Transferring Blackberry Contacts and Calendar

[Suzita]

Picking up my new Droid today and very concerned about transferring the contacts and calendar from my BB Curve (many, many years worth of data). I've read the threads about using Google Sync and am hoping that will work for me. My concern is currently the contacts on my BB and in gmail are vastly different and/or duplicative. Any particular lessons learned on this? Not as concerned about the calendar because I haven't been using the gmail calendar; only the one on the BB. I know I need to ensure I back-up the data through Desktop Manager just in case, and don't have access to Outlook to go that route. Thanks in advance for any tips!

 

[g19man]

When my wife went from a 8330 to Droid I just transferred her contacts through Bluetooth. It was really easy; paired the phones and then did the transfer from the Blackberry. She had old contact info on her unused (at the time) gmail account, so I just had her delete all the contacts in gmail before I started and then when the contacts were transferred everything was synched the way she wanted.

 

[Suzita]

g19Man, great idea. This will be my first activation, so pardon me if this sounds dumb, but at what point did you bluetooth the contacts? I'm assuming I activate the Droid through my provider (Verizon), then I have no idea really what happens to my Curve's activation.......thanks again!

 

[g19man]

I did the transfer after I received the Droid and it was activated. We did a phone number port. So when Verizon requested the port from Sprint, our Sprint account was made inactive. Anyway, that's why the bluetooth is nice. You do not need any cell/data service for the Blackberry ...from either provider really. Enable bluetooth on both phones, make at one of the discoverable, scan for device on the other, and pair them. Go into the Blackberry Bluetooth area, bring up the menu on "Droid" device (or whatever it connects as, mine was Droid) and select Transfer Address Book.

BTW you can always take your Blackberry back to Verizon with the Droid and they will transfer them. You could also use Blackberry's desktop manager.

Hope this helps.

 

[takeshi]

It's pretty easy to export to CSV, import to gmail and then cleanup in gmail. A lot of former BB users have done this and can guide you if you need more specific details.

 

[Suzita]

When my wife went from a 8330 to Droid I just transferred her contacts through Bluetooth. It was really easy; paired the phones and then did the transfer from the Blackberry. She had old contact info on her unused (at the time) gmail account, so I just had her delete all the contacts in gmail before I started and then when the contacts were transferred everything was synched the way she wanted.

g19man, I was able to pair the devices and generate the address book, however, each time on the Droid a message comes up for a second that says "there is an incoming file, please confirm you want to receive the file". I can't figure out how to confirm I want to receive it. I tried touching the message as it flashes on the screen, but that didn't activate anything. Did you get this when you transferred your wife's contacts? Thanks again for the help!

 

[SixStringTheory]

When i converted from BlackBerry i just used the gmail sync app to get my contacts and calender into the cloud, and when I activated my Droid they were all right there.

 

[Suzita]

Thanks. Unfortunately my contacts are on my BB and not current in my gmail. I was able to download them to the SD card on my BB, but now am getting an error message that says "failed to parse vCard for unexpected reason (INVALID LINE: " ICA;;;")... Probably will just hit the brick and mortar Verizon store to have them transfer. Thanks!