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Finally figured out how to add to "groups"in contacts

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??
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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...

Edit Contacts Nightmare

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?
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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.
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[Q] Contacts Management & Duplicates

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

Messages and Contacts will not sync to Gear S3 Frontier

Hello,
I have tried factory resetting my GS 8+ and the watch to start from scratch, but the watch will NOT pull contacts from my phone or sync messages. At this point, I feel there is nothing more I can do, so I am asking here.
Is there some magic I can pull to get this to work? Sucks I cant look at conversations or contacts on my watch.

Anyone?

psufan5 said:
Anyone?
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Click to collapse
Hello, I'm now experiencing the same issue with a Note 8 and upgrade to Tizen 4 on a Gear 3, did you get a resolution to this issue? Thanks.

Same here, except for contacts, they came back after I reinitialized the watch again...

Hello all, so following a comment regarding new contacts got transferred to the Watch, I thought what can I do for all my contacts be transferred to the watch. I thought what can I do, well deleted my contacts in my all accounts. So I did the following, but use at your own risk:
1. Backed up all my contacts in all my accounts on respective websites, google, office etc.
2. Tested I could restore above backups
3. On my phone, deleted all the contacts in all my accounts
4. Wait until the accounts resysnc
5. Import backed up contacts into each account
6. Wait until the accounts resysnc on your phone
7. Wait until the accounts resysnc on your watch
8. Repeat 5-7 for each of your accounts
Hopefully a fix will be released shortly.

Got them to show up!
So, I basically did what cabbage65 did.
It appears that the only contacts that were showing on my galaxy S3 classic watch were the ones I added AFTER the tizen 4.0 update. So, we need a way to "re-add" all of our current contacts. Just back them up, delete your contacts, then import them from the back up file.
-I backed up my contacts from google to a .csv file (after you export it, make sure the file has all the info in it before you delete google contacts! Jut open it up and see); exporting is incredibly easy to do, once in google contacts, click on "more" on the left side menu and "export" should be there.
- delete all your contacts; simply select one, then on top menu you'll see a few new icons to click, one will give you select all options. then delete them.
- after that, go back to that "more" options on the left side menu, and you'll see "import" right next to where export was.
The only thing that sucks is you can't back up and import profile pics. So if you have any pics, you'll have to reapply them. I had 340 contacts, all are now showing up on my watch after this process (non with profile pics). I had profile pics for about 40 of them, which, when I have time, will do from my PC on google contacts instead of my phone. But this process works, no ifs, ands, or buts. And the profile pics do sync to your watch if you add them after importing contacts. I have tried it and it works like a charm.
Good Luck!

Contacts won't sync, last sync date 5 months old

Rogers s8+
Latest software build info attached. No roms or root etc.
Completely stock except for Nova launcher.
I have approx 980 contacts on phone, google only has 928 on contacts.google.com for account#1
Issue.
Contacts will not sync, last successful sync was in May.
Troubleshooting, various steps
Rebooted many times.
Toggled sync on and off.
Left off for weeks.
Exported contacts from primary account#1, imported to second account#2 on device that had handful of contacts and synced successfully. Now fully imported account#2 doesn't sync. Toggle on off. Nothing hung.
Seems there is a corrupted contact causing this, I've tried the Google forums but they suggested to remove account and readd.. Except that will lose all my contacts on the device and there's no way I know to check the export file for consistency. So I can't risk losing a bunch of contacts.
Not sure what to do other than manually verify which of the 980 contacts aren't synced and add them online...

Sync on PC then will work on phone

1
AndrOmega said:
Sync on PC then will work on phone
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Sorry can you explain what you mean? I normally use a Mac but can find a windows pc if needed. Are you saying use Samsung desktop app to sync? Sorry.. Confused.

On a PC or Mac go to google.com and in upper right corner of the page you have Google apps. Search for contacts .

AndrOmega said:
Sync on PC then will work on phone
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AndrOmega said:
On a PC or Mac go to google.com and in upper right corner of the page you have Google apps. Search for contacts .
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've been to contacts.google.com it tells me I have less contacts than on my phone.. Not sure what you're suggesting.
I added a contact on contacts.google.com and it synced downward btw. I also added one on my phone and it's synced up. But there's still a difference in number of contacts. Weird.

Download "contacts sync fix" in the play store. I had the same issue and it worked for me. Make sure you export the contacts as a backup in case something goes wrong.

contacts sync fix by Nikolay R might help

I have the same issue since over one year on one phone.
First easy solution to check, your free space. Yes, I am serious. Below 450MB of free disk space on my FLASH, Android completely refuses to sync. Typically, my email application was saying me "network error"; remove a few pictures, and "network works again". If you have multiple sync issues, this is the first thing to check.
If only contacts refuse to sync, I am also facing this. And in my case, "contacts sync fix" did not help. I did not have time to dig the issue, but in short, I suspect two things:
- the picture may be the root cause
- the Note field may be too long for some contacts
... a part of an error message may comeout in logcat, with the name of the contact causing the error. Note that if only a few contacts trigger an error, all other contacts will be sync; and inside a problematic contact, some fields will be sync.
IE: if contact C triggers the problem, and I add a phone number on one side, then, the new phone number will be propagated, even if the picture, or NOTES are not.
It's critical for me, because I have vital things in NOTES, but, most of the contact details are sync fine.
For me, ATM, I have 6 contacts out of 550 which come out in logcat.
I did not had time yet to dig; things I will try are:
- remove picture on both sides (computer and phone)
- remove any french special char from NOTES, because I could face an ISO-UTF conversion issue.
What I know for sure is that all 6 errors happen on contact I use very often, for people close to me, who have pictures and notes (no I did not attribute a picture to all my 550 contacts; and don't need to write note about everyone I know; only people I see most often have these fields populated)

After 4h of digging ... logcat gave me the number of the contact that were not sync (sort of; it gave me contact ID that I converted into names using sqlite). For those contacts, I have removed all fields except name and picture, and now, my sync is fine.
The problem is not a french letter or UTF; the solution was to REMOVE all fields, so that if there used to be an edition conflict, the conflict is solved by "remove".
After re-creating contacts, I have found that for a given contact number, it may be impossible to propagate the name between Android 4 and Android 7 (through Gmail). If I change the name, then the number, and sync everything, only the number is propagated. When number is edited on a phone, the name shown by gmail is the name shown in the last phone that edited the number. IE, a contact may change name only by changing the number. If number 123456 has name Ab on android 4, and Ac on android 7, the name can be switched on Gmail, by editing the number on one phone or an other. Edition conflicts on numbers are solved by using the last change; but conflicts on names are never solved.
If then I edit name on Gmail, both phones are unable to use the new name. Android 7 is not better than 4.
This issue will not produce any error in logcat.