[Q] G Mail phone contacts gone - Epic 4G Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

I saved my contacts to google before I switched over to my refurbed replacement epic and formatted the sim card to keep the new phone isolated from the old one. I ended up loosing all of my phone numbers but retained the email contacts. I logged onto g mail on a computer but I see no phone numbers on that page. Is there a way to see them or should I just thank the sprint tec for screwing me. maybe i screwed myself trusting someone that does phones for a living with my data. any help would be greatly appreciated.

wolffer0 said:
I saved my contacts to google before I switched over to my refurbed replacement epic and formatted the sim card to keep the new phone isolated from the old one. I ended up loosing all of my phone numbers but retained the email contacts. I logged onto g mail on a computer but I see no phone numbers on that page. Is there a way to see them or should I just thank the sprint tec for screwing me. maybe i screwed myself trusting someone that does phones for a living with my data. any help would be greatly appreciated.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sounds like the phone numbers were saved to the phone and not your gmail account. When you add a phone number or a contact you need to make sure that you choose save to gmail account when prompted. then when you sign in on a new phone or after doing a factory reset you will get all your numbers back. Do the same for calendar events.
Sprint reps/techs sometimes act like they know more than they really do.

When you have the option to save , you have to try and save to both then? how do you save the existing contacts then not saved to google?

wolffer0 said:
When you have the option to save , you have to try and save to both then? how do you save the existing contacts then not saved to google?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
When saving check the do this by default box and save to google. The only ways I know to get them to google is export them to sd card (you dont have a sim card btw) and them import them back to phone. Go to contacts hit menu then import/export and do your thing. Or go to your gmail on web and add them directly to you contacts there as long as you sync it will add them. Might take a bit if you do it that way unless you manually hit sync, go menu , accounts and sync , tap google account you want, hit menu then sync now.

I did manually sync like you told me to but all of my phone numbers dont go to google. I got 1 contact to google by saving to google though but not the rest. actually i did exactly how you said to sync to google before the phone swap, but I havnt saved to google and thought i was saving them to google by manually sync. (problem is I thought) just like the sprint repair guy.

I need to know how to get them to google before I start rooting my phone the correct way, I thought it was simple in the beginning but now not so simple. I have no idea how I mixed up sd and sim card because I never had a phone with a sim sard ever.must have been a solar flare or something LOL.

wolffer0 said:
I need to know how to get them to google before I start rooting my phone the correct way, I thought it was simple in the beginning but now not so simple. I have no idea how I mixed up sd and sim card because I never had a phone with a sim sard ever.must have been a solar flare or something LOL.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Export contacts to a .vcf file.
Directions if jumping from Epic to new/refurb Epic with contacts in the phone, rather than Google.
On your phone with your contacts:
Contacts shortcut > Menu button > "More" > "Import/Export" > "Export to SD card"
Within Google Contacts webpage:
"Import" (blue bar, near top right of screen) > Browse to the file, either on your SD card or where ever you placed the export on your desktop (if you moved it from your phone.) > Choose which group to import them to. > Import button
After you get this done, anytime you want to create a contact in your phone--just use:
Contacts shortcut > "Create contact" button > Select "Create contact" (You may have this additional step here if you have a 3rd party email app that handles contacts too, like a corporate email client. Otherwise this step is skipped.) > Select "Google" instead of "Phone"

wolffer0 said:
I did manually sync like you told me to but all of my phone numbers dont go to google. I got 1 contact to google by saving to google though but not the rest. actually i did exactly how you said to sync to google before the phone swap, but I havnt saved to google and thought i was saving them to google by manually sync. (problem is I thought) just like the sprint repair guy.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Manual sync will only work if they are saved to google, Thats why I said go to google on web and add them there then manual sync them to phone should double the contact name i.e. you have joe saved to phone and joe saved to google not joe saved to phone AND google. If you still have an old phone with the contacts on it you could take it to sprint and have them transfer them over for you. When I did that it automatically saved them to google.
EDIT: Sounds a bit dickish didnt mean it that way sorry
wolffer0 said:
I need to know how to get them to google before I start rooting my phone the correct way, I thought it was simple in the beginning but now not so simple. I have no idea how I mixed up sd and sim card because I never had a phone with a sim sard ever.must have been a solar flare or something LOL.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It happens

Ok its confirmed. I screwed myself. It has been a hard lesson because now I have to wait for everyone to call me to make a new contact. And it seems like I will have to back up my wifes and my contacts with the sv file thingy. Thanks for the info and if anyone sounded like a **** I can shop talk all day long but I am trying to stay on track these days because starting wars does nobody good. Thanks for the patience and great answers that are simple but not really taught to well in the book

Ahhhh I feel for there no spare phone is a bummer I always keep my old one with contacts in it for just such a thing. Sorry I couldnt be more helpful on this.

Export contacts to sd card. Then go to new phone that yu have the gmail account on and import tem. Choose the location as google and it will save your contacts to gmail.... the tech isn't responsible for making sure that you properly back up your contacts. If you say yea I did that's all he is goin to worry about...
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App

Really I was straight forward with the guy and told him I didn't know squat about it. This is the first android phone and am new to it . I will know better next time.

Related

Help with phone book

Hi new to forum and to the world of the smart phone ( so please be kind )
I picked up my new phone yesterday HTC Desire
so far so good but one thing annoys me that i cant fix
The phonebook is rubbish as it the first name of the person is not the first word in the phone book
as in :- John Smith Mobile is :- Mobile Smith John
is there any way to switch this round ??
Thanks
Funnily enough, I was just about to post some issues about the phone book and you beat me to it!
With regards to the swapping round of first/last names, I think your only option is to go in and manually change each entry. I've had this before and in GMail (I think) is makes a good guess what is first and last name. Sometimes when syncing between devices and the cloud, especially on the first time, the devices don't agree what is first and what is the last name.
Though I hope I'm wrong and you don't have to manually change everything.
Cleargrey said:
Though I hope I'm wrong and you don't have to manually change everything.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am not very good with phones (but I am learning )
I also hope we don't have to manually change as i have over 200 people on my phone book.
Believe me, I feel your pain. I'm decently versed in how syncing contacts can mess up as I've done it to varying degrees on past phones.
I've had all contacts duplicated and had to sit there for the evening deleting contacts. Over dinner, deleting contacts.
I've had to go in manually and correct contacts and change around details.
Probably the biggest piece of advice I can give you or anyone, is:
Before you do anything major, even syncing with a new device, backup (export) your online contacts!
And then:
When you've got your contacts nice and sweet synced between online/mobile device/whatever, backup your contacts!!!
You get a lot more leway for the future!
I had to spend about 40 minutes sorting out my contact list the other day.
Glad I took the time to actually go through and do it, as all my contacts are linked and organised properly, definitely worth doing.
I have just done the same now
how do you put a photo to the number?
stevie_a said:
I have just done the same now
how do you put a photo to the number?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just replied in your thread, but will stick it here too:
People > Tap on the name > Edit > Tap on the camera icon in the top left.
thanks I'm getting there...
Will take a few days to get used to it
Does anyone else have a problem with the some of the contact names 'resetting'?
I originally copied over all contacts from my SIM, and have since linked most of them up to their Facebook profiles. I have set the display name to be the one listed on Facebook, and this works perfectly for the majority.
A couple of contacts keep going back to their name on the SIM, have no idea why...

Small facebook & contact issues

I'm sort of stabbing in the dark here, but my issue is this: When I open my received text messages, the peoples contacts that I have sync'ed with facebook should show their photo. This is how it worked when I first got my phone.
I have done a few factory resets since then, and yesterday loaded a new rom. I loaded my contacts that I had backed up to SD card.
For some strange reason ALL of my contacts have hiphens ( - ) in their phone numbers. I think this is causing some texts to not be delivered.
Also, when in the messages window, all of my contacts photos wont be displayed. But if I go to the people directory they are displayed fine.
Now, is there a way I can delete the cache or similar without factory resetting the rom?
I have rom manager, and I used this to reboot into recovery before loading a new rom. In there was options for deleting cache and things (to be honest I didn't know which was the correct one so I did them all before loading a new rom). Now when I go into rom manager it just loads a sign like this a!
so I cannot try that again.
Thanks for any help given!!
Why did you back up to memory card if they're going to be saved to the cloud via your Google account?
Otherwise I have no answer for your question.
Sent from my HTC Desire using XDA App
I had all sorts of problems with the facebook integration.
The magor one I had was that the phone would automatically use the facebook phone number and not the one in the phone which was very annoying when people put fake numbers in their facebook profile or don't update for their new number and also all the numbers had a +44 on them which meant my phone wouldn't dial them at all!
My advice is remove your facebook account and see what happens. The try adding it again. If the problems persist then keep it removed. Life will be easier without your phone and facebook contacts being merged and updated all the time... trust me!
Phil
Thanks for your replies.
Regarding the backing up of contacts, does anyone recommend a GOOD FREE app for backing them up? I simply do not wish to use Google to back up my contacts. They are personal, and I would prefer to keep them on the phone. Google contacts is pointless to me.
If you would like Google contacts I have no say but I would rather not have my contacts spread out all over the place, with different versions etc...
It's going to take me forever to edit everyones phone number, and each time I flash a ROM I'll need to do it again..
Worst still, since flashing PaYs ROM the Google sync actually worked for the very first time since receiving the phone - So, now Google contacts has all of my contacts but the phone numbers have dashes is ( - ) which is wrong. Like the person above me, us in the UK have issues when dialing strange numbers!
Google contacts is fine, means you never have to worry about them being backed up as it's automatic...otherwise you've gotta sync them with yur email client on your PC which is hassle...I was a stickler for backing up to Outlook but now use Google...
The dashes come up after restoring contacts from the SD card...don't know why it does it but it can't be removed (another reason not to back up to sd card)
while in the htc people app, just press menu button then you can export your contacts to your sd card, which you can then later on import again.
Flaggie said:
while in the htc people app, just press menu button then you can export your contacts to your sd card, which you can then later on import again.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Can you please explain the point of this post? Is that a French flag?
dieselboy said:
Regarding the backing up of contacts, does anyone recommend a GOOD FREE app for backing them up? I simply do not wish to use Google to back up my contacts. They are personal, and I would prefer to keep them on the phone. Google contacts is pointless to me.
If you would like Google contacts I have no say but I would rather not have my contacts spread out all over the place, with different versions etc...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You asked for a way to back up your contacts without syncing them with google contacts, I provided you with a way to save them without having to use any app.
(it's the dutch flag, just made the World cup soccer finale)
Flaggie said:
You asked for a way to back up your contacts without syncing them with google contacts, I provided you with a way to save them without having to use any app.
(it's the dutch flag, just made the World cup soccer finale)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Fair play, but it is this way of backing up contacts that is giving us the problems as per post #1 and this discussion
I have done a few factory resets since then, and yesterday loaded a new rom. I loaded my contacts that I had backed up to SD card.
For some strange reason ALL of my contacts have hiphens ( - ) in their phone numbers. I think this is causing some texts to not be delivered.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Congrats on the world cup. I have stopped paying attention since we lost.
sorry my bad, i'll let you guys get back at it
Try contact2sim
Limitation of course is the small sim memory for numbers only.
Astro file manager has some backup capabilities. HTC sync....
Sent from my HTC Desire using XDA App

how to delete contacts off of t-mobiles server??

Well some how some way I either had numbers in there before or they managed to sync from another phone how do I delete them?? There's numbers there I don't want one my phone period.
turboyo said:
Well some how some way I either had numbers in there before or they managed to sync from another phone how do I delete them?? There's numbers there I don't want one my phone period.[/QUOT
If they are in your t-mobile contacts I think you have to log into your account via a pc and delete them. You can als hide them from your "contacts app" view if you go int contacts' pull up your menu and hit view. Then uncheck anything that you dont want to show up in your contacts.
Not sure if any of that helps, but hopefully it will.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I deleted them from online but I guess they loaded at some point before and now they won't come off even after hitting tmobile sync (and it being stuck on eternal sync). The view thing works but only within the contacts app. From the dialer the numbers still come up and from text messaging app they still come up..so frustrating I have people numbers coming up on the dialer that I don't use or want to see or be seen and I'm stuck with them..ridiculous.
Delete them from faves.
sk8rbebop said:
Delete them from faves.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
theres nothing in faves Im not getting double notification im getting old numbers (like ex gf and friends) come up on the dialer when dialing and its really aggravating.
turboyo said:
theres nothing in faves Im not getting double notification im getting old numbers (like ex gf and friends) come up on the dialer when dialing and its really aggravating.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Go to contacts and press Menu. Select view and deselect T-Mobile. Temporary fix till you go online and hopefully sort it out with T-Mo website...
Thats been done too they still come up whenever you type it in the dialer and in the text app.. I deleted them from tmobile server checked on the tmobile to sync and still nothing, they remain. I also deleted all the data from every app that says tmobile on it in the stock app manager. Its just a bug or something, I thought someone would maybe know where there data is located on the phone or something.. Im sure Ill be fine if I wipe but its a bit ridiculous thats what it has to come to.
I had this problem. I had to go into Contacts and choose to view all the contacts I didn't want. Then I deleted all of them by pressing Menu -> Delete and choosing all of them.
Silly question, maybe, but are you sure they're from t-mobile's servers? Could they be on the SIM card?
One thing I found that helped me was to open the contacts list, hit menu > view, to see which contacts are saved where and how they're linked up. I then unlinked all the t-mobile contacts and deleted them manually. Then I turned off t-mobile sync. Finally, I went online and delted all the contacts from t-mobile's crappy servers. They really have a sorry mess of old and new websites crammed together over there and need to do something about their whole system.

[Q] Help?! 50 contacts limit cant save more then that.

I just noticed that people/contacts can only export 50 contacts from my phone. I noticed this because i saved the same number many times an upon exporting it gives me the 1/50 until it reaches 50/50 contacts exported to sd card, i also created dummy contacts to see if they get saved but they didn't, they showed on phone but trying to export they never show up. Ive lost several numbers that way thinking i was saving them then resetting my phone then importing them back in only to find out never got saved besides the original 50.
I have no clue right now where to start to fix this any one had similar problem that can help?
It may not be the answer or resolution you are looking for but I would highly recommend just syncing your contacts with google. Then you don't even have to worry about it because once you sync them, google will save and restore them with no need for interaction. Automagically if you will
sad face
elegantai said:
It may not be the answer or resolution you are looking for but I would highly recommend just syncing your contacts with google. Then you don't even have to worry about it because once you sync them, google will save and restore them with no need for interaction. Automagically if you will
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thats what the sprint rep told me. Rather save personal things offline to do myself. Really thats just a cop out with the price of the phone and its stature of a super phone.
Imagine the 1st landline phone people used and it gives you problems, you write to the company and they write back saying hey at lest you can scream out your window and they will be able to hear you.
he also told me to take it into a sprint store for them to trouble shoot. Now i have to root the phone back and put stock. major hassle. Unless there is a solution i can take to avoid all that. After that most likely i'll get new phone with stock 2.2 that cant be rooted as of yet.
I can tell you that i have never seen your problem before. I'm a tech at Sprint and i have done many contact export and imports, sometimes several hundred contacts and never had a problem unless it was the sd card.
You said that you might take to a Sprint store but will have to unroot and flash to stock first. Before taking it into Sprint, try going back to stock and see if that fixes the issue. Could be a rom issue that no one else is noticing or not reporting with whatever rom you might be running.
Also, thats not really a cop out when people suggest using google to backup your contacts. Thats how the phone was designed to work. If you must have that physical backup, then just backup your contacts to google, then import to outlook. Not the solution you wanted to hear I'm sure, but it's another alternative.
zer0-1ne said:
Thats what the sprint rep told me. Rather save personal things offline to do myself. Really thats just a cop out with the price of the phone and its stature of a super phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
stillryan said:
Also, thats not really a cop out when people suggest using google to backup your contacts. Thats how the phone was designed to work. If you must have that physical backup, then just backup your contacts to google, then import to outlook. Not the solution you wanted to hear I'm sure, but it's another alternative.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Also, if you just sync with Google, you can export straight from Google into a couple different formats.
thx
stillryan said:
I can tell you that i have never seen your problem before. I'm a tech at Sprint and i have done many contact export and imports, sometimes several hundred contacts and never had a problem unless it was the sd card.
You said that you might take to a Sprint store but will have to unroot and flash to stock first. Before taking it into Sprint, try going back to stock and see if that fixes the issue. Could be a rom issue that no one else is noticing or not reporting with whatever rom you might be running.
Also, thats not really a cop out when people suggest using google to backup your contacts. Thats how the phone was designed to work. If you must have that physical backup, then just backup your contacts to google, then import to outlook. Not the solution you wanted to hear I'm sure, but it's another alternative.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you will do. Will try that 1st.
mistersquirrle said:
Also, if you just sync with Google, you can export straight from Google into a couple different formats.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks never synced anything with Google before and didn't know it had different options to export, was thinking of the issue at hand never thought of an interim in the mean time until i get the solution fixed. thanks.
Ill post back here of/if any solution.
zer0-1ne said:
Thanks never synced anything with Google before and didn't know it had different options to export, was thinking of the issue at hand never thought of an interim in the mean time until i get the solution fixed. thanks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah. Google recently changed their whole contacts page, but just go to contacts > More actions > Export... and then just choose all contacts, and the format:
Code:
Google CSV format (for importing into a Google account)
Outlook CSV format (for importing into Outlook or another application)
vCard format (for importing into Apple Address Book or another application)

[Q] help-get rid of contacts imported from google

so when I changed out my sim card for new sg3 at tmob store, guy told me to import google contacts even though I explained they were on old phone only. Afterwards some contacts now have like 4 contact listings. Kind of a pain...so my question is how can I get my phone to not display my google contacts...I see options for sim only etc...but like i said my previous phone stored them on the phone not the sim. I'd like to not have google contacts showing then somehow move phone contacts to sim card.. Right now I'd have to move all contacts (including google to sim) which I don't want to do for reasons stated.
thx in advance
Select all, deselect the ones you want, delete. That's the fastest way I found. You coulda been done in the time it took to post.....
Go to your Google account settings on the phone and uncheck sync contacts
Sent from my SGH-T999 using Tapatalk 2
Over even just go to the settings of the contacts and change what contacts are displayed.
Sent from my SGH-T999 using xda premium
bfranklin1986 said:
Go to your Google account settings on the phone and uncheck sync contacts
Sent from my SGH-T999 using Tapatalk 2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thank you for posting
so i did that--and should help in the future- but now when i say display contacts on phone they have all already been imported i guess and are still displaying
DinoSoup said:
Over even just go to the settings of the contacts and change what contacts are displayed.
Sent from my SGH-T999 using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
He said he already tried that.
OP seriously... just select all and unselect the ones you don't want to delete. I don't understand waiting days for a solution instead of just taking a few minutes to do it.
androidcactus said:
thank you for posting
so i did that--and should help in the future- but now when i say display contacts on phone they have all already been imported i guess and are still displaying
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That would only happen if you for some reason also copied them to the SIM card. When using smart phones and you have a data plan, I find it incredibly dumb to use only the SIM for contacts... why not just add your SIM contacts to Google, hide SIM contacts and display/sync Google contacts? Contact info on SIM cards is completely archaic.
fermunky said:
That would only happen if you for some reason also copied them to the SIM card. When using smart phones and you have a data plan, I find it incredibly dumb to use only the SIM for contacts... why not just add your SIM contacts to Google, hide SIM contacts and display/sync Google contacts? Contact info on SIM cards is completely archaic.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I would have no issue using google contacts as opposed to the sim card, but google seems to import EVERTHING! So an example is say Joe Smith, I have Joe Smith cell#, home # etc, and email in my contact for him. Then google creates a second contact which shows Joe Smith email, then a third one for an old Joe Smith email, then a fourth one for Joe Smith biz email.
Thats my issue. So when I go to call Joe Smith, I open one of the listings, ok nope not the one, open another etc...
psykhotic said:
He said he already tried that.
OP seriously... just select all and unselect the ones you don't want to delete. I don't understand waiting days for a solution instead of just taking a few minutes to do it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I hear you with the select all then deselect ones I need to keep. Problem is, google imported like everyone I ever emailed, and each different email address for a person is now listed as a separate contact under the same name..The one I need is not always listed first...(see my previous reply for some color on it)

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