Hello - dual SIM Note 8 user here.
I've recently updated my device from Oreo to Pie and I seem to have lost a feature within contacts and wanted to check whether it was removed from the app or perhaps I'm just not getting my head around the correct way of now replicating what I previously had.
I have a dual SIM and use two separate Google accounts to separate contacts between the Sims. Furthermore one of my Google accounts has hundreds of contacts which I have further segregated using groups (such as starred and others).
Previously in Oreo, I had quite granular control within the contacts app as to which particular contacts I wanted to see and in my particular use case, I had selected to show all contacts from one account and in addition only those contacts starred in another account. This was a one time activity which left my phone book in the state I wanted.
However in Pie, it appears I can now only select one particular contact account at a time or all contact accounts (not multiple accounts in between 1 and all). This is frustrating as I have some mail accounts that I do not wish to display contacts for. Additionally it seems I can only view one sub group at a time, so while I can display only starred contacts, it means I can't show contacts from the other account at the same time and instead have to constantly switch between different 'filters' instead.
Am I missing something or has this filtering ability of the contacts app now been severely crippled. Assuming it has, is there anyway to use the old contacts app or should I just look for a 3rd party app to do this now.
Thanks for reading!
Hello! I think there's an option to see the groups in the menu on the left.
Though, the granular option is gone yes. Sadly.
Related
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
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.
Hello, I'm a new owner (less than a week) of the Captivate and a newbie for android except for messing with the Backflip for a couple weeks. All of your guides have been great and I've been tweaking the heck of my captivate. I've even recovered from a near-bricking... scary but satisfying when I breathed life back into the phone. Currently I've got it rooted, OCed, new interface, etc.
However there's one aspect I'd really like to change that's bothering me. As you can guess from my subject it's the contact handling. I haven't seen any threads addressing it and hope someone can either help or point me towards a solution.
In a nutshell, contact handling is horrible. It makes me appreciate motoblur on the backflip... and I hate going backwards. I can't sync my google contact groups and the current implementation is acting strangely. I have it set up to only sync and ONLY display google contacts yet I'm getting an abbreviated list on the contacts tab. There's a lot of contacts that will only display if I click Groups->google. I have no idea why.
Are there any mods that will improve the display of contacts and handle the managing and syncing of google contact groups? Also, what folders will it sync if I enable contact sync with my exchange server? Will disabling sync remove the contacts if I don't like how they're being displayed?
Thanks.
I agree. The stock Contact app on this phone is garbage. The google groups are completely hosed on this app. No individual ringtones can be assigned unless you also create duplicates as phone contacts and then link them together. That is completely brain dead. Even if you do that, you still can't view the google group assigments. They are there, you just can't see them. Try to create a new group with the same name as one of your google groups that doesn't show. It will say it can't create it because it already exists. I'll say it again, the Contacts app on the Captivate is garbage. I haven't been able to find a replacement for it either. Anybody have some suggestions?
The closest thing I can find is an app called GroupU. It presents all of your google groups and changes made through it sync back to your google contacts. However it not integrated into he OS so it's a bit awkward to use.
Still looking for other options. Are there any phones out there that have better contact/google integration? If so, would it be possible to, say, backup that phones contacts.apk and restore it to the captivate? I don't think this would be possible (though I'd definitely try it if I had a different android phone) but I'm still knew to this and haven't gotten down to code level yet.
Anybody else have other options?
Raleran said:
In a nutshell, contact handling is horrible. It makes me appreciate motoblur on the backflip... and I hate going backwards. I can't sync my google contact groups and the current implementation is acting strangely. I have it set up to only sync and ONLY display google contacts yet I'm getting an abbreviated list on the contacts tab. There's a lot of contacts that will only display if I click Groups->google. I have no idea why.
Thanks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Two things I can think of in response that might answer some of your questions/issues.
You are obviously aware that you can display contacts from a specific location as you described like "google contacts." For some reason the contacts app has default settings for certain apps. For example; only display contacts with phone number when you are in the dialer or only display contacts with email addresses when in the email app. I have noticed that this weird auto filtering has a tendency to block the contacts I want at the wrong time. I would try checking the filters and make sure its not just hiding what you want to see.
Secondly, I was annoyed with the poor handling of contact groups by the captivate. It seems that the phone will not sync the group placement of the contacts with gmail. From the reading I did, it seems this is a known issue and is being addressed. Google recently made changes to the contacts section online and I am assuming that we will see a change on next months update.
I hope this answers some questions. I have not tried any 3rd party contacts managers so I don't have a replacement suggestion. I got my filters straight and I don't mind waiting for a "groups" fix.
This is my wife's biggest gripe with her phone as well. The groups come through weird, and when she links two contacts together we can't seem to figure out how to set one as the default, so several contacts are showing up in her list as their Twitter username instead of their actual name.
Also, no assigning personalized ringtones for Google contacts? Seriously? Vanilla 2.1 and 2.2 don't have this problem.
I can't wait for somebody to write a vanilla ROM for the Captivate and get completely rid of touchwiz.
Another brain-dead feature of contact groups: if you do "send message" to a group, you're presented with a list of all the contacts in the group. None of the contacts in the group are selected, and there's no "select all" option; you have to go through and tap every member of the group.
Shovelhead84 said:
You are obviously aware that you can display contacts from a specific location as you described like "google contacts." For some reason the contacts app has default settings for certain apps. For example; only display contacts with phone number when you are in the dialer or only display contacts with email addresses when in the email app. I have noticed that this weird auto filtering has a tendency to block the contacts I want at the wrong time. I would try checking the filters and make sure its not just hiding what you want to see.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm having this trouble with the default contact app. If I go to the "desktop" and start contacts I get a different listing on the contact tab then the groups->google tab. I've made sure that only google contacts are displaying (unselected google and made sure the contacts tab was blank). I don't see any filters except for the "only display contacts with phone numbers". Are there any others hidden somewhere?
Shovelhead84 said:
Secondly, I was annoyed with the poor handling of contact groups by the captivate. It seems that the phone will not sync the group placement of the contacts with gmail. From the reading I did, it seems this is a known issue and is being addressed. Google recently made changes to the contacts section online and I am assuming that we will see a change on next months update.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think that the groups are carried to the phone and they're synced in the background. I think that Touchwiz contacts just doesn't display them. Here's why I believe this... GroupU says in their description "Contacts GroupU integrates with built-in phonebook seamlessly." When I loaded it, it knew my labels I had set up in google contacts AND when I changed the assignment it synced back to my desktop.
I haven't seen anything on next months update... do you mean 2.2 will be released then?
Kiserai said:
Also, no assigning personalized ringtones for Google contacts? Seriously? Vanilla 2.1 and 2.2 don't have this problem.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Here's the strange thing... I know someone with the original droid and they can't access groups either. Go figure.
I've never seen a vanilla ROM for android... so I have absolutely no clue what it looks like.
Raleran said:
I'm having this trouble with the default contact app. If I go to the "desktop" and start contacts I get a different listing on the contact tab then the groups->google tab. I've made sure that only google contacts are displaying (unselected google and made sure the contacts tab was blank). I don't see any filters except for the "only display contacts with phone numbers". Are there any others hidden somewhere?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I would double check this but I just picked up my phone and it is dead. Not sure why but my battery is completely drained...I think you will see different filter options base on contact application launch. IE...dialer, email, messaging
Raleran said:
I haven't seen anything on next months update... do you mean 2.2 will be released then?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
We can only hope... here is one post on it.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=754678
EX Dialer seems great
Kiserai said:
This is my wife's biggest gripe with her phone as well. The groups come through weird, and when she links two contacts together we can't seem to figure out how to set one as the default, so several contacts are showing up in her list as their Twitter username instead of their actual name.
Also, no assigning personalized ringtones for Google contacts? Seriously? Vanilla 2.1 and 2.2 don't have this problem.
I can't wait for somebody to write a vanilla ROM for the Captivate and get completely rid of touchwiz.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
First off try EX Dialer, it seems fine, and I think it addresses your complaints.
Sendly any JB 4.2 release for your Cappy will astound you, most CM 10.1 based ROMs are really fine.
I like Captivating, though slim bean looks well supported.
Dosolutions
I'm an android noob, just came over from the iPhone camp so please bear with me..
I've had the sgs for a couple of days and so far been trying to get a good handle on managing my contacts...
I used to backup / sync my iphone in itunes and my company outlook. I had a recent backup of my contacts in outlook, so the easiest way to get them on the android was to sync them over...
Now they show up in my corporate group.
Then I sync'd my facebook and it did a decent job of linking most of my contacts (I really like the way android does this as opposed to iphone)
I also had a recent list of contacts on my sim since I had been iphone-less for a couple of months and was using the old nokia flipper.
Now I have a couple of questions...
I've got my contacts display options only showing me the corporate and facebook groups (with phone numbers) .. so the list looks good !!! however when I send or receive a text message, it also shows all my sim contacts. A few of my sms threads were linked to the sim contact (only first name, no picture etc) .. the only way i found to resolve this was to delete that particular contact off my sim...
question 1) how do you delete all sim contacts ? (couldnt find a select all)
question 2) do I really have to delete my sim contacts? or can I disable it altogether so it won't show anywhere in my phone
question 3) next time I get some cute girl's phone number, it'll get stored as a "phone" contact .. how do I keep my corporate (outlook) contacts in sync with phone contacts... or can I put her number right in the corporate (outlook) group so it stays in sync with my exchange account ..
I don't want to end up with a bunch of numbers as phone contacts and another bunch as outlook / corporate contacts. I'd like to be able to back it all up somehow (like itunes would backup the iphone and sync with outlook)
Thanks for your insight and wisdom
if you are having trouble using Kies to manage your contacts, you can try this better alternative
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=765081
I installed android manager .. still no way to delete all sim contacts !!! amazes me why such a simple task is just not possible...
well good thing i have my 8 year old nokia phone that does it for me
Also annoying that I cant just turn off sim contacts so I won't have to delete all of them (another thing 8 year old nokia just does!)
indeed we have apps like this
http://www.appbrain.com/app/com.shao.Copy2SIM
to copy contacts to SIM
but we have nothing to manage contacts from SIM
LOL
That's cool .. I plugged the sim in the nokia and wiped all of its contacts .. not the android doesnt get confused anymore..
now if i could only find that patch to fix my sms time stamps .. i'd be a happy android camper.. I tried 3rd party sms apps, but they dont seem to read my "exchange corporate" contacts .. so every text shows with just the phone number .. sigh
to hide your sim contacts on samsung galaxy S use the options :
contacts->menu->display option->choose contacts to display "UNCHECK SIM"
hope this helps
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.