iPhone 3G + GMail Contacts Sync Issue

[timboc]

I've got a really annoying issue with the contacts on my iPhone that just won't go away. I'm using iTunes to sync my contacts from GMail.

The problem is that I have a large number of contacts on my iPhone that are just an email address (they have no first/last name) that were at one point in time "suggested contacts" in GMail. I have since removed them from GMail but when I re-sync they stay on my phone. If I look at them on the iPhone they only have "other" information (which is their email address).

I've tried manually deleting them from the phone but they come back after the next sync. I've also checked the "replace all contacts on the phone after the next sync" option in iTunes which didn't make any difference.

How can I get rid of them for good?

Thanks,
Tim

 

[laletterata]

Same problem

Hi Tim,

I am looking at the same problem. Should we delete the contacts and start over re-syncing since gmail updated the way they are doing contacts? I am frustrated because obviously I have added contacts into the phone too.


I look forward to google's solution but haven't found one yet either. An auto- sort tool on the iPhone based on whether the contacts have phone numbers might be useful.

La

 

[Bodah]

Supposedly on Tuesday, gmail changed their contact manager so it won't include all of these. You might try deleting all of your contacts and trying again

http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2008/10/more-changes-to-gmail-contact-manager.html

After hearing consistent feedback that you wanted more control over your contacts, we've changed the way Gmail suggests contacts to you. Up to this point, if you emailed someone five times, we'd automatically move them into My Contacts. Now, we'll no longer automatically add contacts to your My Contacts group. Instead, you can go to Suggested Contacts, select the contacts you'd like and move them into My Contacts. All of your contacts -- whether they're in My Contacts or Suggested Contacts -- will continue to show in auto-complete as you're composing messages.

As part of this change, we're moving previously auto-added contacts back into Suggested Contacts. Only contacts that you've edited, imported or added to a group will remain in My Contacts. This will provide everyone with a clean slate and, we hope, a better point for syncing contacts with mobile devices (for example with Android). We'll be rolling this change out to everyone over the next few days.

We realize there's a lot we can do to make Gmail contacts even more useful, and the feedback we received last time we updated the contact manager was helpful, so keep letting us know what you think.

 

[sbv1]

There's an app for the iPhone called Sync in a Blink that syncs contacts between your iPhone and Gmail. There's an option in the app to only sync contacts with names (eliminating syncing those suggested contacts with just an email address).

http://www.syncinablink.com