Can anybody help with transferring contacts between Android phones?

[Sue]

This is driving me mad.

I was on a live help thing for five and a half hours (sic) yesterday, then visited an EE shop, both ended by concluding there was a software glitch and I should send the handset back (which I have one more day to do) but I think it's a gmail thing and a new phone would have exactly the same problem.

The old phone is an Orange San Diego, the new one is a Moto G LTE (4G).

I set the new one up when I got it and migrated the contacts, texts etc from my old phone using Motorola Migrate, which appeared to work perfectly.

However at some point I must have accidentally checked a box to sync my contacts with my gmail contacts, resulting in nearly two thousand gmail contacts appearing on my phone :( which appear to be everybody I have ever emailed or who has emailed me :(

I deleted all those from my phone, but then all the boxes in my gmail account on the phone where I could tick or untick sync with gmail disappeared.

Then after first going onto the helpline, I moved contacts by moving sim cards about from the old phone to the new phone and doing the importing/exporting thing.

Very long story short, I then got a notification on my phone saying that my deletion limit had been exceeded.

So last night I deleted all except 300 of my gmail contacts (on my laptop) and this morning I started again and did a factory reset on the new phone.

But there now seems no option on Motorola Migrate to do anything except sync my contacts via gmail again, rather than getting them off the old phone.

I tried to put the old phone sim in again and export the contacts from there, but now there seem to be all the thousands of original gmail contacts on the ******* old phone sim, plus duplicated contacts from the phone itself.

Irritatingly, the old phone is showing perfectly all the contacts I want transferred.

A workaround (which will take a very long time) is to delete virtually all my gmail contacts on my laptop, then input manually all the contacts presently on my old phone.

Is there some other way? I can't see how a new handset would be any better than the factory reset I've now done twice :(

I just seem to have made matters worse over and over again :(

I'm going away now to have a quiet scream in a corner :(

ETA: I've googled deleting contacts from a Sim card (the old one), and it seems there is no way to do it.

Also, apparently this new phone will not save contacts to its sim card because they are all saved in the ether somewhere. So I can't put the new sim card into the old phone and transfer the contacts that way.

ETA: I've also toyed with the idea of buying the cheapest pay as you go sim card I can find, and starting again with exporting the contacts from my old phone to it, and then importing them to the new phone from that sim card. But it would probably take me longer to go and get the new sim card than just to type them all in manually, AAAAARRRRGGGGHHHHHH

ETA: Actually, I need a new sim card for an old phone I use purely for a voicemail for Goose purposes, as the old one seems to have stopped working probably due to disuse, so maybe that is the answer unless anybody can suggest an easier way which I have overlooked?

God I hate gmail sometimes.

[Sue]

I have found another (sort of) workaround which is to copy over all my text threads, and where just a mobile number is shown, look on my old phone to see who it was (if it's not obvious), then create a new contact on the new phone.

A pain but possibly less of a pain :(

ETA: Sort of sorted it now ...... sort of .....

[Alan Medic]

If that was a short story Sue what would a long one be? I couldn't read it all. How did you get on?

[Sue]

Alan Medic Wrote:

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> If that was a short story Sue what would a long

> one be? I couldn't read it all. How did you get

> on?

xxxxxxxx

Yeh, sorry, a long one would have been much longer :)

I've done a workaround. Not ideal.

The Motorola helpline has suggested another solution but it would involve yet another visit to an EE shop so I'm sticking with what I've got for the moment.

Now I've just got to reinstall all my apps one by one to find out which one was preventing me sending or receiving any texts, GRRRRRRR.

[Alan Medic]

I've had a problem recently which means my phone is being returned for the 2nd time. A pain but not the end of the world.

[aquarius moon]

Believe me AM, being without a phone IS the end of the world.

Sue, maybe it's a problem with either the phone itself or Orange?

Only because I've just got a new phone too & transferred all my contacts via Google in seconds.

Yes, there were quite a few old email contacts & had no idea who they were but once I deleted them all, they were gone, no problem.

But then I have a different phone & different network...........

Hope you sort it out. Phone problems are a nightmare :(

[Sue]

AM, I think it was my fault.

I had never edited my google contacts, and yes the phone automatically synched/synced? but there were nearly 2000 of them and then when I deleted them from the phone the phone couldn't cope for some reason.

It would be far too long to go into all the ins and outs of what I did after that, but I'm pretty sure it was my fault and not the phone's. I went into some of it in the OP :)) :)) :))

I think part of the problem is I now have a motorola ID which is automatically recognised even after a factory reset, so I no longer have the option to transfer my old phone contacts directly via motorola migrate because the ID is automatically synching with gmail when I set the phone up.

That would happen even if I got a new handset.

Anyway, I'm reasonably happy with the situation at the moment. The phone is very much better than the old one, in fact it's faster than my ancient laptop :))

[ruffers]

Once you had all the contacts on your phone, the 2000 or whatever, just let them be (if you do it again). Better too many surely. You can then choose how many to actually see by pressing menu when in contacts for a contacts to display option ie device, sim etc.

[Sue]

ruffers Wrote:

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> Once you had all the contacts on your phone, the

> 2000 or whatever, just let them be (if you do it

> again). Better too many surely.

xxxxxxxx

No was total overload, people I had never heard of, people I had totally forgotten and a load of rubbish.

I feel a lot better now I have clutter cleared the contacts :))

Now I've got another problem - my emails are arriving with links which I can't click on. Any suggestions for sorting?

[katanita]

I have found it very useful to use gmail contacts to manage/sync all my phone contacts when transferring between phones. But then if you end up with loads of contacts with just email addresses, I think you should be able to filter your contact list so that it only shows people with phone numbers by default? So you still have all the contacts, but don't have so many to wade through when you want to use your phone as an actual phone.

[ruffers]

Exactly. In contacts hit the menu button (usually 3 dots) > settings > contacts > contacts to display