Moving contacts from android / gmail

[grafixguy#AC]

First post here and I did look around but wasn't able to find anything specific so my apologies if I missed anything.

I'm giving serious consideration to moving to WP and the Icon from Android and a Galaxy S3. I'm not overly concerned about the so-called app gap but I'm curious to hear stories from others who have made this move and how you may have handled moving all of your google contacts and calendar appointments to a Microsoft account. Can I just add the google/gmail account and have the contacts move over automatically?

On a related topic did you buy your Icon directly from VZW or from a Microsoft Store?

 

[anon(8657436)]

I don't know about your phone's contacts from Android getting to WP. But if by any chance they are stored as contacts in the email id you use, it is as simple as just adding the google account. Calendars sync too.
If that doesn't work (no reason why it shouldn't), there's Transfer my Data app from Nokia which transfers contacts (never tried it though).

 

[grafixguy#AC]

Thanks for the reply. The contacts are in my gmail account and I can access them through Outlook.com so i guess it should be okay.

 

[anon(8657436)]

It's perfectly fine then. If it for some reason doesn't work, PM me and we'll sort it out.

 

[grafixguy#AC]

Thank you sir!

 

[rdubmu]

Thanks for the reply. The contacts are in my gmail account and I can access them through Outlook.com so i guess it should be okay.

Unfortunately it won't sync with outlook.com to your windows phone. Gmail.com to outlook.com works but it basically doesn't transfer to your outlook email, it pulls it in to use on your outlook.com email when viewing from a browser. It will only hold the contacts that you have in outlook.com

There are two things you can do. Use the export option in gmail contacts into an excel doc, some fields may not transfer, then import that file into outlook.com/contacts.

The other option you can do is get the 8.1 dev preview and when you put in your gmail info, you can sync email, contacts and calendar. Unfortunately gmail will only work with email sync in wp 8.0


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[a5cent]

If you're using other Android devices, then you should keep your contacts on Google's gmail servers, so your other Andriod devices also have access to it. If you are in this situation, you would connect your gmail account to your Outlook.com account (as previously mentioned). This establishes a synchronization relationship between Outlook.com and gmail.

If you don't have any other Android devices, setting up a synchronization relationship to gmail (connecting to it) isn't a good idea. It offers zero benefits and introduces a few disadvantages. If you are in this situation, I'd strongly recommend importing your contacts into Outlook.com and not connecting to gmail. This is the preferred solution. I did this just three days ago for a friend's new WP8.1 device. It was very simple. If you logon to your Outlook.com account and go to your people page, you will see this:



On the bottom you'll set a button labled "Start import". Press that button and Outlook.com will guide you through the import process. The buttons above it are what you would use if you only want to establish connection with the corresponding service.

Also notice on the top right the Skype and Facebook icons? That tells you what accounts/services Outlook.com connects to. If you're going with the preferred option, you shouldn't see a Google icon there. If you do see it, clicking it will give you the option to break the connection.

More generally, if the service is just another mail client, like yahoo or gmail, then prefer to import your contacts from them and then break any existing connection. For any other service that is not a mail client, you should prefer to use the connection option.

 

[rdubmu]

From my experience with doing this option, my Gmail contacts didn't show up on windows phone. It did show up when sending an email on Outlook.com

Sent from my Surface with Windows 8 Pro using Tapatalk

 

[grafixguy#AC]

8.1 is a given. So just to be clear, once I install the 8.1 preview I will or won't be able to use my google contacts? Exporting them as a spreadsheet and than importing them is certainly no biggie and if that's what it comes down to I can do it.

 

[rdubmu]

8.1 is a given. So just to be clear, once I install the 8.1 preview I will or won't be able to use my google contacts? Exporting them as a spreadsheet and than importing them is certainly no biggie and if that's what it comes down to I can do it.

With 8.1, Windows Phone support CalDAV ( I think it is what it is called for calendars) and also the contacts. You should be able to see your Gmail contacts.

I highly suggest you import them into Outlook.com thou but using the import/export function

 

[a5cent]

From my experience with doing this option, my Gmail contacts didn't show up on windows phone. It did show up when sending an email on Outlook.com

Did the import/export thing three days ago on a friends new Lumia 720 with WP8.1. Worked fine. All contacts available, although he had made quite a mess of his contacts on his Android phone, so we had to spend half an hour purging duplicates and such.

 

[grafixguy#AC]

I've got a Nexus 7 and do depend on gmail so I think linking them is probably best. Thanks or the additional info. Very helpful.

 

[anon(7901790)]

Did the import/export thing three days ago on a friends new Lumia 720 with WP8.1. Worked fine. All contacts available, although he had made quite a mess of his contacts on his Android phone, so we had to spend half an hour purging duplicates and such.

Outlook.com allows you to check for dupes and link your Outlook contacts with Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook.

 

[a5cent]

Outlook.com allows you to check for dupes and link your Outlook contacts with Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook.

@grafixguy
Timothy is using the term "link" to refer to the ability to merge contacts from various services that denote the same person. The term link isn't being used in the same way I did above. I probably should have said "connect", which is the same term used on the contacts page.

@Timothy
Yes. I know. Unfortunately, my friend's contacts collection was such an utter mess that the automatic cleanup function was only able to help with half of it. That also made it hard for Outlook.com to link his Skype accounts to his contacts. The automatic cleanup tool is very helpful for anyone that is at least somewhat tidy/systematic, but my friend is neither. ;-)

 

[grafixguy#AC]

Thanks for all the info folks. Much appreciated.

 

[skiahh]

Unfortunately it won't sync with outlook.com to your windows phone. Gmail.com to outlook.com works but it basically doesn't transfer to your outlook email, it pulls it in to use on your outlook.com email when viewing from a browser. It will only hold the contacts that you have in outlook.com

There are two things you can do. Use the export option in gmail contacts into an excel doc, some fields may not transfer, then import that file into outlook.com/contacts.

The other option you can do is get the 8.1 dev preview and when you put in your gmail info, you can sync email, contacts and calendar. Unfortunately gmail will only work with email sync in wp 8.0


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Not sure what you're saying, exactly. I added my google account in the "Accounts & Settings" section and voila, all my contacts downloaded to my phone. Except one came without a phone number, but that was easy to fix. My calendar sync'd up, though after I learned how to do CalDAV it worked much better and email is just fine through the stock app.

It's odd that I can't push my phone contacts - once I've brought them down from Google - up to Outlook.com. Once they're in my People app, they should uplodad/sync to Outlook, though the "Microsoft account" doesn't give the option to sync contacts, just email. I tried adding a second Outlook account with the came credentials and it took it, but wouldn't push the contacts in the phone up to Outlook. That's pretty weird... I mean, what if I add a contact in the phone manually and want it to sync with Outlook?

Anyway, back to the original question. Adding the Google account/credentials will get you your contacts without much fuss.

 

[anon(7901790)]

@grafixguy
Timothy is using the term "link" to refer to the ability to merge contacts from various services that denote the same person. The term link isn't being used in the same way I did above. I probably should have said "connect", which is the same term used on the contacts page.

Actually I should have explained it better. Outlook.com and Outlook 2013/365 have a clean up tool that allows you to merge duplicate contacts; and the ability to link and merge to other accounts like Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Though the latter function works better on a Windows Phone. Does that make sense?

@Timothy
Yes. I know. Unfortunately, my friend's contacts collection was such an utter mess that the automatic cleanup function was only able to help with half of it. That also made it hard for Outlook.com to link his Skype accounts to his contacts. The automatic cleanup tool is very helpful for anyone that is at least somewhat tidy/systematic, but my friend is neither. ;-)

I know the feeling. I have to go thru and clean my stuff up every once in a while or it gets ugly. :-D

 

[a5cent]

I added my google account in the "Accounts & Settings" section and voila, all my contacts downloaded to my phone.

By adding your Google account to "Accounts & Settings" you've made one particular device, your smartphone, the entity that consolidates contact information from various sources. If you have multiple Windows devices, you'd have to setup these same accounts on each one. By setting up sync relationships in this way, you are effectively telling your smartphone to synch changes directly to the service from where the data came. Therefore, if you change a gmail contact, those changes will bypass Outlook.com and go directly to gmail. This is the problem you are experiencing. However, this isn't weird, but rather how it is intended to work. After all, that is exactly what you're telling WP to do by adding those accounts directly on your device. IMHO this is the worst of all possible synchronization setups.

It's better to have your central repository in the cloud, and have all Windows devices sync from there. You do that by connecting all your services through Outlook.com (I've mentioned how to do this for contacts above). On your WP smartphone you'd then just add the Outlook.com account and nothing more. This would solve your problem, and a few others as well. This also helps with battery life, as your device then has a lot less synching to do. All the real work is done by MS on their Outlook.com servers.

Still, none of these options are as good as directly importing your contacts into Outlook.com and breaking the connection to gmail and/or yahoo.