contacts

Noah's girlfriend lost her smartphone, but they found it and the screen is shot. The phone still works, but they'd like to get the contacts off. Leo says they can connect it to a computer and use the Android File Transfer app on a Mac, or use it as a hard drive on a PC. The PC will read the phone as a hard drive and then they can hunt around and find all the data. She should look in the Android Data folder, check "SD0", copy all of it to the hard drive, and then root around.

Jim got a Samsung S9, but he erased all his contacts when he got rid of the phone, and they were deleted on his computer. What can he do? He used an old contacts backup from an older phone. Rich says that Jim should check Google Contacts to see if they are on there. Being an Android mobile device, all the contacts should be there. They could also be saved to the Samsung cloud. He should Import his usable contacts there, and then he can make changes there and import them to his new phone once he's got them all worked out.

Dale has an Apple and Outlook contact list. He'd like to merge them. How can he? Rich says that the iPhone doesn't do a good job where the contacts are located. But the Mac contact app does. So Rich says to sync all the contacts to his Mac. Add them in his contacts app, and then sync it. Then, Rich recommends using Google contacts as his main contact manager. He can add his Google account in there by clicking the plus sign.

Maurice's Outlook contacts disappeared and now he can't send group emails. Leo says there could be a few things happening. Outlook's autocomplete is constantly looking at the contacts, and if it's missing, then it can't read them. If it's intact, then it should come out, including his group list. Carbonite will backup his data, but if the link between his contacts and the group list is broken, then that could be part of the problem. He should try and verify that his address book is there. If the address book is gone, then there is the problem. If the list is there, then he can back it up.

Bob is looking to dump his old flip phone for a smartphone. But he has bad eye sight and would like to transfer his contacts from his old rolodex to the smartphone. Leo says that Google Contacts is the best option. It'll sync to just about phone platform, as well as his desktop. He'll have to get the contacts into it first, and that will take some hand entry to type them all in. He may want to look into paying a college kid to do it.

Bob bought a Samsung Galaxy S9 and he thinks it's too large for his hand. Leo says that larger phones are the future, as people prefer a larger screen to hand comfort. Bob also has hundreds of contacts on his phone that aren't his after he synced it. Leo says it's possible that AT&T or Samsung sold Bob a phone that was returned and hadn't wiped it before doing so. But if they sealed it up to make it look new, that's against the law.

Garth turned on his phone and it suddenly started download information into his contact list. Where did it come from? Leo says that smartphone contact lists often go into social networks and sync information to the contacts list. Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn all have that feature.

Diane wants to know how to remove someone from her Google Calendar. Leo says it's likely pulling the information from her address book in Google contacts or her PC contacts. She should look for the entry and delete anything she doesn't want to keep track of, and it will disappear.

Diane also wants to save her music from her phone to her computer. Leo says DoubleTwist is the app for that.

Brian is wondering if he can prevent third-party apps from seeing his contacts list on his phone. Leo says it's very common for apps like Snapchat, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and more to suggest inviting friends from your contacts list. They have to ask permission to get to this list, though. These apps upload the contacts list to their servers so it can alert you that someone new has joined that app. Leo says that absolutely is a privacy breach.

David wants to know how he can print out the contact list from his iPhone. Rich says that the best way to do this would be to export his contacts as a CSV (comma separated values) file, and then he can open it into a spreadsheet like Excel. There may be an app that will do it for him, but if he uses Google contacts, he can export them from there.