Anyone have advice on how to copy phone contacts?

[dodgerfan]

My wife has an iPhone 3Gs and I have an iPhone 4. I would like to copy all of her phone contacts over to my phone. Does anyone know if and how this can be done? I know you can restore from backup and it will bring in contacts but I really don't want to do it this way since this is normally done when dealing with the same phone account.

Any help would be greatly appreciated ........

 

[mkrishnan]

There are lots of solutions... I think that the easiest way to do it is to do it on your syncing computer. Load up whatever program contacts are being synced into for the source user (e.g., Address Book in OS X, Outlook in Windows, wherever her contacts are kept in her desktop account) and export the contacts from there onto a USB drive, log into the account that owns the other phone, drag them into the contact app in that account, and then sync the other phone.

That's assuming they're being managed from different desktop accounts. If they're being managed from the same account, you just plug in the iPhone, and go to the info tab in iTunes and select the appropriate source of contacts to be synced in.

 

[dodgerfan]

There are lots of solutions... I think that the easiest way to do it is to do it on your syncing computer. Load up whatever program contacts are being synced into for the source user (e.g., Address Book in OS X, Outlook in Windows, wherever her contacts are kept in her desktop account) and export the contacts from there onto a USB drive, log into the account that owns the other phone, drag them into the contact app in that account, and then sync the other phone.

That's assuming they're being managed from different desktop accounts. If they're being managed from the same account, you just plug in the iPhone, and go to the info tab in iTunes and select the appropriate source of contacts to be synced in.

As of now her contacts (phone numbers) are on her phone and nothing else. What steps would be involved to take them off her phone, save them on the computer and then upload them to my phone?

Thanks in advance.

 

[mkrishnan]

It's not that hard, but... rather than walk you through all conceivable scenarios, it would help if you would provide some of the more obvious information, like what kind of computer and operating system you use, and whether the phones are managed on separate accounts on the computer.

 

[djgulia]

I would create a google account if you don't already have one, then sync her phone with google through itunes and then sync your phone with that same google account. then your contacts will be on google as well as a back up.

 

[cirial]

I would create a google account if you don't already have one, then sync her phone with google through itunes and then sync your phone with that same google account. then your contacts will be on google as well as a back up.

I currently sync my contacts using "Windows contacts" now that I have Windows 7. Im a gmail junky, I never knew you can do this.. how?! Is it as simple as choosing "Google" on the dropdown list under the Info tab for Contacts? I dont have my desktop on now to check. Please explain!

 

[djgulia]

I currently sync my contacts using "Windows contacts" now that I have Windows 7. Im a gmail junky, I never knew you can do this.. how?! Is it as simple as choosing "Google" on the dropdown list under the Info tab for Contacts? I dont have my desktop on now to check. Please explain!

I have a macbook so I'm not sure how it works in Windows. I also don't have an iphone right now to figure out the exact steps I took it. The problem I had was I accidentally wiped my iphone clean. If I remember correctly (this was a while ago before I bought MobileMe) for some reason I couldn't get my contacts in the address book to sync to my phone. So there is an option in the address book to sync with google. I did that and then synced my phone with google.

EDIT: maybe this is what I did.

http://www.google.com/support/mobile/bin/answer.py?answer=138740&topic=14252

 

[mickeyp49]

1. If you have a mac then you can sync her contacts to Address Book then sync that to your iPhone 4.

2. If you have windows then you can Microsoft Outlook to sync her contacts and then sync that to your iPhone.

3. You could also go to youtube and learn how to make a micro sim to sim adapter and put your sim in your wifes iphone and copy all contacts to sim.

 

[bluer101]

Easy, just install the bump app on both phones and you can bump 4 contacts at a time. I did this when we bought our ip4's. We did not want to restore from our original iPhones.

 

[dodgerfan]

Thanks to all

Ok guys......thanks for all the help. I was able to transfer all contacts. By the way...that app "Bump" is pretty slick.

Once again, Thanks for the help!!

 

[dgstan]

Thanks for reminding me to do a backup of my contacts. The Apple "genius" couldn't believe I didn't do this regularly. I just figured iTunes handled it and didn't realize that you can't dump them straight out of iTunes.

I exported them to Outlook on my XP machine. Took about a minute.

 

[iostehk]

Easy as 1 2 3

Go to the app store search for Plaxo this app is awesome it lets you take your contacts from your iphone and save them to the cloud to be downloaded to any ios device its also a option to grab your google facebook ect. try it

I used it when i when from my black iPhone 4 to the white