Sync Android Phone Info

AMO

Hi all,

I'm new to Android and just bought myself an Orange San Francisco. Also got myself a Dell Streak a while back but never really used it.

Thought I'd post a bit of information here for those in the same boat as me going to Android.

I am traditionally from a Nokia background and I am used to synchronising my phone (contacts, calendar, etc) with Outlook using Nokia PC Suite.

Now, moving to Android has caused a bit of a problem.

Here's what I have found:

1) This website seems to list all the software for synchronising between Android and PC:
http://www.syncdroid.net/

2) Many people find that buying a HTC branded phone on Android 2.2. onwards and using the HTC software is the best way to sync their stuff with Outlook. However, neither of my Android phones are HTC, so that's a problem for me.

3) Some people use the Google App, but that requires you to pay for a business Google Account. So it's a no from me.

4) Some people say to sync your Android with Gmail and use a tool to export/import contacts between Outlook and Gmail. Problem with that is that you need to sort out the mapping of the exported fields in comma separated format to import into Gmail etc. Not very elegant.

After messing around for ages, I have found the following solution (it only really works on contacts, but I'm not too fussed about calendar etc).

In Outlook select all your contacts and then right-click and select 'Send Full Contact' followed by 'In Internet Format (VCard)'. Alternatively, select 'Send As Business Card'.

This will create an email with a whole load of VCard files as attachements. Select all the attachments, right-click and select 'Copy'. Then open up Windows Explorer, create a directory somewhere, and right-click and 'Paste'. You now have all contacts in VCard format.

Plug your Android phone in and select the 'Mount' option on the phone - this gives the PC access to the SD Card, but the phone temporarily loses access to it whilst connected to your PC.

Copy the directory somewhere. Disconnect the phone from PC like you would a USB hard drive (i.e. ideally ensure you don't get write failed by just pulling out the phone without selecting the disconnect USB device).

In your contacts, import from SD Card and select All Contacts. All your contacts are now on your phone. The beauty of using this technique is that your contacts are exported in VCard format and imported in VCard format so there is no risk of field mappings going wrong etc.

If you have additional contacts or updated contacts, simply add the new/updated ones onto your Android SD card and import again. Android 2.1 and above will sort out collision detection.

Now sometimes you might want to wipe out all the contacts on the phone and start again. There are 2 ways to do this:
a) Go to Settings > Applications > Manage Applications > Contacts > Clear Data. This should clear out your contacts, but in my experience there are situations where this does not work for some reason.
b) Create a Gmail account mainly for synchronisation of your phone contacts and sync the contacts. It will add them to the Gmail account. You can then delete them en masse in the Gmail account and sync again and they will disappear off your phone.

I am happy as I use my Orange San Francisco for work. I export all work contacts to VCards and then import them on my phone. All information appears very elegantly on the phone.

Hope this is of help to some people!

balimar

I have just moved from Nokia to a San Francisco (unlocked) and lovin' it so far. Battery seems to take a hammering, but solved that by buying a spare one for those times when charging is not possible.
Still finding my way around it and I am comin' up against that old saying of something about<Old dog and new tricks>,
Thank goodness for my 9yr old son, who guides me thru my San Francisco user queries;)

KillerWatt

AMO wrote: »

After messing around for ages, I have found the following solution (it only really works on contacts, but I'm not too fussed about calendar etc).

[highlight]In Outlook.....[/highlight]

What about those that don't have MS Outlook?

I guess they could always use MobilEDIT which supports god knows how many handsets for transferring data, contacts, calender, etc

AMO

KillerWatt wrote: »

What about those that don't have MS Outlook?

I guess they could always use MobilEDIT which supports god knows how many handsets for transferring data, contacts, calender, etc

True. I guess I was coming from the perspective of not wanting to pay for any software. For some people its worth paying for, but at the moment, not for me.

The reason for Outlook is that its the standard for maintaining contacts and traditionally, phone software from all manufacturers, e.g. LG, Motorola, etc would all sync with Outlook even though they have their proprietory address book. This meant that if you migrated from one phone to another or had multiple phones, provided you maintained your details in Outlook, you could sync to just about any phone.