How to backup your contacts to Gmail, transfer them anywhere or to another phone

[bobturismo]

Well my mogul took it's final crap last week, only waiting for TP2 to come out now. In the mean time, I'm borrowing a crappy RAZR2 v9 and needed my contacts from my mogul.

I didn't have outlook express, as I didn't want it on my computer, in which case I could've transferred the contacts straight to the motorola via "Motorola Phone Tools".

BUT I found that GMail will let you upload your contacts via a "CSV" file or "Outlook", that way you can access your contacts from anywhere that you can access GMail. You can even export them as a vCard (for importing into Apple Address Book or other application) or back into an Outlook CSV file.


1. Backup your data with "Spb Backup" (or if you all ready have the saved data, skip to the next step) normally I save the file to my micro SD card that is inserted into my phone. Just in case the phone takes a crap like mine, you can still access the micro SD card with a reader or another phone.

2. Transfer the file "backup_2009xxxx.exe" to your PC, where xxxx is the day and month I believe, so it would say "backup_20090820.exe" if you did it today. It will have 3 yellow boxes as the Icon.

3. Using "Spb Backup2" (because the newer version carries the unpack tool we need), unpack the backup file you just transfered to your PC. (goto Start Menu>All Programs>Spb Backup>Spb Backup Unpack.) Click on it and it will ask you for the file to unpack, which will be "backup_2009xxxx.exe, then using the scroll on the left, go down to PIM and click on Contacts and then click on "Extract" at the top. Then save the file as a CSV and give it a name, like "contacts" maybe) You can also extract any other data from phone at this point.

4. You should have a "CSV" file saved on your PC (will look like a Notepad file), which you extracted with the spb unpack tool. I named mine "contacts". Open your GMail account and on the left side it says "Contacts" and click on that. On the right side of the window it will say "Import" ( Import | Export | Print), click on that and it will ask you for the CSV file, Browse to where you saved the CSV file and open it.

At this point, you can now access your contacts from anywhere you can login into Gmail.

5. Now you can "Export" (click on "Export" on the right side of the screen Import | Export | Print) your contacts into a vCard or an Outlook CSV file you can upload them outlook express or to Apple Address Book. When you click on "Export" it will ask you "Who you want to Export" and select "Everyone (All Contacts)" and not "Only My Contacts" unless you selected all of them and moved them to "My contacts"


I hope this helps someone