Noob baffled! (re: contacts)

[icemang]

Hello good peoples of the intarwebz. I've tried searching for answers to my questions but "contacts" is way too popular a word on here and none of the other words I've used with it seem to narrow things down much at all.

I recently bought a new Moto Droid on eBay. The Verizon store copied my contacts onto the Droid and all seemed well. But a couple of days ago I realized that any new contacts that I enter seem to exist only in some sort of parallel dimension.

The contact info I enter is stored on the phone somewhere, but not in my Contacts despite the fact that I start out in Contacts when I try to save it. I can't find this mystery contact list anywhere. If I dial the number again it will tell me who I'm dialing (gee, thanks, but I knew that!), and I can view the contact, but I can't move it to be with my other contacts, which is where I want all of my contacts to be.

If I call the person whose info I have entered a couple of times their info will appear in my "favorites" but still won't be in my Contacts. If I call someone from my Contacts a few times, they will appear in both the Favorites and the Contacts.

I don't get it.

Little help?

 

[DF Smod]

Your contacts are synced with your gmail account and "should" be stored in your contacts list. The best thing to do would be to "sync" your phone with google by going into settings/accounts/sync and then logging into gmail on a computer and verifying all of your contacts are there

I don't know of anywhere else internally the Droid stored contacts

 

[guidot]

Login to GMail from a PC (or Mac/Linux whatever) and check your contacts there. you can erase/delete them from there or change numbers if you can't seem to get a handle on it with the phone.
I do that sometimes, clean things up or add addresses from the computer. Somewhat easier to type out on the keyboard too.

 

[icemang]

ah ha! (maybe). Apparently all this time I was "waiting for guidot" (boo) and didn't know it.

Okay I went onto my Mac and checked my contacts and there is a file "My contacts" which is what I see when I go into Contacts on the phone. Also in gmail is a file labeled "Other Contacts" that has the rest of these contacts. when I add someone by typing in their data it goes into the "Other contacts file", although I have no idea why. I also don't know how to access this Other Contacts list directly though the phone.

What I seem to want to do is merge the two files somehow and then make it so that new contacts go into the combined file as I enter them. Of course I don't know how to do that.

Any hints would be appreciated.

 

[thatguychuck]

Yup, when you sync your contacts at the store, it places them into a different label than the "my contacts" that the phone actually uses. You should have two options from here:

Log into Gmail and go into contacts. Open up the group with your contacts in it, check the box above them to select them all, click groups, and check the box for "my contacts."

Or leave them where they are, go into the contacts app in your phone, press menu-display options-and touch the gmail acct with your contacts.

At this point you should see the same list of groups that is currently in your gmail acct, check the box that has your contacts you need to see. (I think it's usually "other contacts" or something like that.)

Anyway, the bottom line is that ALL contacts are always synced with gmail, just displayed differently. This is why they showed up when you typed them in, but wouldn't show up in the contact list.

 

[harrellj]

To actually view those "other contacts", if you go into contacts on the phone, hit menu > display options > choose your account > and make sure "other contacts" is checked.

Alternatively, if you go to google.com/contacts, you can manipulate them (including which group each contact is in) however you see fit.

 

[icemang]

Awesome. You guys are studs. Thanks.

 

[guidot]

Yup, when you sync your contacts at the store, it places them into a different label than the "my contacts" that the phone actually uses. You should have two options from here:

Log into Gmail and go into contacts. Open up the group with your contacts in it, check the box above them to select them all, click groups, and check the box for "my contacts."

Or leave them where they are, go into the contacts app in your phone, press menu-display options-and touch the gmail acct with your contacts.

At this point you should see the same list of groups that is currently in your gmail acct, check the box that has your contacts you need to see. (I think it's usually "other contacts" or something like that.)

Anyway, the bottom line is that ALL contacts are always synced with gmail, just displayed differently. This is why they showed up when you typed them in, but wouldn't show up in the contact list.

That is good information. Thank you.