Best way to blow out and redo contacts?

Question

Level 1

56 points

Best way to blow out and redo contacts?

My contact are pretty messed up, lots of duplicates and such.

Whats the best way to blow everything out and start fresh?

I was thinking doing a sync, then exporting contact list to excel/numbers, fixing everything, then doing an import to the Mac Contact.

But that still leaves contacts on the phone.
Whats the best and/or easiest way to delete all contacts on the phone?

Mac Mini & Macbook, & iPhoney, Mac OS X (10.5.8), Where's my Convertable laptop/tablet mac???????

Posted on Sep 29, 2010 5:00 AM

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Answer 1

wjosten

Level 10

95,321 points

Sep 29, 2010 5:09 AM in response to MudShark

Once you get your contacts straightened out & in Address Book they way you want them, do this:

1. Launch isync from your applications folder, itunes NOT running, under preferences, select reset sync history, when finished, re-boot your computer.
2. Launch itunes, under preferences, select prevent ipods/iphones from syncing automatically.
3. Connect your phone.
4. Select your phone in iTunes and click the Info tab.
5. Scroll down to the Advanced section, and under "Replace information on this iPhone/iPad/iPod touch" select Contacts.
6. Click Apply.

You should be good to go.

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Answer 2

Sep 30, 2010 3:47 AM in response to MudShark

Have the same issue as MudShark, followed your excellent instructions on my MacBook Pro, but when in Info tab section, all the old groups are still there not my better organised ones. Any suggestions?

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Answer 3

MudShark Author

Level 1

56 points

Sep 30, 2010 4:41 AM in response to MudShark

LeeMeakes,

If you are exporting > fixing > importing with something other then just Address book, before importing, go into address book and delete everything prior to importing. (Command-A) should do a select all)

Yes they were great instructions (Thanks) Just a bit involved for what I though a simple task. Rebooting I frown at, but if it works, I'm ok with it.

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Answer 4

**drc**

Level 1

0 points

Sep 30, 2010 11:44 AM in response to MudShark

I need to do the opposite. Syncing completely scrambled my gmail contacts list, rearranging names and adding many duplicates. I've now deleted all of the gmail contacts and want to restore the gmail list from my phone (3G running 4.1), but I'm afraid that the sync may delete everything from the phone. Does anyone know how to do this safely?

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Answer 5

Oct 4, 2010 3:37 AM in response to MudShark

Over the weekend I did a few things - all of which didn't work:
1. Restored iPhone - when I brought up iTunes - still had old contact groups listed under Contacts tab
This just meant I lost all my hard earned levels on my games
2. Reloaded iTunes - hoping to get rid of the old contact groups - nope still there
This is on top of doing the iSync thing, quite a few times... can you tell I am desperate.

Now some of the contact groups that have content in Address Book, are empty on the iPhone. Is this because I (maybe?) didn't close iTunes while syncing. Where does iTunes get its contact list from, because it is not from my Address Book? I have also managed to lose 3GB capacity in the iPhone.

About to admit defeat and make do, by just putting every in via the iPhone and not using the Address Book anymore. Very frustrated. I thought Apples were meant to make things easier.

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