[Q] Question regarding which ROM to install & Backing Up Contacts - Samsung Epic 4G Touch

1: I've been running an ICS theme on my epic 4g touch for a little while and I'm looking into installing a ROM to improve speed and battery life. I've been struggling to choose between the most current version of Blazer, or Unnamed. They seem relatively similar apart from the fact that if I get Unnamed I'll have to flash an ICS theme over it, but I'd like opinions from everyone.
2: I understand for both of those ROMs you must wipe your phone. I have no issue with wiping apps as they can be reinstalled, but I need my contacts. I don't have an SD card and would prefer to not have to buy one, so is there any method to backing up my contacts that I could retrieve them post flashing?
Thanks in advance

1. I don't have either of those so can't help with that.
2. if you have a Gmail account set up you can back up contacts. its in accounts and sync under settings. just be sure to go online into your Gmail account to check. I thought I was backed up before and wasn't.

patrao_n said:
1. I don't have either of those so can't help with that.
2. if you have a Gmail account set up you can back up contacts. its in accounts and sync under settings. just be sure to go online into your Gmail account to check. I thought I was backed up before and wasn't.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've tried syncing the contacts to gmail before but when I checked the account, none of my contacts were there.

ya I believe I fixed it by going to accounts and sync. then clicked on the google account. unchecked all. then checked only contacts and hit sync now. if that doesn't work try removing account and then add it again. sorry I don't know of any third party way to backup the contacts.

The trick is to get all of your email contacts into Gmail on your PC even if you have to manually enter each one. Then they will sync automatically to your phone and you won't have to back anything up. If you use Outlook on your computer, I think there's a way to export your contacts into gmail with a csv file. I couldn't tell you how to do it but you should be able to find out by searching in Google forums. I did mine all manually when I first started using android and I've never had to back up anything. Google does it for me. I know this will sound really strange, but to get them all to sync to Gmail and into my phone contacts list, I had to enter a fake email address for the contacts I only had a phone number for. Now I can flash and wipe my phone all I want and all my email and phone contacts sync again as soon as my phone connects to Google servers. I have them stored on my sd card, too, but I never need to restore them from it. Make sure you have two way sync turned on in your Gmail account on your computer. If you want gmail to pull in all of your other email accounts such as Comcast or hotmail, you can set that up on your computer too in Gmail account settings. I get all my mail in Gmail now and don't even use the other email client on my phone.

When you create a contact it will give you 2 options. 1 to backup internal 2 to backup to Google. It seems you selected internal so you need to go to contacts and go through the menus until you switch all contacts to Google then do your sync through settings. Best of luck if your still having issues do a titanium backup.. but like the poster said above as long as you save your contacts to Google in the future it makes going from rom to rom a breeze
Sent from my SPH-D710 using XDA App

Sweet, thanks everyone. I've got my contacts onto Gmail. Anyone have opinions regarding Unnamed vs. Blazer?

There's also a way to backup manually your contact list. In contacts program hit menu then export. It saves the file as 00001.icf in the root of your sd card. After you export, use a file manager to go and make sure the file is there before proceeding. You could then copy it to your computer or email it as an attachment to yourself.
Or it could be .vcf I forgot

Related

[Q] Syncing Contacts to Google/Restore Contacts From Nandroid

How the hell do u back your contacts up to Google?? I've searched and I cant find the answers i'm looking for anywhere. Whenever I sync to Google from 'accounts and sync' nothing happens..and now i have successfully deleted all my contacts from my phone after clearing the Contacts app data cache, which i read might help...Luckily i have nandroids to pull the data from.. How exactly do i go about re-flashing the contact data back to the phone from the nandroid, so i can then back em up to Google/export them the the sdcard?? (without restoring the entire nandroid)
Idk if its my ROM or what..but its frustrating..
Go to your gmail account, and click the contacts tab. Do you see any of them there? If not check and make sure that you are saving your contacts to google and not your phone.
Thanks for the quick reply. There's nothing there under the Contacts tab, or any of the sub categories, but how to i check if im syncing them to Google vs the phone?
I cant tell you how to restore your contacts from nandroid, however when you do have them restored go to Settings>Accounts & Sync>Google and make sure you have Sync Contacts checked. This is a 2 way sync so any contacts you have on google will be synced to the phone and the phone to google
Yeah, I've done that as well. It even shows the date when it was last synced..10 min ago, of course i have no contacts to sync now but i'm sure that was working earlier.
I dont know that you can say its not working until you can get those contacts restored, after you do that and sync then lets deal with a non sync issue if there still is one.
I mean I had tried that before I lost the contact data..before I created this thread. The reason i wiped the contacts cache was because sync was not working. I think im just going to do a full nandroid restore anyway and end up installing a different ROM. Any suggestions?
They are automatically backed up when you sync your gmail
As long as u checked back up data with my Google account
This is one thing that I love about Google
Sent from my Incredible using XDA App
Yeah, the problem is it's not syncing automatically

[Q] Getting contacts and messages back after flashing new ROM

I've flashed my phone with the Defrost ROM and despite backing up & restoring my contacts and messages with Titanium I can't seem to get them back. Can anyone help, thanks?
Do a reboot and try again.
Tried this and had no luck. I think it may have something to do with the fact that I've stored my numbers on the phone memory, maybe Titanium only backs up SIM card contacts. God knows about the text messages??
Contacts should be backed up to your gmail account.
As for texts, I use SMS Backup and restore from the market and haven't had any problems
Sent from my HTC Desire using Tapatalk
How do you do this? I think I've synced mine to my Gmail account but I don't know how to check for sure?
Plus a few of my contacts haven't linked correctly to Facebook but the ROM I'm using (Defrost) doesn't seem to give me the option to do manual Facebook links.
Zammo76 said:
How do you do this? I think I've synced mine to my Gmail account but I don't know how to check for sure?
Plus a few of my contacts haven't linked correctly to Facebook but the ROM I'm using (Defrost) doesn't seem to give me the option to do manual Facebook links.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
check it online in your gmail account, if its synct than all your contacts should be in there. To have this sync you have had to choose to save all your contacts as google contacts before, if you did not do it then they are not synct, will not do it automatically.
Checked gmail and they have synced with it, thanks.
Now I just need to work out how to link a couple of contacts to Facebook.
Im on GingerVillain and I think the contacts list/software is similar. Edit contact then press menu button should then give you option to 'Join Contact's you can then manually select a Facebook contact to add to your contact on your phone.

Double synched my contacts, everyone has double info now.

After flashing my phone to Cyanogen I imported my contacts off of a backup I had on my sd card and then synched to my Google account. Now everyone on the list has two sets of doubled information, one is from my gmail account, the other is in a section called "Phone Only- unsynced"
How can I wipe out all of this extra information and get everyone back to only one set of information?
LordJezo said:
After flashing my phone to Cyanogen I imported my contacts off of a backup I had on my sd card and then synched to my Google account. Now everyone on the list has two sets of doubled information, one is from my gmail account, the other is in a section called "Phone Only- unsynced"
How can I wipe out all of this extra information and get everyone back to only one set of information?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The easiest way to fix that will be to do it from the computer. Log on to your Gmail account, and navigate to your contacts. Your entire contact list should be up there. If it's not, re sync your contacts from your phone, then check again. Once you see all the contacts, doubles and all, then just use 'mulit select' and just check off one of each that is doubled up, then delete them. Once you re sync again, the problem should be resolved. I believe that *should* work.
In my Gmail contacts list everyone is there and looks good. On my phone I am synched back to Gmail in the past couple of minutes. There is no double info for anyone on my online list, its that there is this other "On Phone" thing and I can't figure out how to get rid of it. I just want my online stuff on my phone. Is there a way to wipe out all my contacts on the phone and then just redownload everything? I tried to delete a contact but that then deleted it off my Gmail account as well.
Okay i figured it out after a little more Googling.
I turned off Google Sync for my contacts. I went into the Manage Applications menu and went to Contacts Storage and cleared out all the data. That wiped out everything on my phone. When I went back into the contacts list it was empty and prompted me to sync up to my gmail account. I did that and everything sorted itself out.
LordJezo said:
In my Gmail contacts list everyone is there and looks good. On my phone I am synched back to Gmail in the past couple of minutes. There is no double info for anyone on my online list, its that there is this other "On Phone" thing and I can't figure out how to get rid of it. I just want my online stuff on my phone. Is there a way to wipe out all my contacts on the phone and then just redownload everything? I tried to delete a contact but that then deleted it off my Gmail account as well.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hmm. I've never done it, but I would think that if you went into menu>settings>accounts and sync, then clicked on your google account, and Uncheck the 'sync contacts' part. Then try deleting one off your phone, and make sure that it doesn't affect your 'online' contacts from your gmail account. As long as it doesn't delete off your gmail contacts as well, then I'd delete them all off your phone. Then re-check the 'sync contacts' in your accounts and sync. That should then re-sync, and get rid of your doubles. In theory, I believe that should work.
EDIT: Glad you got it figured out. We replied back at the same time, looks like you did just as I was suggesting.

Backing Up Contacts... Sim Card?

I've been looking around for a long time in searching this site and other forum sites and no one really had the answer i was looking for, so im only wondering about this. Since we've all been rooted, i decided to install a ROM, and when i finally had it booted and everything, i was prompted to put my google account in to sync my contacts. But they didnt show up? Now mind you, i only have 1 google account, and that is the one i created at verizon when i asked for the DI2. Im currently on the Stock right now with all my data. in Settings >Account & Sync, i have the backup assistant, facebook, the google account, mail news and twitter. In the muiu ROM, i put that google account in but never got my contacts back. So my question is, are there other ways of backing up your contacts without erasing them to your SD card, OR SIM CARD? when i go to export contacts, it wants to save it as a file in my SD card, and then when i import them on another rom, it asks for a Vcard, but it doesnt work? Can anyone explain this to me?
Sync the contacts to your google account. I believe it asks you when adding a contact if you want them as a google contact or phone only. Make sure you select google contact. Then check the "sync contacts" box under your google account sync settings (its checked by default, but I uncheck it once its done to save battery life. Don't know if you do the same). Then force a resync of contacts before you change roms to make sure no new contacts or info are left out. From there change to any rom, or any other android phone and your contacts will be restored on the initial sign in.
Sent from my Droid using Tapatalk
yeah i see what your saying. In the people app, when i click menu, and then view contacts, it says with Facebook fot HTC Sense, i have 538 contacts, my Google account has 4, and the Phone has 179. How to save all the phone contacts to my google account?
Not sure myself. Never tried it and I dont know if you can change a phone contact to a google contact once the info has already been put in. Try GO contacts from the market? Lets you back up all your contacts. Haven't tried it but I've backed up and restored texts with GO SMS from the same developer, and it worked great. Im assuming it would work just as well.
Sent from my Droid using Tapatalk
tried it, and it worked just as i expected. Huge thanks, you saved me a LOT of time! and big ups on that SMS backup app, it did wonders. much appreciation
Glad I could help
Sent from my Droid using Tapatalk

Contact Sync Help

My sister has a business and she uses her EVO as a business phone, she has around 7,000 contacts saved in the phone, The problem is now that it is messing up the phones memory taking 218 MB of Space. I understand How to Import/Export contacts to gmail via .VCF file but the contacts are just copied and put on the gmail account and remain on the phone. When I go to settings, Accounts and sync. I tap the sync button but nothing really happens and the date remains the same. I dont know how to remove the contacts from the phones memory and keep them only on gmail. Im afraid if I start randomly deleting I may lose 7,000+ contacts and You guys would be reading my obituary. What do you recommend I do? Thanks!
Some brief googling, it woud seem you have to manually add them one by one into gmail via a computer (Easiest method of this mundane method, irony?) and then sync your contacts to the phone via your google account. This way when you switch phone just add google account and BAM, all contacts. I'll look for an easier way.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Further googling, I found this. Idk if you've tried this, seeing as you mentioned VCF, but give this a whirl.
First you will want to transfer your old contacts off your phone
To export contacts to an SD card:
SDcard must be inserted and "mounted".
From the home screen, touch Contacts
Touch the Menu Key, press More
Touch Import/Export
Touch Export to SD card
Handset will confirm VCF filename.
Contacts will be located in the root directory on your sdcard as a .vcf file.
Now, plug your phone into your computer, and mount it as a disk drive. Next you need to import these contacts to Google Contacts
https://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=14024
Also, verify in gmail that the contacts are indeed there. IF in fact they are all indeed there, it is safe to delete them as they will be in google. I think that even though they are backed up, since they are on the phone already, gmail wont sync twice.... But I've always synced to gmail instead of phone so, I wouldn't really know much on the subject. Sorry, Hope this helps though
Edits: Further Digging yields results
You got it, back up online through gmail and save the file to a conputer, that is 2 safe places.
Done, move on.
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App

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