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.
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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.
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.
for some reason my contacts on my phone are not synchronizing with my gmail account. The contacts on gmail did sync to my accounts but not vice versa. Any suggestions? I even sync manually from the settings on the phone
make sure you are saving the contacts to google and not to phone storage, when you add a new contact it should ask you where to save, choices being Phone, Google account, or Exchange account.
oh ok gotcha. thanks
Edit: what I did was export the contacts from phone to sd card. I then uploaded all the contact to my google account.
If I saved all my contacts straight to the phone, how would I sync them to my google account. Also, would anyone be able to see my contacts and phone numbers, that was the one reason I didn't save them to google, as I didn't want my contacts to be public.
When adding a contact the first thing in the Information tab says contact type. Select Google each time.
If they are already a phone contact create a new contact for them, on your phone as a google contact, or on your gmail/gvoice account on your computer. name them the same and select link in the top right of their phone contact and it will link the phone contact to google and backup on your google account.
To only show Google contacts Go to people, hit menu, view, uncheck all but Google.
Is there any way to change the contact's "location" (SIM, Google, Phone) ?
I would like to get all my "Phone" contacts synchronized with Google, but i can' find any way how to change the setting from "Phone" to "Google".
I can't find any way to sync all the contacts (SIM+Google+Phone) with Google.
Is it a bug or do I missed somthing ?
Have you tried Contacts > Menu > Import/Export?
that doesn't work, I've tried. There are a few threads here asking exactly the same question.
All we'd like is to be able to put all the contact links we have from google, facebook, phone, phone, phone and phone for one contact to go under one contact, hopefully, the google one, to include all the relevant info from all the places like facebook. I don't believe anyone has said how this can be done yet.
Bandare said:
that doesn't work, I've tried. There are a few threads here asking exactly the same question.
All we'd like is to be able to put all the contact links we have from google, facebook, phone, phone, phone and phone for one contact to go under one contact, hopefully, the google one, to include all the relevant info from all the places like facebook. I don't believe anyone has said how this can be done yet.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's really not the same thing as what the OP was asking. Mind me asking why you want to change that, tho? It's only a horrifying mess in the edit contact screen, when viewing the contact I only see one entry (Name, phone, email, address, nickname, facebook profile).
Of course, when I hit edit I have
Google contact with phone, email
Google contact with another email
Google contact with phone, email, address, nickname
Facebook contact
It's all very derp.
I don't want to link all the contact accounts for one person (his twitter, phone, gmail accounts) together.
what i want is to move all the "Phone" contacts to "Google" contacts location.
Example: when I click on People->Menu->View, then i have
SIM 0
Google 41
Phone 123
contacts
I want to have 41+123= 164 Google contacts only.
because i want automatically backup contacts on Gmail (e.g. to be able to restore them after ROM flash)
When i click on individual contact, then i see "Phone" on the right upper corner of the contact screen. i want to see "google" there. But it's not editable. Its only linkable ...
When i restored my contacts using mybackup pro they all restored as google contacts as well as phone contacts, so then i just deleted all of my phone cntcts using a contact deleter app from the market.
Google contacts all the way!
The google contacts have the phone and facebook info combined so photo birthday and all that.
thanks for the tips.
unfortunately my myBackup trial has allready expired.
but i have exported all "Phone" contacts to a *.vcf file, then deleted all contacts and finally imported them from *.vcf into "Google" contacts.
hopefully it will not mess up after synchronization with google (which is running in this moment)
I recently kinda done this, I just exported all contacts, and then imported multiple rather than one or all, and when you import it asked you where you wish to save them, Gmail, phone or sim, This is the ONLY way I can see about doing this
It's probably the only way to do this and it worked for me.
problem solved.
Something that I thought should be simple but strangely (for Android) it's not.
If you get sent contact details in a vcard, it gets saved to the phone memory. I still can't see how to save that vcard info to my Google account.
Anyone got any ideas? A feature I've missed? An app? I use Handcent but that's a bit poo for vcards so I have to go back to the native Messages app to even view vcards.
Any ideas???
+1
I too need it, by far couldn't succeed that. It would be the best way to keep your contacts with details that sim cannot store.
Sent from my HTC Desire using XDA App
This is the response I got from HTC when I asked for any method they know to get contacts from the phone to the Google account:
I would advise you to savbe the V-Card to your phones memory, so that it show in your contacts. Then in the People app, press Import/Export then Export to SD card. Choose the contact you wish to export. We have now exported a copy of that contact to the memory card. Now.. We are going to import it back into the phone as a Google contact, so, From the People main screen, press Menu, Import & Export, Import from SD card, choose as 'Google' contact. This will now have made that V-Card a Google contact. If you then Sync your phone to your Google account by going to Menu, Settings, Accounts & Sync, tap 'Sync All' this will send the new contact to your Google account. Then you will be able to see this new contact in your Google Mail - Contacts section.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The only problem I had with these instructions is that I found exporting contacts is all or nothing. You can't pick and choose. Luckily for me, all my contacts are on my Google account so it was only the one vcard sent by MMS that I wanted to transfer over.
HTH