Database Develop

Sync only certain gmail contacts

In 1.5, I could do this (or something similar)
http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/android/thread?tid=3a1a78cfe42ee8d9&hl=en
But that option is not there in 2.1. I'm assuming it has something to do with Sense.
Any ideas?

It's no longer there. It's a huge pain in the ass to me. Was super useful that it was an option in 1.5, a selling point for me, in fact.
i've posted in every Android and Sprint forum I could find. I even tried flashing the Contacts app from 1.5 to 2.1 but that never works.
The overal consensus on all forums is that they really don't care and nobody used this feature... what!? This feature is KEY in my opinion. I'm basically looked at as a whiner. I get that this reply is whinny but usually I come at it from a reasonable standpoint.
so annoying.

the way i fixed it was create a group for phone contacts and then i erased ALL of the contacts in gmail HAHAHA
/ME SLAPS FOREHEAD

On Darchdroid, I can go Contacts>Menu>Display Options>select my Google acct>Select the groups. But Darchdroid is based on AOSP, so I'm not sure about Sense.

Yeah, it's def. a Sense issue.

the way i fixed it was create a group for phone contacts and then i erased ALL of the contacts in gmail HAHAHA
/ME SLAPS FOREHEAD
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yikes. no thanks.
On Darchdroid, I can go Contacts>Menu>Display Options>select my Google acct>Select the groups. But Darchdroid is based on AOSP, so I'm not sure about Sense.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is because you have AOSP Contacts.apk and it can filtor out the contact groups you don't want. But you still have to have to stock contacts app on the phone with ALL your contacts which means they will still show up in the results list of any app that can look through your phonebook, like handcent, fring, other SMS and VOIP apps. Oh, and Google Voice too. Pretty good workaround but not ideal for me. I actually want them to not be synced in AT ALL.

I also would like to have this feature back. Under sense 1.5 you could chose between if you wanted my contacts and all contacts synced from your google account. I have not been able to find this option at all under 2.1.
Because I email other people through the web gui those people/email addresses now show up on the phone which I don't want (just like all my facebook people showing in the phone dialer) the only way I have found to reduce this is to go into google contacts on the pc and select all contacts>put a space in the search box(which now shows two groups other contacts and My contacts) and than delete any of the "other contacts" you don't want and add any you want into my contacts

Would a work around be make a [email protected], export the contacts you want to include, make android not link the contacts in your main email then link the contacts in your [email protected] account?
I had a simular problem with the Palm Pre where it would export my contacts from facebook (and really... I dont need half those peoples numbers) and then sync them with my Google contacts. So I had to create a Facebook contact and link every single person to that contact name so they would be removed from my list. It was really annoying. Took me about 15 minutes to fix but was good after that.

This is a f'ing JOKE!!!
What were they thinking. Hello HTC gmail is an email account not a phone book it seems pretty logical that people would have a number of contacts in gmail that they don't have phone numbers for.
I loved choosing which groups to sync. I specifically created a set of groups for the purpose of syncing with my phone. I certainly do not have a need to have all 500 of my gmail contacts on my phone.
So seriously no work around for this other then moving to a different rom?

email htc and ask for group syncing to be returned
After posting my feelings on here I went ahead and sent HTC a support request email. I encourage everyone to email HTC (and sprint for that matter, get sprint to apply some pressure on HTC to have this feature returned).
Here is the txt of the email I sent to HTC:
Hello
I have an HTC Hero from Sprint here in the USA. I updated to android 2.1 using the rom that you and sprint released. I am EXTREMLY UPSET!!!!!! This update had made managing contacts impossible. What were you thinking!!!! Gmail is an email service first and foremost so it would be clearly logical that gmail users would have contacts that they do not have phone numbers for and thus don't need to be in their phone. I have 500 contacts (yes 500 email contacts) and I DO NOT want 500 contacts in my phone. In 1.5 I could chose which gmail contact groups I wanted to sync with the phone but it seems like that ability has been removed in 2.1, WHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY???????????????
Please bring this feature back IMMEDIATELY. It should have never been removed. The remove of this feature has crippled me in the use of my phone.

Contacts in Phone App not necessarily People App....
I have 4200 contacts. I REALLY REALLY REALLY want this solved.
While testing the Andriod App and Google Contacts I realized a couple of things.
In Google Contacts selecting ALL Contacts I could REMOVE them from MY CONTACTS under GROUPS.
If you look to the left hand side column you will see MY CONTACTS now has ZERO contacts in it and ALL CONTACTS has all your contacts.
Then I selected ALL CONTACTS in the left hand side column. The I selected only the contacts I wanted to be in MY CONTACTS. When you click on a CONTACT you now have an option next to GROUPS at the top that say MOVE TO MY CONTACTS.
The great thing about this is under the PEOPLE APP only MY CONTACTS and the GROUPS I have created show up in the PEOPLE APP.
This is what I hoped would happen.
What happened in addition to this you ask?
Now when I go into the PHONE APP I click on MENU then PEOPLE and voila! Only the selected contacts come up. Perfect so far right?
Wrong. From the HOME screen I press the TALK BUTTON. When I start scrolling through the HISTORY of the calls and I arrive at the last HISTORY call I see that the 1st CONTACT of my 4200 contacts shows up. Then I scroll on down and realize that all 4200 contacts ARE THERE!!!!
So it is not only the PEOPLE APP that needs work but ALSO the PHONE APP. In my opinion.
Am I missing something?
So my question is now how do I tell the phone app to only sync whats in PEOPLE APP and not request ALL CONTACTS?
Any thoughts? Ive only worked and researched this for about 5 hours. So I am probably missing something.
Thank you for your help.
David
Build: Damage Control v2.09.01
Firmware: 2.1-update1
Baseband: 2.42.01.04.27
Kernal: 2.6.29-bc0d2cf

which roms emulate 1.5 sytle of choosing which gmail groups to sync to the phone

Hi Everyone
I really liked how in 1.5 one could chose which of their gmail contact groups they wanted to have synced to the phone. Now let me take a min to explain what I am talking about because I think when I say this I have confused people in other thread topics when asking about it. Using the web interface of gmail I have created a couple of groups (phone family, phone friends, etc). I created these groups because I did not want all 500 of my of my gmail contacts on my phone. Creating these groups allowed me to specifically choose which contacts would be synched from the web to my phone and keep them organized based on how I know them. Now in 2.1 this was taken away and replaced by a sync all contacts approach (this was already aval in 1.5 so I don't know why they would chose to take out the group syncing ability). I know there are ways to limit which contacts appear in people by going to view and then choosing no phone number this is not enough control for me because my contact list/people app on the phone is still over loaded with contacts.
Are there any 2.1 roms that emulate the syncing options that were available in 1.5?
Thank You

There isn't. Only 1.5 has that option

That really SUCKS!!!! I could have sowrn that I read in one of the threads here that at least one rom did support that functionality but I have tried it and it has been a no go :-(
Is it a HTC thing or is it an android thing? By that I mean does 2.1 just make that impossible to do or is it something that if I or someone else wanted to to make a custom rom could add in or bring that functionality back?

I agree that this sucks that this option was taken away. I have asked a few different places about this option and have got no response.

I figured it out...
Hey everyone
I can't believe it I figured it out :-D I am feeling super happy I am one step closer to bringing full functionality back to my phone :-D
I haven't duplicated it on anyone else's phone so not sure if it is a fluke or what. Also only have it working in the custom rom I am using (ALOYSIUS 2.1)
If you want to know what I did pm me and I'll let you know.

you could just, you know, tell us in this thread so everyone doesn't have to PM you

This thread will most likely be moved to the hero general forum....but I just got his PM on how he got it to work.....
dsMA said:
Here is how I got it to work. I went to settings; accounts & sync; I have background data, auto-sync, and google, email checked.
You then exit out of settings and open contacts. Go to the contacts tab, menu, display options, click on gmail account, now a list of all your gmail groups should appear, check the ones you want to sync. Click done to save changes. Now the contacts tab should be populated by all the people in those groups you have selected. And now when you go to people it should be populated by only those groups that were checked in contacts. (i didnt change any settings in people, clicking menu, view, the only things checked are phone and google)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

interesting. i wonder if the same technique would work with a facebook group? i don't want all those people in my phone haha

I agree I don't really need all my facebook friends in my addressbook. In fact when you go to people -> view -> I leave facebook unchecked so none of them do. So if you would rather none of your facebook friends show up in the people app that is the way to do it.
Now it would be cool though if you could do something similar with facebook contacts that you could do with gmail contacts; I personally don't know. I suspect you might be able to filter the facebook contacts and sync/display by groups provided that facebook allows you to create groups of contacts but I don't know if they do.

Contacts in Phone App not necessarily People App....
I have 4200 contacts. I REALLY REALLY REALLY want this solved.
While testing the Andriod App and Google Contacts I realized a couple of things.
In Google Contacts selecting ALL Contacts I could REMOVE them from MY CONTACTS under GROUPS.
If you look to the left hand side column you will see MY CONTACTS now has ZERO contacts in it and ALL CONTACTS has all your contacts.
Then I selected ALL CONTACTS in the left hand side column. The I selected only the contacts I wanted to be in MY CONTACTS. When you click on a CONTACT you now have an option next to GROUPS at the top that say MOVE TO MY CONTACTS.
The great thing about this is under the PEOPLE APP only MY CONTACTS and the GROUPS I have created show up in the PEOPLE APP.
This is what I hoped would happen.
What happened in addition to this you ask?
Now when I go into the PHONE APP I click on MENU then PEOPLE and voila! Only the selected contacts come up. Perfect so far right?
Wrong. From the HOME screen I press the TALK BUTTON. When I start scrolling through the HISTORY of the calls and I arrive at the last HISTORY call I see that the 1st CONTACT of my 4200 contacts shows up. Then I scroll on down and realize that all 4200 contacts ARE THERE!!!!
So it is not only the PEOPLE APP that needs work but ALSO the PHONE APP. In my opinion.
Am I missing something?
So my question is now how do I tell the phone app to only sync whats in PEOPLE APP and not request ALL CONTACTS?
Any thoughts? Ive only worked and researched this for about 5 hours. So I am probably missing something.
Thank you for your help.
David
Build: Damage Control v2.09.01
Firmware: 2.1-update1
Baseband: 2.42.01.04.27
Kernal: 2.6.29-bc0d2cf

The Fix
For people who stumble upon this thread and need an answer let me share my experiences.
In version 1.5 of the OS HTC allowed us to pick which contact groups we wanted to sync to our phones from our gmail accounts. Enter 2.1, now we no longer have that granulated control, we are forced to sync all of our gmail contacts. After talking with HTC they told me that this is not a result of a change in their contact app (people) but rather a change google made to the android os.
I will now talk about some of the display options provided by people:
launch people - click menu (physical phone button) - click view
As it relates to google here if you want to sync your google contacts you must check the google box. Unfortunately as I stated above this syncs all google contacts. HTC does allow you some limited control over which contacts are actually displayed in your contact list though sadly the controls are not all that great. The only real useful option is at the top "show only contacts with phone numbers". This will only display those contacts which you have a stored phone number for. This option applies globally so if you have your phone tied to flicker, facebook, and twitter then also only contacts with phone numbers present will be displayed. There is a setting under Google that says "show auto gmail contacts" this will display those contacts that are set to show up in your gchat.
How to fix the problem.
Simple answer is that you are going to need to have the AOSP contacts app on your phone. The easiest way to do this is find a rom that includes it. This is actually easier said then done if you want to keep sense on your phone. Everyone has their opinion of sense, either you like it or you don't; personally I like it. The only rom that has both that I am aware of is Alyosius. I find it to be a good rom with both oc and non oc versions aval. If you have a rom that has the aosp contacts app here is what you do:
1. launch the contacts app (contacts)
2. menu (physical phone button)
3. display options
you will now be provided with the various accounts your phone syncs to
click on your gmail account
a set of sub options should now show up, after scrolling through the suboptions you will notice that all your gmail contact groups are shown.
4. check which ever groups you want displayed
Note: this does not prevent your phone from syncing all your contacts, there does not seem to be a way to prevent your phone from syncing all your gmail contacts. this simply makes managing the contacts that show up on your phone more manageable. This trick will limit the contacts that show up in the contact/people app to just those whose groups you have checked.
Note: when preforming a search view the search app or search button it is still possible to search for contacts that are not displayed i.e. since all groups are synced no matter what you will get search hits on those contacts same goes for when using the dialer.
If the rom you use does not have AOSP contacts I would contact the rom developer and see if it is possible to install the AOSP contacts app on your own and see if they can help you.
I hope this is helpful to people.

[Q] Showing particular contacts(Groups) from Gmail account.

hey. was just wondering if there's anyway to sync selected groups of contacts instead of every damned one on my list.
reason is that i don't want hundreds of e-mails clogging up my contacts list.
sure, i can show only contacts with numbers. but there are some contacts which i only have their e-mails.
thanks!

i'm looking for something similar myself
i got several email accounts (more than 15) that i sync with and you can imagine the huge mess of contacts i have in my phone when i pull up the list to search for an email or phone number
i'm trying to find a way or something to organize all that
also to sync it all across all the accounts
or something along the line
just to clean them up and make it easy to the eyes
i have no problem finding the number or email of the person i need to contact
it just eye soring to see over a 1000+ contacts when you bring up the list to pick from the list.
good lord Android came with an awesome search build in, else it would have been a major pain in the arsenal as it was with Windows Mobile and PalmOS and every other smartphone i've ever had before, even Blackberry sucked at contacts handling

ah well. looks like for now i have to show only contacts with phone numbers. and add some random numbers for the important contacts that i only somehow have their e-mail addresses. bummer.

Contact Madness and Duplicate Hell

I have a VZW Moto X now running 4.4.4. Every sense the upgrade my contacts lists are now a mess. I have hundreds of quasi duplicates. It appears that my contacts app is drawing it's info from Google/Gmail the phone itself, my Exchange server, Facebook, LinkedIn, Waze? and others. I only want to use google or exchange. Both are synced and have the same info so either will do on my phone. Because of this I have many duplicate names listed that no information other then the name. No phone, no email just the name and I can't tell the source. I can limit to only working with one contact list by telling the phone to only display one list but that doesn't work for searches which give me 5 or 6 of the same name and only way to find the correct one is click on each one. This is making contacts useless. It use to work so how do I fix this? Were is the merge command that was in older versions of Android!
THanks,
Nathan Williams

nlinecomputers said:
I have a VZW Moto X now running 4.4.4. Every sense the upgrade my contacts lists are now a mess. I have hundreds of quasi duplicates. It appears that my contacts app is drawing it's info from Google/Gmail the phone itself, my Exchange server, Facebook, LinkedIn, Waze? and others. I only want to use google or exchange. Both are synced and have the same info so either will do on my phone. Because of this I have many duplicate names listed that no information other then the name. No phone, no email just the name and I can't tell the source. I can limit to only working with one contact list by telling the phone to only display one list but that doesn't work for searches which give me 5 or 6 of the same name and only way to find the correct one is click on each one. This is making contacts useless. It use to work so how do I fix this? Were is the merge command that was in older versions of Android!
THanks,
Nathan Williams
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Can you not go to people (open the app). Settings (...) Contacts to display : select just what you want?

Yes but it does not work in search. If I do so I get results from all of the contact sources. Which defeats the point of limiting the lists in the first place.

Never mind. I have deleted the contact storage data and let it rebuild. Problem appears to be corrected.

Empty Duplicated Contacts Read Only?

Ok I've done some digging and can't seem to find anything with my exact problem.
Yes I have looked up duplicated read only contacts BUT everyone seems to have this issue with contacts synced from another app. Mine is no.
Got this baby this past Sunday (found out that I can upgrade 7 days early so of course I did it. Love the phone and think I will be okay without root. Got Helium backup to backup my data. Only thing left is for them to add a Restart in the power menu then I'll be fine with no Root. OH and they need to get Lolipop out ASAP)
But ever since then I've been having this issue. I've been having new contacts made, same name as a contact I have, but with not info (most of the time. Sometimes it has their number in it). Now here is where it gets weird.
They are Google contacts that it says are saved under my Gmail. I go to Gmail, No duplicated contacts there, I try to delete, says they are read only and can only hide, AND it seems like the contacts that are getting duplicated are contacts that I seem to call most often. I have all other apps and their contact sync turned off so I know it's not an issue with them, and since they are saved under Gmail and when I turn off the local Phone contacts they are still there so I know they are not local saved/SIM contacts.
If anyone has any suggestions let me know. I felt like I had this issue loooooong ago with another phone but pretty sure it was back when Facebook synced its contacts and I had to link them.
I'm a savvy guy and know my way around Android.
Thanks

Ok well i ended up getting it myself.
For people with this issue:
Turn off google contact sync. Then go to apps in settings and then look for the contact storage app. Force stoo the act and clean all data. Check contacts to make sure its empty. Then enable google contacts sync.
Sent from my XT1254 using XDA Free mobile app

Contacts in Android are stored in a database, and as they come from multiple sources (synced from Google, Facebook, Whatsapp, LinkedIn and copied from SIM or stored as "local phone" contacts...) it's easy to have multiple instances of same contact with different info or even duplicates. Contacts app let you "join" multiple contacts from different sources so they will appear joined in your contacts list, but they will still be stored inidividually in the database.
Anyway, there are multiple apps that let you manage your contacts at a deeper database level. With MiniContacts https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.brapeba.minicontacts you can see all raw contacts one by one showing its original account source (group). And you can delete all contacts from a source (i.e. those coming from LinkedIn, or Facebook) or choosing manually those you don't want. Notice that if you don't disable the syncronization with the source those deleted contacts will reappear again. So, first disable syncronization! If you want to delete the contacts permanently from everywhere instead of just from your Android database, go to the source (LinkedIn, Facebook...) and delete them there.
Hope it helps...
drtweak said:
Ok I've done some digging and can't seem to find anything with my exact problem.
Yes I have looked up duplicated read only contacts BUT everyone seems to have this issue with contacts synced from another app. Mine is no.
Got this baby this past Sunday (found out that I can upgrade 7 days early so of course I did it. Love the phone and think I will be okay without root. Got Helium backup to backup my data. Only thing left is for them to add a Restart in the power menu then I'll be fine with no Root. OH and they need to get Lolipop out ASAP)
But ever since then I've been having this issue. I've been having new contacts made, same name as a contact I have, but with not info (most of the time. Sometimes it has their number in it). Now here is where it gets weird.
They are Google contacts that it says are saved under my Gmail. I go to Gmail, No duplicated contacts there, I try to delete, says they are read only and can only hide, AND it seems like the contacts that are getting duplicated are contacts that I seem to call most often. I have all other apps and their contact sync turned off so I know it's not an issue with them, and since they are saved under Gmail and when I turn off the local Phone contacts they are still there so I know they are not local saved/SIM contacts.
If anyone has any suggestions let me know. I felt like I had this issue loooooong ago with another phone but pretty sure it was back when Facebook synced its contacts and I had to link them.
I'm a savvy guy and know my way around Android.
Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

Thanks for the reply but it is making blank contacts with theur name and storing then as phone contacts. Google is the only source i sync any contacts from but ill give this a try
Sent from my XT1254 using XDA Free mobile app

Thanks for the tip, @drtweak! This was driving me nuts and I couldn't figure out how to fix it. Good work...

Thanks!
drtweak said:
Ok well i ended up getting it myself.
For people with this issue:
Turn off google contact sync. Then go to apps in settings and then look for the contact storage app. Force stoo the act and clean all data. Check contacts to make sure its empty. Then enable google contacts sync.
Sent from my XT1254 using XDA Free mobile app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I could kiss you right now. I have been scouring the internet and downloading apps for hours trying to figure out how to fix "read only" and "can't be deleted" contacts on my second replacement dud Turbo 2. Duplicates galore, and they wouldn't go away. Thank you, thank you, thank you! :laugh: No more Verizon Cloud - that really messed it up both times. Merry Christmas! :good:

Christina729 said:
I could kiss you right now. I have been scouring the internet and downloading apps for hours trying to figure out how to fix "read only" and "can't be deleted" contacts on my second replacement dud Turbo 2. Duplicates galore, and they wouldn't go away. Thank you, thank you, thank you! :laugh: No more Verizon Cloud - that really messed it up both times. Merry Christmas! :good:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The app Simpler Contacts can merge duplicate apps. I've used it on friends' phones to do that.
Of course, Simpler Contacts also would like you to keep using their app and even their backup service, and they have a Dialer app too. But you don't need all that. I just use Simpler Contacts once in a while to check for duplicate contacts.
But this solution above is good too.
I also used Simpler Contacts to export all contacts from a "local" account. Helped to friends do this when they switched from iPhone to Android and the carrier store exported all their iPhone apps to "local" phone account -- which is STUPID. All the contacts need to synced with Google.