Need to move Mac data to Palm Treo 680

Welcome to Apple Discussions.

It's a multi-step process. If you're already synchronizing another Palm Device with the Palm Desktop, you need only synchronize your Treo 680 with the Palm Desktop to initially move all of your user data to it.

You can then add your Treo 680 as a device to iSync, and synchronize to move all of the contact data to the Address Book and your calendaring and task data to iCal. The iSync Palm Conduit does not support memos, so you'll have to continue synchronizing those alone to the Palm Desktop if you want to synchronize them.

Once you've migrated your data to teh Address Book and iCal, you should ditch iSync and the iSync Palm Conduit altogether, and install and configure the Missing Sync for Palm OS:

http://www.markspace.com/missingsync_palmos.php

It offers far more extensive options than iSync, overcomes the limitations of the Palm Desktop and support the extended features of an advanced Palm device like your Treo 680.

Hey Michael, you seem pretty knowledgeable about this stuff and you're from Eugene, which is pretty cool, I'm from Ashland.

I have a palm treo 650. I was able to sync it to my computer via bluetooth and seems to have worked with a few slight errors.

1. It exported my ichat contacts with no info. So the names appear in my contacts on the phone, however, there's no information contained in them.

2. It imported all of my contacts were located on the phone, but none from my sim card. Is there a way to make it import these as well? The result is that I now have some duplicate contacts.

3. So I guess the last thing, is there anyway to merge these duplicated contacts easily?

Thanks!

Welcome to Apple Discussions.

Ashland. Nice town!

The iSync Palm Conduit does a relatively poor job of synchronizing Palm OS data structures. For many, there is no mapping at all, and for some—like addresses—a field label selection will determine if the data in the field is synchronized. These issues are manifested to a greater extent in 'advanced' Palm OS 5.4 or greater models, like your Treo 650.

IM messaging identifiers, like those used with iChat, are an example of a field which is not mapped. Other fields in records, such as first and last name will synchronize, but the IM data will not.

Most such limitations are addressed by the Missing Sync for Palm OS, which you can learn more about here:

http://www.markspace.com/missingsync_palmos.php

The SIM transfer problem is actually an issue with the SIM standard, which does not allow for data access other than by the mobile device itself. In order to copy contact information stored on your SIM to the Address Book, you first have to copy it to a reserved memory area on your mobile handset or smartphone reserved for that purpose. On a Palm device, that means that the information must be in Palm contact records. My SIM is absolutely devoid of any contact data, as I think that is the easiest way to avoid such issues and make sure that such information is being actively synchronized so that changes made elsewhere are actually reflected on my Treo.

Merging duplicated contacts is just one of those tasks for which there are no real shortcuts. You can remove contacts from your SIM, use UnDupe to remove any duplicate Palm contact information, and sort your Address Book records so that you can easily copy and paste information from one card to another then cut the duplicate record. There is also a merge option under the Card menu in the Address Book labeled Look for Duplicate Entries… but, I am not sure that I trust it. In my finely tuned Address Book data file, that option finds 5 duplicate records and 83 duplicated entries. I see none.

I only see dead people. (Just kidding…)

You can always back up your Address Book records using the Back up Address Book… option under the file menu, then use the Look for Duplicate Entries option and merge your records. If you don't like the results you get, you can immediately restore your record set by selecting Revert to Address Book Backup… option from the File menu.