Merge linked contacts permanently? - Desire General

Hi I was wondering if anyone knows if you can merge together google contacts you've linked together using your desire. So the contacts would be merged in gmail and not just on my phone.
I've searched and haven't found anyone even raise the issue, so I was hoping someone knew if you could do this and if so how?
Thanks for any help.

No luck here either, it drives me crazy that I have contacts for people in 5 different places and I'm too lazy to manually merge them. The damn thing should just automerge and sync them all to google.

Thanks for your response,
I'd wrongly assumed there must be an option to sync the merges back to Google, as like you say that's what it should do, at least now I know to give up looking for the option, cheers.
And unfortunately I'm to lazy to do it manually too (took me long enough to do on the phone)

Once you sync contacts so long as you sync with Outlook/Google it should keep the links. Might take a while at first but once done it should be permanent

Yea I understand that, but I would have liked them to be merged if I looked at the contacts through Gmail on a computer, or if I updated to Froyo without Sense.
So rather than just keep the links, actually merge the contacts, for if I using something other than an HTC phone with Sense.

fozzy010 said:
Yea I understand that, but I would have liked them to be merged if I looked at the contacts through Gmail on a computer, or if I updated to Froyo without Sense.
So rather than just keep the links, actually merge the contacts, for if I using something other than an HTC phone with Sense.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Exactly, I use multiple devices and I want all my contacts centralized and not duplicated.

Ahhh, got ya! So it'd have the info without linking to Facebook you mean?
Suppose you could just update the contact with all info you want on it and sync this with your devices...

Could try using Thunderbird as your pc email client (it has a duplicate contact add on) and something like Zindus to sync with gmail. This way you use your pc to sort your contacts and then sync to gmail, and then gmail to your phone. I've found this to work as long as you keep all of the contacts on Thunderbird under the default group (I created a group/email list and have spent the last two days working out why everyone in the group had disappeared from my phone:|)
Iain
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Sent via the XDA Tapatalk App

EddyOS said:
Ahhh, got ya! So it'd have the info without linking to Facebook you mean?
Suppose you could just update the contact with all info you want on it and sync this with your devices...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yea so for example, because some of my contacts are quite old, they were set up when you could only have one number with a contact so for some i have:
x mobile
x home
x work
so as HTC made it relatively easy I decided to merge these all into one contact.
Likewise for a lot of them I had email addresses stored on my gmail account, and HTC made it relatively easy to link these the email to a contact.
So I now have a set of nicely constructed contacts on my phone, but multiple entries for them in my google account, so would have liked an option to just make the links a permanent merge.
And yea I know I can do this manually, but it took long enough to do this on my phone in the first place, and as I've already said I'm too lazy to do it again. This thread wasn't meant to me moaning, just checking to see if there was a merger option or trick I was missing.
Edit: Thanks Iain I'll have a look at that when I have some spare time

Lol, I know it wasn't a moaning thread - don't think there is the option at the moment. TBH I bite the bullet and have a good prune session every now and then and get Outlook fully up to date and sync off that. I don't sync with Google

Damn, I loved the contact merging on my HTC Diamond, gmail was always up-to-date. Why the hell is HTC not doing the same on Android but just linking.... It looks good on the phone but is a mess in gmail...

If you have multiple Google contacts it's pretty easy to merge them online:
http://mail.google.com/mail/contacts/ui/ContactManager
(have to be logged into gmail to access it )

THX for that hint. But what I loved in TouchFlo was that my gmail conacts got automatically updated with info from Facebook, like the birthdays for example which then also showed up in the Google Calendar. Or when somebody changed mail adress or phonenumber, via TouchFlo these were automatically propagated to the Gogle Contacts.

Think this a FB issue, know they recently changed API access to prevent apps pulling down Birthdays automatically and saving of phone numbers has always been a no no for any apps.
Droid gets around this by preventing saving the number permanently or amending on the device.

Old thread I know, but I was looking to do this and solved it.
-Export your address book on the phone to vcard.
-Email yourself this file. (You may need astro to find it. I used k9 mail and astro)
-Save this file on your PC.
-Goto your google contacts list on your PC.
-Import a vcard. Direct it to this file.
-Google automagically merges the contacts for you.
The unfortunate part is that you still have to manually delete the contacts that were on your phone, but at least everything is in the cloud now. You could just blow away your contacts entirely and resync.

Geekybiker said:
Old thread I know, but I was looking to do this and solved it.
-Export your address book on the phone to vcard.
-Email yourself this file. (You may need astro to find it. I used k9 mail and astro)
-Save this file on your PC.
-Goto your google contacts list on your PC.
-Import a vcard. Direct it to this file.
-Google automagically merges the contacts for you.
The unfortunate part is that you still have to manually delete the contacts that were on your phone, but at least everything is in the cloud now. You could just blow away your contacts entirely and resync.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks, I'll try this later. It's still a problem that's bugging me to death. I keep getting returned 5 or 6 of the same number for a contact. Hopefully this will help.

Geekybiker said:
Old thread I know, but I was looking to do this and solved it.
-Export your address book on the phone to vcard.
-Email yourself this file. (You may need astro to find it. I used k9 mail and astro)
-Save this file on your PC.
-Goto your google contacts list on your PC.
-Import a vcard. Direct it to this file.
-Google automagically merges the contacts for you.
The unfortunate part is that you still have to manually delete the contacts that were on your phone, but at least everything is in the cloud now. You could just blow away your contacts entirely and resync.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Bit of a necromance but ran into this issue with my Desire HD.
Thanks for the solution, can't believe there's not a better way....

I have all my contacts in Gmail. All their numbers and email addresses are in there.
So whenever I edit a contact, it's edited in Gmail. It's pretty much all 'in the cloud'.

I use Outlook categories to keep my contacts clean and manageable. For syncing I am currently using MyPhoneExplorer after coming to grief with HTC Sync.

I've done some research now.
I found the app in the market called: GO contacts
this app can export ALL your contacts, also the ones that your HTC or android found with syncing with facebook, hyves, twitter, whatsapp, linkedin etc.
exported and imported in my gmail, so I have all the contacts in my gmail.
If they now remove their phone number (from facebook in example)
I still have it

Related

Some answers from HTC

I emailed HTC on a few issues so I could get answers straight from them. I'll put them down point by answered point.
Q1. When syncing with your Google account, is it possible to sync with "My Contacts" without syncing with "All Contacts"?
A1. It is not possible to sync just 'My Contacts', it would always be 'Google Contacts, or 'All Contacts'.
(This I already found out from them as it syncs All Contacts first before syncing subgroups. And My Contacts is essentially a subgroup of All Contacts.)
Q2. Is there any way of saving contact vCard (that have been sent to you) to your synced (in my case Google) account? When you are sent a vCal, you have options of where to save it, but no options seem to appear for vCard contact files.
A2. vCards can only be saved as 'My Contacts', they cannit be moved over to 'Google Contacts'. I'm afraid it is not something there is an option for.
Q3. Is there any way of copying/moving a contact saved only on the phone to the set of contacts synced with your Google account? i.e similar to copying/moving from sim to phone, but copying/moving from only on the phone to phone and Google account.
A3. Like in point 2., I'm afraid you cannot change the type of contact once it has been saved, i.e, a Google Contact is always a Google contact, and can't be moved over to My contacts.
Q4. I have noticed that I if I change a birthday for a contact on the phone, the change is always reset to the information held online. Also, I've noticed that if I create a contact on the phone that contains birthday information, that contact will be deleted when the phone syncs. However changing a birthday online will sync to the phone just fine. Am I doing something wrong?
A4. The calender information held online has precedence over the information held on the phone. So if you create a contact with calender information contained within it, when it syncs, the calender information is reomved...as well as the contact information attached. But no, you're not doing anything wrong.
Q5. Regarding the calendar, I have noticed that the Desire will not receive vCal sent via SMS. I am using the same sim card as was in my previous device where I could receive vCal through SMS as well as MMS. Is this a feature of the phone, a setting that I have missed or is the ability to receive vCal via SMS not present?
A5. With regards to vCal, its the latter I'm afraid-vCal cannot be received via SMS, only MMS, Bluetooth or email.
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The only one's that bother me are points 2, 3 and 4. I think we definitely need a way to save contacts sent to us to our synced accounts.
But I don't really get the syncing issue. Maybe he didn't answer my question properly because if you create a contact on the phone without a birthday, it will sync just fine.
The birthday issue is relatively minor. The saving to synced contacts, not so minor.
not convinced by any of those answers whatsoever!
However, not got one at the moment to debunk them.
Mine should arrive tomorrow or the day after, and then i shall be back to prove these answers as wrong, or as a fault in the phone!
Are these really HTC Contact app limitation ... or Google Android limitation related to Google GMail Contacts?
What if we change the contact app to something else from the Market?
Cleargrey said:
I emailed HTC on a few issues so I could get answers straight from them. I'll put them down point by answered point.
Q1. When syncing with your Google account, is it possible to sync with "My Contacts" without syncing with "All Contacts"?
A1. It is not possible to sync just 'My Contacts', it would always be 'Google Contacts, or 'All Contacts'.
(This I already found out from them as it syncs All Contacts first before syncing subgroups. And My Contacts is essentially a subgroup of All Contacts.)
Q2. Is there any way of saving contact vCard (that have been sent to you) to your synced (in my case Google) account? When you are sent a vCal, you have options of where to save it, but no options seem to appear for vCard contact files.
A2. vCards can only be saved as 'My Contacts', they cannit be moved over to 'Google Contacts'. I'm afraid it is not something there is an option for.
Q3. Is there any way of copying/moving a contact saved only on the phone to the set of contacts synced with your Google account? i.e similar to copying/moving from sim to phone, but copying/moving from only on the phone to phone and Google account.
A3. Like in point 2., I'm afraid you cannot change the type of contact once it has been saved, i.e, a Google Contact is always a Google contact, and can't be moved over to My contacts.
Q4. I have noticed that I if I change a birthday for a contact on the phone, the change is always reset to the information held online. Also, I've noticed that if I create a contact on the phone that contains birthday information, that contact will be deleted when the phone syncs. However changing a birthday online will sync to the phone just fine. Am I doing something wrong?
A4. The calender information held online has precedence over the information held on the phone. So if you create a contact with calender information contained within it, when it syncs, the calender information is reomved...as well as the contact information attached. But no, you're not doing anything wrong.
Q5. Regarding the calendar, I have noticed that the Desire will not receive vCal sent via SMS. I am using the same sim card as was in my previous device where I could receive vCal through SMS as well as MMS. Is this a feature of the phone, a setting that I have missed or is the ability to receive vCal via SMS not present?
A5. With regards to vCal, its the latter I'm afraid-vCal cannot be received via SMS, only MMS, Bluetooth or email.
------------------------------------
The only one's that bother me are points 2, 3 and 4. I think we definitely need a way to save contacts sent to us to our synced accounts.
But I don't really get the syncing issue. Maybe he didn't answer my question properly because if you create a contact on the phone without a birthday, it will sync just fine.
The birthday issue is relatively minor. The saving to synced contacts, not so minor.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i have a question regarding point 4
does this mean the whole contact gets deleted or just the calendar entry ?
rhedgehog said:
not convinced by any of those answers whatsoever!
However, not got one at the moment to debunk them.
Mine should arrive tomorrow or the day after, and then i shall be back to prove these answers as wrong, or as a fault in the phone!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'll be waiting! I could do chow down on some more info!
Thanks for the info!
The thing I don't get is this:
A1. It is not possible to sync just 'My Contacts', it would always be 'Google Contacts, or 'All Contacts'.
How can that not be a MAJOR problem?! I got hundreds of mail addresses in there of people I ever wrote to. If they would show up on my phone, that would make the whole sync feature useless.
Or am I missing something?
no entropy, you're not missing anything, it's a major issue to me!
I really hate to have ALL the contacts I wrote to or received a mail from, even for just one time only.
A little work-around is to check the contact option which says something like "only show contacts with telephone number", but it works in Phone contacts only: if you, from the menu, click on search contacts and look for something it will show up with EVERY contact you got in touch on gmail.
It really pisses me off
I am only importing My Contacts on my phone. I don't know how I did it, but I have My Contacts with a few groups,(about 60 contacts) and then I have All Contacts, with over 200 people. None of these show up on my phone...
zonkkk said:
I am only importing My Contacts on my phone. I don't know how I did it, but I have My Contacts with a few groups,(about 60 contacts) and then I have All Contacts, with over 200 people. None of these show up on my phone...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That would be interesting to know!
Are you sure they are not showing just because, maybe, you checked "only show contacts with telephone number"?
Will you test ti by going on the main menu, and click "search contacts" and see you EVERY contact (mail only ones too I mean) shows up?
Thnx
zonkkk said:
I am only importing My Contacts on my phone. I don't know how I did it, but I have My Contacts with a few groups,(about 60 contacts) and then I have All Contacts, with over 200 people. None of these show up on my phone...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
JapanLover said:
That would be interesting to know!
Are you sure they are not showing just because, maybe, you checked "only show contacts with telephone number"?
Will you test ti by going on the main menu, and click "search contacts" and see you EVERY contact (mail only ones too I mean) shows up?
Thnx
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've been a bit troubled by contacts over the past couple of days and been spending a lot of time getting them sorted. All working pretty peachy now but it was a trial.
If may help to read my posts here and here.
goin' home, but will DEFINITELY check your posts!!!
Oh: since you look experienced on GContacts... any clues on progs to sync Outlook other than the good Go Contacts Sync? it works well, but it doesn't updates pics
Haha! Mine arrived this morning while i was at work so took the opportunity to pick it up from home on my lunch break!!
right here we go.
1) bollocks....kinda. It will sync those auto contacts, but you can hide them.
In people, press menu, view.
untick the box next to 'show google auto contacts'
2) bollocks. When you select to import from the SD card, it asks you which account you want to create the contacts under. just select google.
3) bollocks. See answer 2. Export contacts from phone to SD card. Delete copies on phone, import from sd card to google account.
4) i'm still looking at this but i suspect it is linked to facebook. I think it only downloads from facebook and so that overwrites what you put in. if you log out of facebook for HHTC Sense, i suspect the value you put in would appear.
5) this appears to be correct.
However, i happen to know from sources that they didn't have any desire handsets until recently, so don't be too hard on them.
thought, probably just removing the link from a contact to facebook might prove the birthday thing....trying now
Yup, that seems to be it.
When a contact is linked to facebook, you'll see a facebook logo next to their birthday in the contact view (assuming they have put their birthday in)when you actually edit that contact, no birthday is actually saved in the contact.
So it seems that data synced from facebook takes precedence over the local data.
I'll give them bollocks on number 4 because nothing is being deleted at all, and the calendar data seems to be getting synched to google, it's just that the phone will display the facebook data and not the local data.
so that appears to be 4 bollocks out of 5.
And a MAJOR annoyance for me is people tthat have their phone numbers on facebook as just 44xxxxxxx rather than +44xxxxxx or 07xxxxxx meaning you cant send them a text as it fails without the initial + and you can't edit the number as its pulled from facebook.
I have had to unlink several contacts for this reason to get my correct 'local' data to be used insted.
rhedgehog said:
Yup, that seems to be it.
When a contact is linked to facebook, you'll see a facebook logo next to their birthday in the contact view (assuming they have put their birthday in)when you actually edit that contact, no birthday is actually saved in the contact.
So it seems that data synced from facebook takes precedence over the local data.
I'll give them bollocks on number 4 because nothing is being deleted at all, and the calendar data seems to be getting synched to google, it's just that the phone will display the facebook data and not the local data.
so that appears to be 4 bollocks out of 5.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
lol Thanks for that. Firstly, glad you finally have you Desire! The SD card route will have to do for the contacts.
As for the facebook thing, well, I haven't signed in to any facebook account yet as experience has told me to get one set of contacts in working order, and back it up before trying to sync it with another account/system. And still, when I update a birthday on my phone, it won't sync to my Google account. It's not a major thing but it is a minor irritation.
I just did another test of inputting a new test contact into my phone with a birthday (01/02/70) and the contact was deleted on syncing with my Google account. Go figure.
Oh, and it wasn't all bolx! They were half right that you can't directly save a vCard to your Google account. At least give them a one testicle redemption!
ok just to get this straight. it deletes contacts if they have calendar info in them ?
so how do you add new contacts ? first without calendar info, then sync and then go to your google account and change calendar ?
thats just strange and bad
does this only occur for contacts with calendar info in them , or are there other places where this occurs ?
TulpiX said:
ok just to get this straight. it deletes contacts if they have calendar info in them ?
so how do you add new contacts ? first without calendar info, then sync and then go to your google account and change calendar ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
For me, yes. Try it, let me know what happens when you sync up a new contact with a birthday from your phone to your Google account. Or change the birthday of a contact already synced on your phone and let us know if it changes it in your Google account.
just tried it on mine, on a google contact that was not linked to a facebook account.
The phone shows the birthday no problem, but it does not seem to have synched that up to the google account, even after forcing the sync two or three times....
very odd.
I'm experiencing the same exact problem, new contacts simple get deleted.

Birthday reminders in the calendar

I must say that I love my Desire (have had it for about a week), except for some small kinks and I'm not the big fan of the HTC Sense lock-screen (I don't like the vertical "handle", I would much prefer the default Android one.. [any tips to get it is welcome]).
But there is one thing that annoys me, and I don't understand why they didn't implement. And that is birthday "reminders" in the calendar..
I like the HTC Calendar and I "love" the integration between Google Contacts (& Calendar), the phone and Facebook... For me (as a developer) it couldn't be much more work to integrate that into that calendar as well (the data is already there, you just have to show it [more or less..]).
Anybody know if there's a way to "fix" this (a setting I've missed) or a better calendar app that can handle this?
I know that you can include birthday info in your Google Calender from your Google contacts, but that's not "good enough". For one thing, I don't have all my friends (that I have on Facebook) in my Google Contacts and I have no intention to add them to it (or go through them and add their birthdays..)
I'm glad for any input..
All the best to you..
/Chris
(I used "Google [Service]" to be clear on what I was talking about)
I have the same problem. How do i make my device remimd me of my contacts b-day?
thanl you
Sent from my HTC Desire using the XDA mobile application powered by Tapatalk
You have to do it via Google.
First you have to sync your contacts with your Google contacts. The birthday and anniversary details will be carried up to your Google contacts from your phone.
Then switch to your Google calendar. On the left hand side in the Other calendars section, click "Add", select "Browse Interesting Calendars" and click the "More" tab. From the displayed list click the "subscribe" link against "Contacts' birthdays and events."
This adds your contacts' birthdays to your Google Calendar, which when sync'd with your phone will appear on you phone's calendar.
I admit this is not straightforward and I would have liked to have seen the phone do this by itself.
And what can we do with the contacts stored on the phone and no as a gmail contact?
Thanks!
meson1 said:
You have to do it via Google.
First you have to sync your contacts with your Google contacts. The birthday and anniversary details will be carried up to your Google contacts from your phone.
Then switch to your Google calendar. On the left hand side in the Other calendars section, click "Add", select "Browse Interesting Calendars" and click the "More" tab. From the displayed list click the "subscribe" link against "Contacts' birthdays and events."
This adds your contacts' birthdays to your Google Calendar, which when sync'd with your phone will appear on you phone's calendar.
I admit this is not straightforward and I would have liked to have seen the phone do this by itself.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Wonder if someone could help me with this. I had this all setup and it showed my birthdays fine.
Then I added a couple more birthdays to contacts and they didnt show even after syncing rebooting an taking off the calendar and putting it back on.
Now I cannot at all get the calendar to show ANY birthdays. Ive got it all set up right, and i;ve syncd. They show on the google calendar on the laptop here, it shows all tasks and birthdays, however the calendar on the phone doesnt show anything other than uk holidays. Ive messed with every setting possible...HELP!
Julian1984 said:
And what can we do with the contacts stored on the phone and not as a gmail contact?
Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
On your phone you have three types of contacts: SIM contacts, Phone contacts and Google. Obviously, SIM contacts reside on your SIM card; Phone contacts in the phone and Google contacts on Google Mail.
As you have pointed out only Google contacts will synchronize with your Google Mail account. But all is not lost. You won't have to type in all your contact details again because you can link contacts together in the phone.
What you do is to create Google contacts that duplicate each of your phone contacts. Just create each Google contact on your phone with the same name as each existing phone contact. You do not need to include any details, just create them as empty contacts. Once you've done this, they will appear as two separate contacts in the contact list.
Now the magic. For each person, edit either one of their two contacts. You will see that you can link each contact with another contact. If you've used the same name for your Phone and Google contacts it will already be suggesting that these two can be linked together. So link them.
Now you will find your two linked contacts now appear as one in your contact list. And these linked contacts will now synchronize with your Google Mail account contacts and carry all the details from your original Phone contact with them.
Hope this helps.
eboBirthday from the Marketplace. Free.
kevano22 said:
Then I added a couple more birthdays to contacts and they didnt show even after syncing rebooting an taking off the calendar and putting it back on.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I had this too. Only birthdays that were assigned to contacts at the time I created the calendar online show now.
I'm going to try and delete that calendar and re-create it but something is definitely wrong when you subsequently add birthdays after making that calendar.
Right, one thing I've found is that the birthdays I've added on the phone have NOT made their way back into Google's cloud. I've re-entered them in GMail online and re-created the calendar to show birthdays but they still aren't showing, not online and not in my phone!
Right, just re-added the calendar again online and it's now showing in the web calendar. After a refresh of the calendar on the phone, it's now showing there too.
So numerous bugs. If you want to see your birthdays, the process seems to be:
1) Enter them all online in your Gmail contacts
2) Delete then recreate your "friends birthdays" calendar in Google Calendar online
3) Refresh your phone
If you add any new birthdays, you'll need to do this all again. Pretty poor
tifosi256 said:
Right, just re-added the calendar again online and it's now showing in the web calendar. After a refresh of the calendar on the phone, it's now showing there too.
So numerous bugs. If you want to see your birthdays, the process seems to be:
1) Enter them all online in your Gmail contacts
2) Delete then recreate your "friends birthdays" calendar in Google Calendar online
3) Refresh your phone
If you add any new birthdays, you'll need to do this all again. Pretty poor
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
sounds like a horror story - here was i thinking that someone would have written an app to read birthdays from built-in phone contacts ... :-(
mrdo said:
sounds like a horror story - here was i thinking that someone would have written an app to read birthdays from built-in phone contacts ... :-(
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, it's certainly sub-optimal. I'd say the main bug is the phone not sending birthdays entered on it back to Google. The non-refreshing calendar thing I can kind of understand. I guess the additional calendars are assumed to be static (like UK Public holidays etc). Just a guess. I'd heard about the birthday syncing bug on another android phone, kinda hoped it would be sorted on the Desire.
tifosi256 said:
Well, it's certainly sub-optimal. I'd say the main bug is the phone not sending birthdays entered on it back to Google. The non-refreshing calendar thing I can kind of understand. I guess the additional calendars are assumed to be static (like UK Public holidays etc). Just a guess. I'd heard about the birthday syncing bug on another android phone, kinda hoped it would be sorted on the Desire.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks tif I will try it later. Got that birthday program and its cool but I'd like to see them in my calendar too!
tifosi256 said:
Well, it's certainly sub-optimal. I'd say the main bug is the phone not sending birthdays entered on it back to Google. The non-refreshing calendar thing I can kind of understand. I guess the additional calendars are assumed to be static (like UK Public holidays etc). Just a guess. I'd heard about the birthday syncing bug on another android phone, kinda hoped it would be sorted on the Desire.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
For me it takes about 12-18 hour until birthdays are synched with my calendar, but only when i refresh the calendar manually (menu -> more -> refresh)
Try to add a birthday @ google contacts, wait 24 hours, refresh the calendar.
The only way it works for me.
When i add a birthday to a contact (when creating the contact), the contact disappers lol.
@meson1: I thank you for your post, and I guess it could be helpsome for someone but as I said in the original post. I know that you can do that, bit I don't want that.. Don't want to go through and manually add a hundred people to my Google contacts.. First there are already too many posts in there, second: too much work for too litle result and för something that more or less should be given..
I will check out that app. But I'm still looking för a good solution to this problem.. (anybody know if there's än API för the calendar?)
Sent from my HTC Desire using the XDA mobile application powered by Tapatalk
ChaosOfChris said:
@meson1: I thank you for your post, and I guess it could be helpsome for someone but as I said in the original post. I know that you can do that, bit I don't want that.. Don't want to go through and manually add a hundred people to my Google contacts.. First there are already too many posts in there, second: too much work for too litle result and för something that more or less should be given.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm afraid I don't know a way to do this for all your contacts enmasse. My experience with this stuff is limited. I looked into all this shortly after I got my Desire not having had any experience of Google Mail or Android before. After some experimentation that is what I have found.
I do agree that this part of the functionality is extremely lacking and it seems from other peoples' posts that it is also extremely buggy too. I do not like having to go via Google to do this stuff. I think this stuff should be integrated into the phone by itself and then linking to Google and anything else should be an extra.
It's all the more annoying that it's an obvious function to include, but that no-one has connected the dots. Or at least connected them in a technically competant fashion.
If I knew how, I'd knock up a really simple app to let you sync birthdays and anniversaries in the contacts to the calendar. As it is I'm still trying to wrap my head around the Android SDK and Java let alone doing anything practical.
Perhaps there's someone out there that is further up the Android Development learning curve that can put something together.
If I had the time (and not already too many projects to work with) I could perhaps put something together (If I knew there was some nice APIs)...
But I tried eboBirthday and it works ok.. (Far from ultimate and I can't even call it "good"..). First it downloaded all the birthdays from Facebook (and displays it in a extremely plain interface). But I can't say that it went smooth.. It was a bit "buggy" and I got an error at the end (even if it seemed to have downloaded all the info fine).
Then by using eboBirthday Contact Sync (also free in the market) that match my Google Contacts with my Facebook contacts and updated them..
And when I looked at my Google Calendar, the info was already there (no need to remove the Contacts birthdays calendar etc).
And then I just synced my calendar in the phone and now, at least, got all the birthdays for my Google Contacts in my calendar (plus reminders from eboBirthday).

Contacts - google!

I do find the HTC people (contacts) both useful and confusing and have a few questions.
:: I find it a lot easier to edit contacts in my google account on the PC (online) and put contact details like email, phone numbers etc all together under one contact. However, if I do a google contact sync on my phone, it doesn't seem to change anything on the phone when I sync. Is there a way or place to be able to set the sync to change phone details when a change is made online first?
:: It becomes really confusing when you click on a particular contact and then see a list of 6,7 or 8 different contact references for one contact as HTC Sense seems to put all the similar contacts you have together and "linked". Is there a way to try and put all these together and have them as one contact only without manually adding details from one contact reference to another until they all reside under one contact point?
Any other tips greatly appreciated....
If I remember correctly, you can merge contacts in your Google account online. Just tick the duplicates and you should see the option.
Raul Duke said:
If I remember correctly, you can merge contacts in your Google account online. Just tick the duplicates and you should see the option.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yes, but once you've done that, when syncing with the phone it doesn't seem to overide what you have on the phone.
Strange. It does for me.
If I make changes online then sync, I can see my changes.
There is a linked button on the top right in htc people, probably there is the problem.
Found exactly what I've been looking for since I got my desire. I'm absolutely shocked that it's taken this long to find anything and when I have, it's for 1.6 only
http://www.eigo.co.uk/News-Article.aspx?NewsArticleID=62
Anyone know of another app that does this too but for 2.1 or 2.2?
Just to verify - are your contacts in Desire stored as Google contacts or Phone contacts?
ferus said:
Just to verify - are your contacts in Desire stored as Google contacts or Phone contacts?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm looking for something that does EXACTLY what the above app does. I have a mixture of contacts on phone and google. The google ones are okay. Some contacts when I click on edit, show 5 to 7 different contacts I can edit that are linked. one on google and then another 6 on phone. All I am trying to do is find an app (like the one I posted for 1.6) that allow a merge of all those in to my google contact with all the information.
The same issue obviously existed back in 1.6 days and is still here now
Bandare said:
I'm looking for something that does EXACTLY what the above app does. I have a mixture of contacts on phone and google. The google ones are okay. Some contacts when I click on edit, show 5 to 7 different contacts I can edit that are linked. one on google and then another 6 on phone. All I am trying to do is find an app (like the one I posted for 1.6) that allow a merge of all those in to my google contact with all the information.
The same issue obviously existed back in 1.6 days and is still here now
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm not sure this will help you but when I first got my Desire I saved all my contacts as phone contacts.
Later I realized that they are not synchronized with anything (I don't use Outlook) so I decided to make them all Google contacts.
I exported all of them to sdCard and then imported the file through my Google contacts web application.
It's a long shot but perhaps if you did that then you could merge all duplicates directly in the Google contacts app.
I hope my post isn't too confusing
I'll give that a go... thanks
UPDATE: ok, I have done that and it's added the phone contacts and merged those that need to be merged. However, I now have a huge problem
I now have for every contact that needed merging, 10 or 12 records for the same email and/or phone number. Is there a way in the google contacts web to be able to sort and delete duplicate info within a contact? I can't find it and if not, this is going to be a right pain for 900 contacts
Did u set the people app to view Google contact only?. In the people app, press menu and select view. Make sure the check box is viewing Google contact only.
antu_pogroms said:
Did u set the people app to view Google contact only?. In the people app, press menu and select view. Make sure the check box is viewing Google contact only.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
On the phone I exported phone contacts only......
Bandare said:
I'll give that a go... thanks
UPDATE: ok, I have done that and it's added the phone contacts and merged those that need to be merged. However, I now have a huge problem
I now have for every contact that needed merging, 10 or 12 records for the same email and/or phone number. Is there a way in the google contacts web to be able to sort and delete duplicate info within a contact? I can't find it and if not, this is going to be a right pain for 900 contacts
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Merging your contacts created for the same number/email a separate record?
That is strange, it never happened to me.
I just did a test to be sure - I created a duplicate contact with the same mobile number and after merging the final contact had only one number stored. No separate record has been created.
All I can suggest now is to try and delete the contacts that needed merging (from both Google and Phone contacts) and then import your exported Phone contacts. This way you should not have any duplicates and the imported contacts will be automatically stored as Google ones.
The Google Contacts web app should help you with deleting.
Or you can try Contact Analyzer 2 http://www.androidzoom.com/android_applications/tools/contact-analyzer-2_jmsk.html although I only read the description, I never tried it. But it might prove useful to you.
Have you checked Gmail contacts on your syncing settings?

Contact sync - am I missing something?

I use my work email as a central source for contacts, managing them in Outlook. I sync with my Desire using HTC Sync, which works well and creates them on the phone as contacts with a type 'phone'. I would like to then sync these with gmail, but can't find a way to do it - and yes I've searched everywhere!
So the ideal would be - I add a contact in Outlook, which sync's with the phone using HTC Sync, which then wireless syncs with gmail - shouldn't be too hard, should it?
You could just export the Outlook contacts to a vCard and import that to Gmail.
That's my point - I could do it that way but it's a lot of manual effort. Surely there is some way of automating it?
Google are still working on the sync app, they've released the api to the community, unfortunately the only people working I'm it are corps wanting to make money, so until google pullover socks up. You either buy an app like 4team sync2, or manually update everything. There is a lb app called GO sync contacts, but while its free the dev has open
Sourced it, and gave up. There is an issue with it, so until someone fixes it. You need to buy one of these apps.
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Sent via the XDA Tapatalk App
ewans said:
That's my point - I could do it that way but it's a lot of manual effort. Surely there is some way of automating it?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
When I converted my phone contacts to Google contacts I did 3 things:
1. Exported all phone contacts to vcf file.
2. Copied the vcf file to my desktop
3. Imported the vcf file to my Google accounts (via Google contacts web UI).
It took about 1 minute.
I presume exporting all contacts to vcf in Outlook takes about the same time.
But the problem is I update my contacts daily (i'm a sales guy) so I want to keep them updated in all 3 places automatically by just updating Outlook. If either HTC Sync could create them on the phone as 'google' contacts, or I could sync 'phone' contacts to gmail, this would work.
If one of the apps mentioned above does this I'd be happy to pay for it.
Have you tried Companion Link?
chuk
If your willing to pay go for 4team sync2 it works very well, silent operation. And forwards all details you, can set sync times too. From memory its about $25
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http://www.soocial.com/
Thanks guys, Companion Link, 4team and Soocial may work, I'm going to look at these in more detail.
Shame that all I really need to do is to set the contact type to 'Google' when I sync and it would work, or sync contact type of 'phone' with Gmail.
How about making the PC the central sync point? i.e. use both GO Contact Sync and HTC Sync on the PC running Outlook.

Outlook Sync - Contacts "Files As"

Hey guys,
My MD now has a Desire and I notice something strange happening when he syncs his outlook contacts.
Now I know from both sides (outlook, Android) , it doesn't really matter what you file someone's name as because when you search, it still appears either way. However, he is very particular so here is my problem.
When he syncs his outlook contacts to the device, on outlook they now appear as first name, last name. Even though they are set to File As Lastname, Firstname. Now if I open a contact in Outlook, flip the File As back from and to what it was, it then appears in outlook correctly (well how he wants it to).
However, next sync it will re appear as first, last... although file as is still last, first (Outlook)
Anyone have any ideas or noticed something similar?
I appreciate this is a minor issue but I would like to resolve it for him if possible.
Thanks for reading and any help appreciated.
Tell your MD to stop being so picky!!! LOL!!!
Seriously, though, I don't know - I stopped using Outlook sync and sync to my Gmail account now
EddyOS said:
Tell your MD to stop being so picky!!! LOL!!!
Seriously, though, I don't know - I stopped using Outlook sync and sync to my Gmail account now
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
hehe I sooo wish I could do this. Im with you on that one too, I sync everything to google, life is easy. But he's very set in his ways lol... whats that saying? You cant teach an old dog new tricks
i had this issue as well, it took days to sort out and once I had them all as I needed it I just installed gsyncit and uninstalled HTC Sync. Outlook and phone perfectly in sync wirelessly for £9 !
i'm thinking about getting a desire, currently have htc touch 3g wm and have it sync'd to my company exchange server . whats the best way to recreate the same push email & sync functionality on the desire? Would Gsyncit do the job? thanks in advance
ukmapleleaf said:
i'm thinking about getting a desire, currently have htc touch 3g wm and have it sync'd to my company exchange server . whats the best way to recreate the same push email & sync functionality on the desire? Would Gsyncit do the job? thanks in advance
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
no need, it will sync to exchange without anything other than your exchange details. No other software needed
cardiak said:
Hey guys,
My MD now has a Desire and I notice something strange happening when he syncs his outlook contacts.
Now I know from both sides (outlook, Android) , it doesn't really matter what you file someone's name as because when you search, it still appears either way. However, he is very particular so here is my problem.
When he syncs his outlook contacts to the device, on outlook they now appear as first name, last name. Even though they are set to File As Lastname, Firstname. Now if I open a contact in Outlook, flip the File As back from and to what it was, it then appears in outlook correctly (well how he wants it to).
However, next sync it will re appear as first, last... although file as is still last, first (Outlook)
Anyone have any ideas or noticed something similar?
I appreciate this is a minor issue but I would like to resolve it for him if possible.
Thanks for reading and any help appreciated.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is what I used:
xxx.slipstick.com/contacts/fileas.asp (change xxx to www)
and it worked perfectly.
I found after I got fed up of change 500 contacts individually (twice)
Thanks for that Redskinblack, looks like it'll be a great work around for us. Anyone have any info as to weather or not HTC are ever likely to fix this though?
outlook sync with htc sync then tried to sync back after wiping the contacts on my phone sent all my contacts screwy, added them to wrong groups, linked them to wrong facebook contacts...
I've found exporting to sd and importing again much easier and works much nicer - lose my groups but that's not as annoying as re-linking them all...
obviously doesnt help the outlook issue though
If it helps, I've been trying to find a reliable method to sync Outlook 2010 contacts with the Desire. I had similar issues with HTC Sync reversing first and last names as well as problems syncing.
Having looked at Gsyncit but not wanting to pay for it, I found MyPhoneExplorer which was originally developed for SE phones but has been updated to include Android. It works well and syncs over wifi. You install the program on your PC and the app from the Market. In the program, you then select Outlook as the source of your contacts.
In order to avoid duplicated contacts, I deleted all phone contacts prior to syncing and it copied all the Outlook contacts to my Desire. The only issue was that the Facebook contact link to the phone contacts was broken. This was resolved by removing the account from HTC Facebook for Sense, logging in again and linking a contact.
Hope this helps someone.
crazybones said:
If it helps, I've been trying to find a reliable method to sync Outlook 2010 contacts with the Desire. I had similar issues with HTC Sync reversing first and last names as well as problems syncing.
Having looked at Gsyncit but not wanting to pay for it, I found MyPhoneExplorer which was originally developed for SE phones but has been updated to include Android. It works well and syncs over wifi. You install the program on your PC and the app from the Market. In the program, you then select Outlook as the source of your contacts.
In order to avoid duplicated contacts, I deleted all phone contacts prior to syncing and it copied all the Outlook contacts to my Desire. The only issue was that the Facebook contact link to the phone contacts was broken. This was resolved by removing the account from HTC Facebook for Sense, logging in again and linking a contact.
Hope this helps someone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is a great explanation. Very useful. Thanks.
i had the same problem with windows mobile phones trying to sync to my computer. here is the solution : when to write a new contact in outlook say his name is ( Dave Smith ) open up contact field in outlook express and now point to new contact .where it says FULL Name ,click on this icon usually you would put the first name ,in this instance (Dave) in the box where it says First and (Smith) in the box where it says Last .Don't do that .where is says First just put the whole name in there i.e Dave Smith . save all info ,when you have synced your phone ,it will say Dave Smith in your phone.
hope this helps and you understand.
The free sync tool MyPhoneExplorer works fine for me and you can set the first,last option as well.

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