Manage Applications> and select the account that seems to be bogarting your contacts and push the "Clear defaults" button.

* There seems to be absolutely no 'in house' method to transfer a contact within your phone from one account to another. As sad as that rule is, it gets worse. There is no way** a contact within your phones local database can be transferred into any of your accounts for syncing. I personally can't believe that there isn't an option within the menu that allows the designation of a contact to one of your registered accounts. **There is usually a way. Though not at all elegant, you might find an app that will backup your phone's contacts to SD card as csf or vcf, then import that to your google account online. Hardly a sustainable solution. But please let me know if you find one that works correctly. I haven't had much luck. Even better would be to find a holy grail contact manager app that could move a contact from one account to another.) Hmmm?... Upon further reading, it seems that most android users have an "export contacts to SD card" option in the menu in the Contacts App menu. Which it seems you can export all contacts, then turn around and import to your choice of either the phone's or the google account database. Aggravatingly, the Droid X on Verizon does not seem to have that option.

* To add to the confusion; there appears to be two separate in-phone databases for your contacts. One in the android Contacts App, and one in the Android Dialer App. The two do not seem to stay synchronized with each other. The Dialer Contacts seem to act as a cache. For example, if you sync to your google account all your "My Contacts" labeled online contacts will appear on your phone within that particular google account contact group. If you 'organize' your google account online, let's say (an extreme case) by removing the "My Contacts" label from all your contacts, upon the next sync all of the contacts within that account group will be gone (Contacts>Menu>Display Group) from your phone. But!!! None of them will be gone from the Dialer Contacts. Your 'online' organization efforts have been rendered useless. What's worse -- and this is really bad -- if you delete that contact from within the Dialer App, it will delete that contact from your google account even though the magic syncing label "My Contacts" was removed from that contact online. I think that's insidious. When I decide that I don't want to see those extra 500 contacts on my phone, I mean it; but it doesn't necessarily mean I want to lose those contacts from my online collection. I have not found any way to refresh the Dialer App Contact database to reflect your current level of organization.

* To shed a little light (and I mean a very little bit) on what might be going on with the discrepancy between the Contacts App and the Dialer App Contacts. There seems to be an invisibility flag that can be set for those contacts. One contact manager I found offered a show invisible contact button that exposed all of these contacts on an othewise completely cleaned phone.

* When syncing to a google account with your phone, only contacts on the server side that are labeled "My Contacts" are synced (downloaded) to your phone.

* It seems that the sync protocol has a meltdown if you unlink a contact that's linked between multiple accounts and then link them back up again. I haven't explored it that much though since it doesn't give you a choice about which contact you want to unlink. Well, technically it give you a choice but it's a mystery which one you're choosing to unlink because all the buttons display the contact name (which is likely the same) rather than displaying the account names. On that note, when you decide to delete a contact, it asks you if you're sure you want to delete this contact from all these accounts. Here it labels each account, but then doesn't give you the option to delete from just one or the other. Lame -- the capability is so close, yet unattainable.

* There seems to be some confusion within the forums about which direction phone contacts get synced. It seems (at least within google accounts) simply that the most recent change gets synced whether you are online or on your phone. There must be a time stamp on every edit, addition, and deletion that gets recognized by google/android. So far it's seems rather fail-safe and I am impressed with that. That's great for most users and most situations. It's admittedly pretty slick; But I can't stand not having the option to choose which direction my syncing is going to flow. Here's the scenario that makes me wish I had the option: Say you you're on your phone and accidentally changed a persons phone number to be incorrect (a cut and paste mistake). At this point you're kind of screwed because that change has the newest time code and under this system the newest time-code rules all. You can't say, Wait! just this once, let me make all syncs move from server to phone. Sux!

I am brand new to Android. I have been using it for two weeks and have only experienced version 2.1 on the Droid X. What is listed here represents my limited experience on one phone and one version of android.

Overall, I'm very impressed with android's capabilities and recognize that it could have great potential. But as far as Personal Information Management goes, especially contact management, I am so dismayed. The whole dysfunctional android contact management system would instantly turn into an amazingly useful and robust contact management system if just three things were provided:
1. The option to easily shift or copy a contact from one account to another. Options for merging within and deleting from specific accounts falls under this category too.
2. The option to refresh the Dialer Contact database so it actually reflects your phone book.
3. And the most obvious, provide a friggin manual so people like me don't have to spend two weeks analyzing its behavior like an anthropologist on another planet. (There really are other things I would like to be doing).
Actually, this would just bring it up to the level of robust. I have an additional list of simple improvements that would earn it the 'amazingly useful' title.

 

[jimknock]

The instructions were great but I thought I could make them more simple.

All my contacts in GMail were cleaned up but those on my Android seemed to be messed up.

1) I exported a copy of the GMail contacts, following the instructions below.
2) I deleted all my contacts in GMail, page by page.
3) I waited for the synchronization with my Android to settle down. When it did, there were about a dozen contacts remaining. Originally I thought there were a lot more.
4) I deleted the stray contacts on my Android.
5) I imported the saved copy of GMAIL contacts back into my GMAIL account.

The contacts synced back into my Android perfectly. It was the last step in cleaning up my contacts cutting the list from about 3500 down to 850. THANK GOOGLE!!!

Hi,

I was also facing all the problems with contact, that is being discussed under this thread. I think factory reset is drastic step and so I didn't prefer doing it.

My solution:

1) First ensure that you have all the contacts as you desire in your google/gmail account.
2) Export these contacts as vCf (vcard) format and save it to your computer.
...

 

[lebnan60]

So I was having a lot of trouble with this. None of the solutions seemed to work for me. So i tried this instead....

-Logged into My verizon account
-On the page that shows your account information I went to "I want to +"
-I chose manage my contacts and then clicked select all
-next to select all i clicked the gear icon and export contacts
-saved it as a .csv file and uploaded it to my gmail account.

While all those contacts were still selected (but make sure you have them saved first) I selected the gear again and deleted them. Not sure if that did anything, just wanted to avoid doubles if i could.

Once everything syncs again you'll notice the contacts show up on google but i didn't see them on verizon. They may sync in the future but you can always do the opposite in the future if you need them back on verizon.

Sorry if the instructions aren't very well written. Not a big forum poster.

Hope this helps. If you have any questions let me know.

 

[akjordan]

For one, sorry for resurrecting an old thread but I was trying to fix "Contacts from Droid were not syncing up to gMail but was syncing down from gMail to Droid".

Took me a few hours to figure out why I couldn't get this to work. I finally figured it out.
The reason why my contacts were not syncing from the phone to gMail was because my contacts were set to "phone" and not "google". I noticed that when I deleted all my contacts after I exported them to SD card and imported them back in. When I imported them back in from SDcard, it gave me a choice on whether to import the vCard to "Google" or "Phone" and I chose "Google." After it imported all my contacts back, I noticed it was syncing to gMail. After a few minutes, I logged in my gMail, and viola!!!! My contacts were in gMail.

1) Backup contacts to SDCard by: Contacts > Menu > Import/Export
2) Delete all contacts
3) Import all contacts from SD card
4) When it asks, choose "Google"
5) Done


I hope this helps a few of you out there (if you're still having this problem)

I am having the opposite problem a lot of you seem to be having out there. If I change something in my Gmail contacts (i.e. delete one), this does not change on my phone. I think I may have figured out what the problem is though.

I bet the contacts that aren't deleting are "Phone" contacts and not "Google" contacts. Is there a way to convert all of my contacts to the "Google" format?

Basically all I really want to do is be able to manage my contacts from my computer. It's the fastest and easiest way for me to clean things up. Everything synced perfectly with my old Blackberry... You'd think it'd be easier to sync with a Google-based phone...

 

[llhannah913]

Here's what I did to get my Droid contacts converted to Google contacts (i.e. imported into my Gmail contacts which syncs with the phone).

1) Goto contacts
press the menu button (bottom of phone)
select "Import/Export"
select "Export to SD Card"
select "OK" to confirm exporting your contact list to your SD card as a vcf file.

2) Tether your Droid to you PC via the USB cable (that is a component of the AC charger).

3) Open browser and log into Gmail.
select the "Contacts" link
select the "Import" link
browse and select the vcf file saved to your phone's SD card
select "Import"

Note: The import process will reconcile and merge the Google contacts that were on your phone when you exported your contacts to the SD card.

That's it! Provided the settings on your phone are set to sync with Google contacts, what was once your "Droid-only" contacts now become (are somehow converted to) "Google contacts".

I hope this helps!

I did everything above, and it worked to a certain extent. However, not all the information was copied over to my gmail contacts. I have Facebook info synched with my Droid contacts and that information does not get copied over to my gmail contacts. Is there a way to make sure ALL of the contact info on my Droid gets copied over to gmail contacts?

 

[cristina.wiedenbeck@gmail]

How do I get my contacts from my phone to my gmail account for back up?

 

[MiseEnPlace]

Here's what I did to get my Droid contacts converted to Google contacts (i.e. imported into my Gmail contacts which syncs with the phone).

1) Goto contacts
press the menu button (bottom of phone)
select "Import/Export"
select "Export to SD Card"
select "OK" to confirm exporting your contact list to your SD card as a vcf file.

2) Tether your Droid to you PC via the USB cable (that is a component of the AC charger).

3) Open browser and log into Gmail.
select the "Contacts" link
select the "Import" link
browse and select the vcf file saved to your phone's SD card
select "Import"

Note: The import process will reconcile and merge the Google contacts that were on your phone when you exported your contacts to the SD card.

That's it! Provided the settings on your phone are set to sync with Google contacts, what was once your "Droid-only" contacts now become (are somehow converted to) "Google contacts".

I hope this helps!

Thanks! After spending 'several' days trying to convince Google that the acct was mine, and not some random bot in Nigeria, I was skittish to just allow the Gmail contacts to sync. Mine had be deleted from Gmail. As for the Facebook contacts, shoot they can sync on their own.

 

[jab0321]

For one, sorry for resurrecting an old thread but I was trying to fix "Contacts from Droid were not syncing up to gMail but was syncing down from gMail to Droid".

Took me a few hours to figure out why I couldn't get this to work. I finally figured it out.
The reason why my contacts were not syncing from the phone to gMail was because my contacts were set to "phone" and not "google". I noticed that when I deleted all my contacts after I exported them to SD card and imported them back in. When I imported them back in from SDcard, it gave me a choice on whether to import the vCard to "Google" or "Phone" and I chose "Google." After it imported all my contacts back, I noticed it was syncing to gMail. After a few minutes, I logged in my gMail, and viola!!!! My contacts were in gMail.

1) Backup contacts to SDCard by: Contacts > Menu > Import/Export
2) Delete all contacts
3) Import all contacts from SD card
4) When it asks, choose "Google"
5) Done


I hope this helps a few of you out there (if you're still having this problem)

This seems to be the easiest way to solve the problem. Before I do this, I was wondering after deleting all of the contacts on the phone, does it delete all of your text messages as well?
Thanks

 

[jab0321]

I believe I have found the problem with the "deletions" issue being discussed. I too have noticed that when I created a contact on my phone, but then later deleted it using Gmail, the contact would still appear on my phone.

The issue is related to the Groups within the contact list on your phone. Whenever a contact is made with your phone it adds it to your Google group as well as your Phone group. The Google group is the one that syncs with Gmail. When you delete the contact with Gmail, it IS deleting the contact from your Google group on your phone but NOT your Phone group. So if your Contacts setting is set to show "All Contacts" it will still appear since it is still in the Phone group.

The default setting (on my phone anyway) is to add contacts to both groups. It won't let me "uncheck" the box to keep it from adding new contacts to the phone group. Does anyone know how to prevent new contacts from being posted to both groups?

Ahhh! This is exactly right! After trying all the different suggestions listed here including wiping my phone, this is all that you have to do. When I make a new contact I just set it as a google contact and then it sincs with gmail. I did import all of my phone contacts to gmail first and then google sinced them with my phone without me having to import anything. Did a test and created a new contact on my phone, checked gmail and it was there. Then deleted it from my computer and it was gone from my phone. Thank you for this!

 

[JumpingF00l]

To test this flaw, I simply created a contact in contacts called "test". I saved it and then logged into gmail and went into contacts to see that "test" is there. I immediately created in gmail a new contact called "test2" and after saving it checked my phone and saw "test2" on it.

To summarize, THERE IS NO FLAW...

Here are a few things you can try if your phone wasnt properly set up at verizon.

http://androidforums.com/motorola-droid/15069-contacts-dont-really-synchronize.html#post90296

Hope that helps
​

There's definitely a flaw...otherwise I'd have the 795 contacts that are on my phone showing up in gmail, rather than 250. If I manually enter contacts in gmail, they'll show up on my phone, but not vice versa.

 

[Kat_Berlin]

Same here - sync just works one way.

I used an app that reads business cards. I transfered that contact to the google account part of my contactfunction because I don't want it in my phonecontacts list. It showed up where I wanted it: Under google contacts. My two way sync with my (new) googleaccount is on and a few mintues later that contact, instead of being added to my google contacts is deleted. It seems that the status quo of google contacts is imposed on my phone and not the other way around.

I have spent days trying to make my phone work with my Mac. I managed but having to work around problems like this is not what I paid 300Euros for. I read part of that one page explanation that is further up this thread but I only understand half of it.
One more email to Samsung Support - if there is no easy way of fixing this I'm returning my phone and will get an iPhone after all.
My life is just to short to spend three hours trying to get one contact to stick in my damn phone!

 

[Kat_Berlin]

I just got a Droid yesterday and had a little problem today because I did not appear to have access to the contacts that were originally on my previous phone - I did have them ported over.

The only contacts I had available were the ones I had entered into my gmail account. I just figured out that my contacts from my Droid were synced to my gmail account, but were added as "other contacts" only "my contacts" are available on the Droid. You can fairly easily move contacts from other contacts to my contacts just search for the contacts through gmail...

Thought this might help someone else...

I added the new contact into My Contacts - the synching process with my google contacts account still deleted it

 

[gulanren]

I want to know this too.

I'm more concerned about when I add a number while I'm out...I want it to be synched with My Contacts.

Also, if I delete a contact, I'd like to delete in My Contacts as well.

I have the same concern. I figured that out. Google does not sync your phone contacts. So when you add a new contact using your phone, just make sure that you select "Google" in the contact type. It will sync with gmail when you execute "sync".
I tried that it works.

 

[jm0990]

make sure that you select "Google" in the contact type. It will sync with gmail when you execute "sync".

Thanks! I easily wasted 30 minutes trying to figure out why I could sync from gmail to phone, but not from the phone to gmail. I completely overlooked that button at the top of the 'create new contact' screen. I was afraid for a few minutes because I thought I would be stuck using the 'manual' sync using the import/export to/from sd feature.

 

[apratt2004]

hey everyone. i just got on board with android 2 days ago from an iphone 4. i was trying to figure out to put contacts in my google account and here are two ways i found out.

1. if you are trying to import from address book (on a mac) you want to open address book, then select all vcards and save them to the desktop.
then you want to go to your gmail account, select contact and select import. you will select the vcards from the desktop and it should import. don't know how to do it on a windows but i am assuming pretty much the same thing with the address book on windows.

2. if you are trying to get the contacts off your phone into google first make sure you have an empty sd card. insert sd card into phone. go to contacts. select the more options button (i guess, the 4 square button on bottom of phone)
then select share name cards. select all the ones you want to go into your google account. then email it to yourself. now on your computer go to your google account, open email and select import to contact and it should be there. i really hope this helps someone.

 

[tblack]

Kind of just skimed through all the posts so sorry if this was already said. I was trying to figure out the same thing tonight. All I did was go to my contacts list, click the settings button then import/export,click send name card via.. selected all my contacts and then chose gmail. I just emailed it to myself, logged into gmail on my pc clicked on the attachment and gmail asks you if you would like to import all contacts. pick yes and they should all be there. I guess you have have to do this for each new contact you add to your phone but at least you have them backed up in your gmail.

hope this helps

 

[ameenoluajayi]

Here's what I did to get my Droid contacts converted to Google contacts (i.e. imported into my Gmail contacts which syncs with the phone).

1) Goto contacts
press the menu button (bottom of phone)

KEOLA's instructions WORK. In addition after importing your contacts to GMAIL. Click on the "MORE" button. It will display a drop down menu. Select
"Find & Merge duplicates" it will take care of all your duplicates without you having to delete them one by one.

ALSO when you want to add new contacts CHOOSE save at google instead of phone/backup assistant.

 

[simon987]

Jordan Life: Droid X: Adding contacts to corporate directory (exchange)