DESPERATE: How to transfer my Treo 680/Palm Desktop info into my new 3GS?

Question

Level 1

6 points

DESPERATE: How to transfer my Treo 680/Palm Desktop info into my new 3GS?

Hello, so I finally bit the bullet and made the switch from my beloved Palm environment to the iPhone. Been on the Palm since they first came out. Yes, PalmDesktop (on 4.2.2. for the Mac) is awful and ugly and out of date, but it's where all my data is. (Trust, am upgrading my Mac when I can, just not the year for that expense too, sadly.)

And I am now up that migration creek of **** I thought I would be.

I have over 3,000 contacts in my Treo, with 300 memos, and a huge calendar dating back to Feb 2000 (no joke). It's like a life diary to me, I want to import it all. My work IS my contact list, so I need to import all 3,000 of them, with all their notes, categories, etc. into my new 3GS.

I am not sure how to do this. Desperately need some hand holding on this import.

Am on a Mac so I don't have Outlook.

Do I have to get everything into iCal and Address Book? How? Has anyone done this and preserved categories?

Do I shell out for Missing Sync and start there? (Anyone used this method?)

My friend and I tried iSync a long time ago and it doesn't preserve the categories, etc. so that isn't an optimal solution.

Am reading a bit online about people transferring from Palm into Google, and then the iPhone? That's a whole other ballgame. Thoughts? How to?

I am so lost. Been online for three hours and have no idea which way to turn.

Here's the desperate part: am leaving for Europe Saturday am, and need to make sure my contacts are in my phone, otherwise I have to drag the Treo along too so I have my data! Ridiculous.

Has anyone done this transfer?

I'd be so incredibly grateful for guidance.

Thank you!!!!

PowerBook G4, Mac OS X (10.5.7)

Posted on Sep 11, 2009 12:37 AM

Reply

Answer 1

nick101

Level 5

5,132 points

Sep 11, 2009 12:52 AM in response to birichina

Here are your options:

1. Export from Palm Desktop and import to iCal and Address Book Instructions are here:

http://www.palm.com/us/support/downloads/pre/migration/exportical.html

The downer is that this will lose your categories in Address Book, I think.

2. Get Missing Sync here:

http://www.markspace.com/products/palm/palm-sync-software.html?source=pickerpalmosmac

3. Sync the Treo to Address Book and iCal, then connect the iPhone and sync from AB/iCal to the iPhone. Instructions here

http://askville.amazon.com/Palm-Treo-700p-sync-Mac-OS-iCal-Address-Book/AnswerVi ewer.do?requestId=2508818

Number 3 is your best bet - it should retain all the categories etc. However, doing this in a hurry is a recipe for panic. My advice is to try 3 first. If you can't get it to work, try 1. Although that might lose categories, it gets everything onto the iPhone, and the iPhone's built-in Spotlight search will enable you to find people, events etc really quickly. And it's easy and quick. Later on, when you have time, you can try something cleverer.

You don't need Missing Sync

Reply

Answer 2

Sep 19, 2009 5:25 PM in response to birichina

I just bought an iPhone after years and years of using a Palm device. I used this method to transfer my Treo 680 into my iPhone 3GS.

http://askville.amazon.com/Palm-Treo-700p-sync-Mac-OS-iCal-Address-Book/AnswerVi ewer.do?requestId=2508818

Couple addendums: I had to go into Palm's HotSync Manager and enable iSync. Then I had to hit the hotsync button at the same time as iSyncing it. Voila!

Good luck.

Message was edited by: Tracey Lam

Reply

Answer 3

E-HA

Level 1

4 points

Sep 28, 2009 7:22 AM in response to Tracey Lam

Tracey - yes but did you have as many contacts and appointments? I'm in the same boat! leaving an office where I've been syncing Treo to Outlook/Windows at work for years. 5600 contacts, 29,000 calendar appts. NEVER have been able to sync the Treo to my home PowerMac. Finally bought an iPhone, have tried EVERYTHING to get the data out of Windows and into Mac. NEVER works. hoses entire records, hoses categories, even hoses the labels on the phone numbers. Help!!! Missing Sync does not work with this much data, I tried it... any other thoughts? I have 4 weeks to get this figured out.

Reply

Answer 4

Bjmn

Level 1

0 points

Sep 29, 2009 6:36 AM in response to birichina

I now find myself in the same position as birichina (who started this post). birichina, I'd be deeply appreciative to hear how things went/are going!!

I'm looking at buying Missing Sync even if I only use it once - I don't mind the cost if if works.

I could very well be wrong, but nick101, my recollection of trying a straight export - option Number 1 had the same unsatisfactory effects as using iSync, which is option Number 3.

Reply

Answer 5

nick101

Level 5

5,132 points

Sep 29, 2009 6:42 AM in response to Bjmn

Bjmn wrote:

I could very well be wrong, but nick101, my recollection of trying a straight export - option Number 1 had the same unsatisfactory effects as using iSync, which is option Number 3.

It's entirely possible. Palm has never been great at helping users in this area. If it was me, I'd experiment with 1 and 3 before going for MS, but I can usually find time and I enjoy the puzzle. If you're short of time and brainspace, I'd suggest paying up for MS for the sake of an easy life

Reply

Answer 6

birichina Author

Level 1

6 points

Nov 5, 2009 12:20 AM in response to Bjmn

Well, what I ended up doing was going to the mac store, signed up for one-to-one help for the year with my new computer and phone, and someone there helped me set up a special import (we matched up the different fields so phone numbers would go into phone #, etc.). None of my notes on each record came over, and all the phone numbers came over as "other," but at least the data is in my iphone now.

we did a separate sync for the calendar and it kind of worked--a few weird things happened, but it mostly worked.

and I used notespark to transfer my memos, and enjoy using it on the iphone.

will still take a while to get all this data clean on my iphone, but at least i know who is calling me now!

Reply