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Copying contacts to new iPhone

peckerhead

peckerhead

macrumors member
Original poster
Apr 26, 2009
84
46
I've got a corporate provided 4S which my company will be replacing in a couple of days due to battery problems.

I need to somehow copy over my contacts to the new iPhone but can't see a way to do this, as being a corporate phone, they've annoyingly locked it down with a lot of restrictions.

iCloud is disabled so can't use that, can't install any non approved apps, not allowed to connect it to an personal iTunes account so can't backup that way, and I can't even share the contacts individually by emailing them to myself, as the stock Mail app is disabled (we have a third party email app instead).

It seems that Apple don't allow you to copy contacts TO the SIM, you can only import them from it.

Is there any other way to do this, or am I doomed to having to input every contact manually? :eek:
 
Is the contacts in outlook? If you can get them in there, then you will have access to them in on the iphone when with the exchange mail setup.
 
maflynn said:
Is the contacts in outlook? If you can get them in there, then you will have access to them in on the iphone when with the exchange mail setup.
Click to expand...

That is not a bad idea. Most of them are not in there but I can probably put most of them in there without too much difficulty, at least the contacts who work for the company anyway.

I would have to put the external contacts in separately but there's not too many of them.

Newtons Apple said:
I would think your company IT people would be able to move your contacts to your new phone. Ask them.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately its a big multinational company, and the IT support consists of an offshore call centre, who run through the basics (have you turned it off an on?) then authorise an equipment swap out if they can't fix it. Theres no chance of finding anyone who would actually be able to do anything useful like that!
 
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I had faced a similar problem a week ago. Searched my ass off and found a solution that worked perfectly. (iTunes was/is out of question). I was able to transfer my Contacts, Messages, Custom Ringtones etc. It took me only some minutes. It was done with AnyTrans.
 
Having all ones contacts in Gmail is but one of the many advantages of Google. I've enjoyed years of enhanced iPhone functionality thanks to Google Contacts, Calendar and Mail. All of which interface and populate Apple's Contacts, Calendar and Mail perfectly.
 
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peckerhead said:
I've got a corporate provided 4S which my company will be replacing in a couple of days due to battery problems.

I need to somehow copy over my contacts to the new iPhone but can't see a way to do this, as being a corporate phone, they've annoyingly locked it down with a lot of restrictions.

iCloud is disabled so can't use that, can't install any non approved apps, not allowed to connect it to an personal iTunes account so can't backup that way, and I can't even share the contacts individually by emailing them to myself, as the stock Mail app is disabled (we have a third party email app instead).

It seems that Apple don't allow you to copy contacts TO the SIM, you can only import them from it.

Is there any other way to do this, or am I doomed to having to input every contact manually? :eek:
Click to expand...


What are you using for an email server? If its hosted Exchange (Office 365) or on premise , you will get your contacts again when the new phone connects to it, along with anything else you synced up. Like someone else said, I use google and when I connect to it from anew device I get all my data back.
 
Sounds like the contacts are just On His iPhone and not synced anywhere.

Can you SMS the contacts, one at a time? If so you could set up a Google Voice number for a Gmail account. SMS messages with attachments, like a contact, get sent to the email address.
 
This is going to be a problem at your company whether a broken phone or just an upgrade if they don't have provided some mechanism. I understand the issue with support since my former company was just as bad. It is probably worth asking however.
 
Ulenspiegel said:
I had faced a similar problem a week ago. Searched my ass off and found a solution that worked perfectly. (iTunes was/is out of question). I was able to transfer my Contacts, Messages, Custom Ringtones etc. It took me only some minutes. It was done with AnyTrans.
Click to expand...

It sound great but work won't pay for it and I'm not spending my own cash on it.

vietalogy said:
Download idrive online app. It can backup and restore contacts, calendar, photos.
Click to expand...

Can't install apps.

maxsix said:
Having all ones contacts in Gmail is but one of the many advantages of Google. I've enjoyed years of enhanced iPhone functionality thanks to Google Contacts, Calendar and Mail. All of which interface and populate Apple's Contacts, Calendar and Mail perfectly.
Click to expand...

I agree, I use Gmail on my own iPhone 6S and it's great. But this is a corporate phone and I have to use their systems.

tom504 said:
What are you using for an email server? If its hosted Exchange (Office 365) or on premise , you will get your contacts again when the new phone connects to it, along with anything else you synced up. Like someone else said, I use google and when I connect to it from anew device I get all my data back.
Click to expand...

BrianBaughn said:
Sounds like the contacts are just On His iPhone and not synced anywhere.
Click to expand...

It's an exchange server and the mail client on the iPhone is called Good for Enterprise. Brian is correct, the contacts are on the phone and not synced. Most communication is done by voice calls so the numbers were transferred in from an old Nokia phone.

However this got me thinking. I went into Outlook on my laptop and was able to add most of my contacts within the company fairly easily. Now they do show up on the phone in the contacts section of Good for Enterprise so it has synced in that respect. But they don't show up in contacts tab of the normal phone app. Any ideas how to do this?
 
peckerhead said:
That is not a bad idea. Most of them are not in there but I can probably put most of them in there without too much difficulty, at least the contacts who work for the company anyway.

I would have to put the external contacts in separately but there's not too many of them.



Unfortunately its a big multinational company, and the IT support consists of an offshore call centre, who run through the basics (have you turned it off an on?) then authorise an equipment swap out if they can't fix it. Theres no chance of finding anyone who would actually be able to do anything useful like that!
Click to expand...

you can help yourself and send your contacts one by one like you do when you exchange contacts with other people…. as message from the old phone to the new one.
takes just some seconds for each and this is shurely not restricted.
After receiving them on your new phone you can then put them in the contact app with one click - like every contact you received in daily life....

shops of carriers have also the means to transfer contacts and calendars with certain equipment from one phone to another - it´s their daily business...
 
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If your company has your phone that restricted then you probably can't add any accounts at all, I would assume, and therefore can't get the stock Contacts app to sync with anything. Manually adding via a shared contact as MrAverigeUser suggested is the only thing I can see that would be easier than typing them in.

I haven't seen "Good for Enterprise" in action. Can you get the iPhone to dial a number from its contacts section?
 
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