I searched for an answer a few days ago, and didn't find one. I kind of figured out how to do it so I'd figure I'd share with others who didn't know.
I've read how everyone seemed to be pretty frustrated with the groups tab in our contacts and I shared the same frustration because I like to send mass text messages to my employees...
The groups tab only allowed you to add people from your phone memory, and won't let you pull from synced accounts like fb Gmail myspace corporate accts etc.
Like most people on here.... Most of your contacts were synced to your phones... Meaning... You had no contacts in the phone's memory.
so.... Fooling around with my phone tonight, I tried to find a solution...
I found one! Kind of...
When in your contacts.... Hit the menu key, and click on export contacts (to sd).
Once exported to the sd card, click on menu again and click import contacts (from sd).
Be careful not to interrupt the phone as is imports your contacts, or you'll do what I did and stop it halfway and have to do it all over again, causing duplicate phone entries (lots of clutter).
The phone automatically linked most (probably 90%) of the imported contacts with the existing ones.
Now go back to the groups tab, add a group, and add members to the group (now that all of your contacts are now in the phone's memory).
Now for the "kind of" part of my post....
When in the messaging app... When sending a new Group text mssg, Click on groups.... It takes about 8 seconds (seemed like forever, I thought my phone froze) to load the groups... Then when you select the group, you have to individually select the contacts within the group....
Talk about time consuming!
I was hoping that when I clicked on the group, that it would at least automatically select everyone within that group.
So.... Now I gotta figure out how to send a group text with not so many clicks and in a timely manner...
Hey this is great but unfortunately I had my import interrupted part way through also and not all contacts came through. What did you do to clean up after you imported a 2nd time??
You can also use Samsung Kies.i had a100 or so contacts synced with Exchange. I installed Kies. I then synced my contacts to Outlook and back to my phone (errr, something like that). Anyways, it did as you said and linked my contacts, but I went one step further. I then removed my Exchange account to clearall the duplicate contacts, and then setup my Exchange account again without syncing contacts. I hardly every add contacts via Outlook. Usually always done straight to the phone so this works for me as long as I sync every few months.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App
bruins6020 said:
Hey this is great but unfortunately I had my import interrupted part way through also and not all contacts came through. What did you do to clean up after you imported a 2nd time??
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i shared the same fustration...
hahaha... all i did was... do the import process all over again
thus creating about 500 duplicates! what a pain!
luckily, the phone automatically links duplicate names...
it just gets really cluttered when you have gmail, fb, myspace, corporate, and phone entries...
the worst part is... the max each person can be linked is w/ 5 accounts...
so when i imported 1 and a half times, i had a few duplicate entries because it exceeded the 5 links/contact.
what a pain... i went through one by one to clean it up... im dooing a letter a day...
Related
I find that a percentage of my contacts do not display. But if I do a search, I can find them in contacts.
Contacts are set to display Google contacts, and the contacts are in my Google My Contacts. They have phone numbers, and email addresses.
Anyone else see this, and have you found a fix?
I wonder if a different contact program will help.
I was experiencing a similar problem; however, mine was associated to having grouped certain contacts in other groups, such as 'Coworkers', but those contacts were not actually in 'My Contacts'.
My fix was by going to my google contacts online, going to 'All Contacts', Selecting 'All' and 'Moved to My Contacts'. Within a few seconds, the phone refreshed and all is well.
Well Darn!!!
Now, I'm back to not having all contacts show up on the list. Even though they are in My Contacts.
I just tried another fix: I cleared them all through Manage Contacts, and let it synch again. But still no go.
I may try another contact program, but I serious doubt that will help.
[SIGH] [/SIGH]
[EDIT]
I just discovered something else. First let me say, all this thread is initiated by the same contact not different ones. It is my wife who has been appearing/disappearing. No comments now ...
I found her in the list, but it has her last name as first name. But looking at the other contacts, they are fine, for the most part. But I do see some others with this problem.
So the issue is trying to figure out why Google Contacts mixes up the front/last names.
ewingr said:
I just discovered something else. First let me say, all this thread is initiated by the same contact not different ones. It is my wife who has been appearing/disappearing. No comments now ...
I found her in the list, but it has her last name as first name. But looking at the other contacts, they are fine, for the most part. But I do see some others with this problem.
So the issue is trying to figure out why Google Contacts mixes up the front/last names.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's simple
The phone contacts from SIM card and have mixed up last and first name. Synced from Google have proper order. And if you have the same phone number in any SIM card contact and phone book contact, you will discover some strange things too. Incoming call screen will use information from phone book, but history will use SIM card info.
So I fixed this issue - just deleted all contacts from SIM card
You have to check to see what "Group" they are in. I had the same issue for a while. Some were in Group work, some were in friends, some were in family, etc. I had to go into my gmail account and then fix all my contacts' info in there, then re-sync and it's worked fine from then on.
Thanks guys. I"m going to delete the SIM contacts.
Regarding groups: I was in fact 30 seconds ago looking again and notice I had my daughter in the Family group and in My Contacts.
The contacts book on the Captivate (don't know if it is Android, or Samsung) is strange. When I select groups at the top, it just has "Google Groups" as selection, as opposed to each separate group. She does show up there, and all groups are intermixed.
I installed Phonebook 2 contact manager, and on it I do have the various groups, but they are not populated.
Seems its messed up. I just cleared all contacts and let it resynch. Didn't help.
Just tried to find how to erase contacts from SIM, not finding how to do that. All I find is how to copy them to or from the SIM. I suspect I need another special app.
Contact Issues
I am also having issues with contacts and groups. It looks to me like an issue with the address book in the phone. I had a brand new SIM with no contacts, a wiped phone and sync'd with gmail contacts. They all appear to be there but none of my groups show up, just a gmail group that I didn't create.
I even tried using the AT&T Address book and syncing to the phone, still couldn't get groups to show.
I am pretty sure the issue is with the contact manager on the captivate. I was using the gmail contacts with the Aria I had for a few weeks before I returned it for the captivate and everything, including groups, worked perfectly.
I really hope we can get this resolved, I have several hundred contacts and really depend on groups. There was another thread that said if you used the phone storage and manually did everything on the phone it would show properly. With this many contacts that isn't even an option!
I too want it resolved.
I tried installing a different contacts program and same thing. But I suspect it uses the contacts DB that is native to the phone.
I'm a bit surprised there are not more posts or issues from others on this issue.
Somehow my new Inspire synced with facebook, google, outlook (I guess) I have five or six entries for everyone. I linked some of them, but is there an easier way to get rid of the duplicates?
volumnus said:
Somehow my new Inspire synced with facebook, google, outlook (I guess) I have five or six entries for everyone. I linked some of them, but is there an easier way to get rid of the duplicates?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Faced with the same issue, I deleted all my phone contacts, removed the contacts sync on all my accounts, and then restored my previously exported up phone contacts backup.
And since the google contacts where all synced earlier, when I compose any email, it still prompts for emails from the previously synced contacts.
Best for u could be to take off the linking. Linking contacts messed up big time for me changing the display names, and not reverting to the one already on phone.
Go into your People app and touch Menu, choose View. Now remove checks from any account which you don't want your contacts displayed. I only have my Google contacts displayed (and have Facebook for HTC Sense only syncing with contacts in my address book for contact pictures). All other accounts (2 exchange, phone, sim, ect) are unchecked so i don't see these duplicates
I spent about two hours linking them all.
Now they only show up as one contact. It seems to be working ok so far. Will this slow down the phone, having so many duplicate, linked contacts?
I had exact same problem as you. What I did:
1. Made every contact show up (google sync, facebook, etc.)
2. Deleted ALL duplicates.
3. Saved to SD Card.
I never had a problem afterwards. I use google as a backup just in case though
I also believe that the duplicates are unnecessary, so I delete them, because I had like 4-5 duplicates for each contact.
Get GO contacts from market. Good app to manage contacts. I had 3000 "contacts" ... Came down to actual value of 200 using the app.
Sent by Skeletor from Castle of Greyskull using XDA Premium App
I have moved contacts from SIM to phone, added contacts over time, and before changing phones, moved all contacts to the SIM creating duplicates. Some I think are from facebook and have no numbers. Some I have up to 5 duplicates.
In display options I have "Only contacts with phone numbers" unchecked with everything below also checked. A particular contact has 6 entries. A couple have numbers, most are empty and one facebook. When I select show only contacts with numbers I get 2. When I go to SIM management to export to SIM I see 6 again. There is no way to distinguish which has a number or any way to filter. All there is, is a checkbox and a name 6 times. I even merged the 5 of them and when I went to export to SIM I saw all of them separately again.
I can't write all 800+ to the SIM so how can I only transfer the ones with numbers attached??? The only way I can delete the contacts without numbers is to open the contact, see if it has a number and delete. I seriously don't want to do that 500 times.
Is there a smart way to write only the contacts with numbers to the SIM? I surely would appreciate the help!
Running 2.3.6
Why are you saving to sim card? Just manage them in contacts app and they sync with Google account between devices. There's an option in Google desktop contacts to merge duplicates.
BTW, sim contacts are stored as one contact per number. So a phone contact with 2 numbers will actually create 2 separate entries when exported to sim card.
I'm looking up Google Contacts and it has been discontinued. I found Google Desktop, but then started running across all these plug-in and fixes for different problems of mismatched databases...
I write them to the SIM so I can switch it another phone and have them all. It's just how I've been doing it since before any back-up capabilities. I suppose I need to open a new email account that doesn't have a couple of hundred email addresses to deal with and no phone numbers. Facebook contacts got copied as a name only because they were an entry I guess. No email address or anything.
I do need to find some way of merging all the duplicates. Do you have another suggestion that's not going to require me to read and dig up a discontinued program that I can continue to use? lol
I'm referring to the contacts in your Google (i.e. Gmail) account, certainly no discontinued and no plugin required, just log into it from a browser and go to the contacts tab. All of your contacts should be synced from your phone and you can find duplicates and merge there, which will then sync back to your phone.
Guess I'm making the assumption that you have a Gmail or Google apps account, which is almost a necessity with an Android device.
^ what he said. Its much easier to manage contacts in Gmail and have it sync over. If you change number or lost your phone no need to ask people for their number ever.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I727 using xda premium
I agree that it's easier to maintain it how you say.
That was nuts! I thought they were already synchronized with gmail, but I guess not. I went through and deleted what I wanted in gmail, then everything in my phone. I went to sync bac and it said it couldn't becuase of too many deleted contacts. I thought, yes, just delete them. Then I watched all my contacts disappear from my gmail account on my PC. Gmail has a cool feature to resore contacts as they were minute by minute. Eventually I got the whole list back and on my phone.
Thanks for the help! Saving them to the SIM is old school now...
I rooted my phone last night and thinking about installing ICS, the second leaked version UCLD2 because I'm not liking the lock screen on 2.3.6. I want to find a setup for my Skyrocket that people are liking, but that's kind of hard.... Hey, here's a great ROM. Camera is broken, WiFi has issues, screen gets stuck in wrong orientation... but it's great! Does't seem to be much out there for the Skyrocket. I was looking in the forum here under my correct phone type. Suggestions? I know, wrong thread, just asking a BTW...
ROM
check out skyrocket Android development for Listing of Roms. I'm using SKYICS
I think that's where I got the UCLD2. I don't like it at all. I don't know if apps don't work because they're not ready, of if it's this version of ICS. People say it sucks for the battery and it's because messaging sits there and uses 90 of the cpu even in my pocket and the phone gets hot for no reason. I'll look up yours. Thanks Raven
Just click menu and merge with google
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I777 using XDA
I have a weird problem - when I go to Messaging and select 'Contacts' to pick a recipient, I see duplicate, triplicate and even 4 contact selections for the same person, and even 'odd' contacts, like for email addresses. But when I go to APPS / CONTACTS, or if I go to Gmail/Contacts, I only see one (and none of the odd ones).
Does anyone know how to 1) clean up the SMS contact list or 2) only have it refer to the 'real' CONTACT list when selected or 3) how to merge them into one contact? I never know if I picked the correct one.
Thanks for any help you can provide.
Frank
Michigan
UPDATE: I figured out that these contacts are stored in Gmail as "OTHER CONTACTS". Not sure how they got there but after deleting them while in Gmail on the PC and SYNCing my S3, they disappeared. Apparently they only appear in Messaging, not in the CONTACTS under APPS or when searching for contacts while making a phone call....
FMinMI said:
UPDATE: I figured out that these contacts are stored in Gmail as "OTHER CONTACTS". Not sure how they got there but after deleting them while in Gmail on the PC and SYNCing my S3, they disappeared. Apparently they only appear in Messaging, not in the CONTACTS under APPS or when searching for contacts while making a phone call....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
A lot of times those are the other contact emails and stuff you never linked and now will have to find those addresses that you have deleted. This is what link contacts is for. You link them together and then save as one in google. Hopefully you merged them together in Gmail instead of deleting them.
prdog1 said:
A lot of times those are the other contact emails and stuff you never linked and now will have to find those addresses that you have deleted. This is what link contacts is for. You link them together and then save as one in google. Hopefully you merged them together in Gmail instead of deleting them.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I never saw any option to link them and in a lot of cases I already had the email address in the 'regular' CONTACT list. That is what was most confusing. If I selected that one, then they would not get the SMS. And a bunch of these were totally unwanted since they were only email addresses send to ???? (some started with sale, or customerservice, or....).
Bottom line, I no longer have crap in my 'Messaging Contact List' and don't have to worry if I selected the correct one (which, in the case of Messaging, would be the one with their mobile number).
Thanks for the reply, and Happy New Year.
Frank
Michigan
What is the best way for me to go through and organize my contacts for my Google account?
My list is so sloppy and looks bad with duplicates, some several duplicates. I know sometimes in the past I would attempt it just with manually deleting and checking all names/numbers and I would often get some sort of message saying I couldn't delete this contact for some reason(I forgot what the reason it said was).
I would prefer to edit this list on my PC, but if this easier done with some sort of app then I'm down. I also want my new organized list to sync across all my devices that sync contacts from my google account.
Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk
On the website (https://contacts.google.com) you can identify duplicates.
You can also export your contacts on your PC (CSV or vCard format).
And you can pretty simply merge duplicates so that if, for example, one has a landline number, a second has a mobile, a third has an address, etc., you can put them all in a single entry with a mouse click.
I was in your position a few months ago and it took me about half an hour to whip my contacts list into shape.
I exclusively use contacts from my gmail/Google account. I never ever have them on the phone or the sim. In case I lose or break or change the phone, I never lose a contact and never have to re-enter them. I'm very OCD about things like that and being able to sit at my PC and standardize all contacts is worth a ton to me. Using the above cited Google contacts link is my preferred method.