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Multiple iPhones, Single iTunes "All from My PC" Contacts Group Question

E

earth616

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Feb 14, 2011
12
0
My wife and I have new iPhone 4s. We are syncing using the same instance of iTunes on PC.

I used the Verizon VZ Contact Transfer app on my phone to load all of my contacts on it last Monday. Everything worked great.

My wife did the same with her phone and her contacts. Again, no problems.

I am using Hotmail and set it up today to access that address book on the phone, too.

My wife did the same with her Hotmail account today.

Tonight, we both synced our phones and now my phone's "All from My PC" contacts group contains both my contacts and my wife's. And my wife's phone's "All from My PC" contacts group contains both her contacts and mine.

How can we undo this and how can we keep this from happening again?

Thank, in advance, for the advice!
 
earth616 said:
My wife and I have new iPhone 4s. We are syncing using the same instance of iTunes on PC.

I used the Verizon VZ Contact Transfer app on my phone to load all of my contacts on it last Monday. Everything worked great.

My wife did the same with her phone and her contacts. Again, no problems.

I am using Hotmail and set it up today to access that address book on the phone, too.

My wife did the same with her Hotmail account today.

Tonight, we both synced our phones and now my phone's "All from My PC" contacts group contains both my contacts and my wife's. And my wife's phone's "All from My PC" contacts group contains both her contacts and mine.

How can we undo this and how can we keep this from happening again?

Thank, in advance, for the advice!
Click to expand...
There is a couple of ways to do it! Do you have Outlook?
 
JamesMB said:
Sorry, I mean the application. If it is windows address book, does that application allow you to split the contacts in to seperate folders?
Click to expand...

Oh. We aren't using any application to manage the "All from My PC" group on our PC. These are the contacts we had on our Blackberry phones up until last week. We used the Verizon Backup Assistant tool to save our individual address books off the BBs and then used the VZ Contact Transfer app to pull them onto our respective iPhones.

Sorry if I'm not answering the right question. I appreciate the help!
 
Since you are managing your contacts yourself, you son't need iTunes to do it for you. Thus, connect your phone, and in iTunes go to Devices->Your Phone->Info and uncheck the Sync Address Book Contacts box.
 
swiftaw said:
Since you are managing your contacts yourself, you son't need iTunes to do it for you. Thus, connect your phone, and in iTunes go to Devices->Your Phone->Info and uncheck the Sync Address Book Contacts box.
Click to expand...

When I uncheck that option, it gives me the option to delete the contacts already on my iPhone or keep them.

I thought I could select that it delete what was on my phone and I could just use VZ Contact Transfer to load just my contacts back onto my phone. But, although VZ Contact Transfer said loaded x number of contacts on my phone when I just tried it, there were no contacts in my address book.

Do I need to uncheck the option, select not to delete the existing contacts on my phone, then manually go through and delete the contacts from my wife's address book that merged (and she would need to go through a similar process on her phone, but deleting my contacts from hers)?

Separate, but related question: Does going with the Don't Sync Address Book option you're suggesting mean our contacts aren't ever backed up?
 
swiftaw said:
Since you are managing your contacts yourself, you son't need iTunes to do it for you. Thus, connect your phone, and in iTunes go to Devices->Your Phone->Info and uncheck the Sync Address Book Contacts box.
Click to expand...
That is sure not the way that I would have done it, I would want my contacts backed up when I sync.

But since there is no use in two of us, with different ideas, trying to help the OP, I'm gonna butt out.
 
JamesMB said:
That is sure not the way that I would have done it, I would want my contacts backed up when I sync.

But since there is no use in two of us, with different ideas, trying to help the OP, I'm gonna butt out.
Click to expand...

No! Please help. We want our contacts backed up, just not merged.

I am still right where I was when I originally posted... a combined list of both my phone contacts and my wife's phone contacts are on both of our iPhones in the "All from My PC" group.

I hope you'll continue to share the train of thought you were headed down to help me!
 
I don't use a Windows machine so I'm sorry for all the questions. In the Devices->Phone->Info window in iTunes, under where it says Syncing Address Book Contacts, does it give you the choice of syncing all contacts or Selected Groups (that's what I have on my mac)
 
swiftaw said:
I don't use a Windows machine so I'm sorry for all the questions. In the Devices->Phone->Info window in iTunes, under where it says Syncing Address Book Contacts, does it give you the choice of syncing all contacts or Selected Groups (that's what I have on my mac)
Click to expand...

It gives the choice of Selected Groups, but no groups are displayed.
 
earth616 said:
It gives the choice of Selected Groups, but no groups are displayed.
Click to expand...
The reason that you don't see any groups in iTunes, is because you haven't built any groups. Open the windows address book on your computer and verify that your contacts have been placed there by iTunes.
 
JamesMB said:
The reason that you don't see any groups in iTunes, is because you haven't built any groups. Open the windows address book on your computer and verify that your contacts have been placed there by iTunes.
Click to expand...

If I open Windows Live Mail on the PC running iTunes that we use to update our iPhones, I see all my phone's contacts there (but not my wife's).

(This instance of Windows Live Mail is not synced to either my wife's Hotmail account or mine.)
 
Have you synced your wife's phone using iTunes.
What are your contacts settings in iTunes? A screenshot would help.
When you plug your phones into iTunes, is the device name on your phone different than your wifes?
Are you using "windows live hotmail" for your contacts or are your contacts in windows live on your computer?
 
JamesMB said:
Have you synced your wife's phone using iTunes.
What are your contacts settings in iTunes? A screenshot would help.
When you plug your phones into iTunes, is the device name on your phone different than your wifes?
Are you using "windows live hotmail" for your contacts or are your contacts in windows live on your computer?
Click to expand...

Both my wife's phone and mine have been synced using iTunes.
Screen shot sent via PM.
Our iPhone names are different (AB's iPhone, and hepcat's iPhone).
We are not using Windows Live Hotmail for our iPhone contacts. I only first looked for and noticed my contacts being in the program today since I've been posting here.
 
earth616 said:
Both my wife's phone and mine have been synced using iTunes.
Screen shot sent via PM.
Our iPhone names are different (AB's iPhone, and hepcat's iPhone).
We are not using Windows Live Hotmail for our iPhone contacts. I only first looked for and noticed my contacts being in the program today since I've been posting here.
Click to expand...
That screenshot says that you are using Microsoft Exchange to sync your contacts. Is that true?
 
JamesMB said:
That screenshot says that you are using Microsoft Exchange to sync your contacts. Is that true?
Click to expand...

That is what's odd. We don't have Exchange loaded on the PC and don't use it. That was the default option that appeared when we set up our phones. The other options are Google Contacts and Yahoo Address Book.

I can find our combined contacts list in a file called C:\Owner\Contacts on the PC. I can see just my contacts from my phone in Microsoft Live Hotmail.

Is there any way to enable the "Selected Groups" option and have each of our iPhone contacts in separate folders on the PC?
 
earth616 said:
That is what's odd. We don't have Exchange loaded on the PC and don't use it. That was the default option that appeared when we set up our phones. The other options are Google Contacts and Yahoo Address Book.
Click to expand...

That's where the problem is. I don't know anything about the Verizon contact thingy, is it possible that they are using Exchange to sync your contacts back to a Verizon? That is sure what it sounds like? If you set your email up in your phone as exchange, that is pretty simple to change.

Is there any way to enable the "Selected Groups" option and have each of our iPhone contacts in separate folders on the PC?
Click to expand...
Yes, but that won't help until we find out where your contacts are currently being synced. The exchange sync + the iTunes sync is what is causing the dup's.
 
Last edited:
JamesMB said:
That's where the problem is. I don't know anything about the Verizon contact thingy, is it possible that they are using Exchange to sync your contacts back to a Verizon? That is sure what it sounds like? If you set your email up in your phone as exchange, that is pretty simple to change.

I can find our combined contacts list in a file called C:\Owner\Contacts on the PC. I can see just my contacts from my phone in Microsoft Live Hotmail.

Is there any way to enable the "Selected Groups" option and have each of our iPhone contacts in separate folders on the PC?
Yes, but that won't help until we find out where your contacts are currently being synced. The exchange sync + the iTunes sync is what is causing the dup's.
Click to expand...

Ah ha! I used these instructions to set up our Hotmail accounts on our respective iPhones... http://www.iphonehacks.com/2010/08/how-to-setup-hotmail-using-exchange-activesync-on-your-iphone-ipad-and-ipod-touch-for-push-email-calendar-contacts.html

Is that part of the problem?
 
I just did a bit of searching, and it looks like Hotmail only supports POP or exchange. As long as your contacts are not being synced to hotmail, there shouldn't be a problem
 
JamesMB said:
I just did a bit of searching, and it looks like Hotmail only supports POP or exchange. As long as your contacts are not being synced to hotmail, there shouldn't be a problem
Click to expand...

My iPhone contacts are not being synced to Hotmail. (But seem to be being synced to Windows Live Hotmail on the PC, if that makes any sense.)

Where does this leave me?
 
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