backup contacts out of iphone

[TroyBoy30]

Ive search here forever and can't find any suggestion that has worked, so I'm going to ask here.

I want to backup or export all of the contacts and calender events that are in my phone either to my pc as a file I can import into other things or import these items directly into gmail.

I have mobileme as well but can't find any way to export from it either

All of the options I have tried are 1 way. outlook, gmail, etc to phone...not phone to outlook, gmail, etc.

what I am trying to do is prepare for the switch to android. So how to i get these items out of my phone and into gmail or an importable file?

 

[deeddawg]

Setup your gmail account as an Exchange account and sync contacts. They should then be on gmail and you should be able to sync them down to your new phone.

 

[Givmeabrek]

Why not sync with Outlook and export to a file? Simple.

 

[melman101]

Setup your gmail account as an Exchange account and sync contacts. They should then be on gmail and you should be able to sync them down to your new phone.

If you go this route, make sure you don't have extraneous contacts in your GMail. I believe they sync over. It's a two way sync I believe.

 

[deeddawg]

If you go this route, make sure you don't have extraneous contacts in your GMail. I believe they sync over. It's a two way sync I believe.

Good point. Worthwhile to clean up gmail contacts before doing this, and applies to anything you'd sync contacts against.

 

[TroyBoy30]

syncing to gmail or outlook does not work. it only syncs from gmail or exchange to phone, not phone to gmail or exchange. I've tried all that.

if i add a new contact it syncs to gmail, but i need to sync my existing contacts

maybe i should ask a different way. how do i backup my contacts and calender events that are in mobileme? can i not export from mobileme to a file or to another service?

 

[deeddawg]

syncing to gmail or outlook does not work. it only syncs from gmail or exchange to phone, not phone to gmail or exchange. I've tried all that.

Interesting, I stand corrected.

can i not export from mobileme to a file or to another service?

At least with contacts, login to me.com, select all contacts, then click on the gear icon (top right corner of browser window) and then "Export vCard" and it should download a .vcf file.

Calendar I'm not sure about.

 

[Vundu]

There are free apps that do it.

 

[TroyBoy30]

Interesting, I stand corrected.



At least with contacts, login to me.com, select all contacts, then click on the gear icon (top right corner of browser window) and then "Export vCard" and it should download a .vcf file.

Calendar I'm not sure about.

that got it! Don't know how I missed that option in mobileme. I selected all then exported as a vcard. then imported that vcard into gmail! Thanks!

 

[wacky4alanis]

Gmail contacts and Google calendar are definitely 2-way sync.

You have to make sure to do the following to get the contacts to be 2 way:

Settings->Mail,Contacts,Calendars->Contacts(Default Account)

and set it to be your google exchange account. If you don't, then new contacts created on your iPhone simply go into the "On My iPhone" folder of your contacts, and do not get synced to your gmail contacts.

Similarly, if you have more than one calendar set up, you'll probably need to scroll further down that page and set the default calendar to be your google exchange account.

 

[GroceryHauler]

If you have a gmail account, your synced contacts will automatically transfer to an Android phone when it's first set up with a Gmail account.

 

[augratin]

Why is nobody mentioning icloud? Isn't icloud supposed to make this seamless?

[edit] Oh disregard - I see the question is about exporting to email, not syncing with other devices.

 

[deeddawg]

Why is nobody mentioning icloud? Isn't icloud supposed to make this seamless?

The other part is OP is moving to Android platform, so I assumed preference would be to use something either already in place or usable with Android.

 

[GroceryHauler]

Android is "Google". Therefore, when you set up a new Android phone with an existing "Google" account, everything transfers. ie: bookmarks, contacts, calendars, email etc......

 

[TroyBoy30]

Android is "Google". Therefore, when you set up a new Android phone with an existing "Google" account, everything transfers. ie: bookmarks, contacts, calendars, email etc......

i realize that. i had to get the contacts into google first!

i had my default mail account as yahoo since it's the only one I actually use. I moved the calender events simply by editing the event and changing it from mobileme to google.

I also can't transfer to icloud from mobileme because i'm still running windows xp! WTF