merging Contacts Without Deleting

Question

Level 1

8 points

merging Contacts Without Deleting

I'm having difficulty merging contacts from my iphone into my Mac's address book.

All I want to do is add the contacts created on my iPhone into the address book without deleting any old ones. I can't locate a setting in iTunes that deals with merging.

I first synced my iPhone, iTunes loaded the contacts, I added some new friends, and deleted some old ones off the iPhone. Now when I try and sync, iTunes tells me it is going to delete x number of contacts from the Address book.

Any help is appreciated.

macbook 2.0, Mac OS X (10.5.4), iphone 3g v2.0.2, iTunes 8

Posted on Sep 9, 2008 7:13 PM

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Answer 1

Sep 9, 2008 7:19 PM in response to ericfreze

I first synced my iPhone, iTunes loaded the contacts, I added some new friends, and deleted some old ones off the iPhone. Now when I try and sync, iTunes tells me it is going to delete x number of contacts from the Address book.

Sounds like the syncing is working as designed/intended. If you deleted some old contacts from the address book on your iPhone that remain in the Address Book on your Mac, deleting those contacts from the Address Book on your Mac is what is supposed to happen when syncing.

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Answer 2

ericfreze Author

Level 1

8 points

Sep 10, 2008 9:47 AM in response to Allan Sampson

OK, I realize that what I wanted to do may not be the purpose of syncing, but I've seen other threads that say on the first sync iTunes gives the option to "merge data." I never saw that option when I synced. Merging seems different to me than deleting.

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Answer 3

Sep 10, 2008 10:18 AM in response to ericfreze

If you have manually entered contacts on the iPhone and have contacts available in the Address Book on your Mac before syncing contact information with the Address Book, you will be provided a merge prompt during the first sync. If selected, contact information with both will be merged. Following the initial merge, contact information will be kept synchronized.

You didn't merge anything with your first sync. The contact information available in the Address Book on your Mac was transferred to your iPhone. You deleted old contacts on your iPhone and during the sync process, those old contacts that remain in the Address Book on your Mac will be deleted by definition and by design with a sync.

I assume you don't want these contacts on your iPhone but you don't want to delete them from the Address Book on your Mac? If so, this isn't possible when syncing contact information which isn't the definition or design for keeping information synchronized on two computers or devices.

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