New iMac, old contacts from Dell laptop, keep contacts on iphones during move??

[Ttaylor394]

We just got our new iMac. My wife and I both have iphones; 8 GB 3g and 32 GB iphone 4 respectively.

Before the iMac we had an old Dell Laptop and synced our contacts via iTunes with Outlook, and we had the same numbers and it worked nicely.

I was the first to sync my iphone with the new iMac and knew the music would be replaced with what ever I chose. My apps are the same placement and order after the sync, and I added some videos onto the phone.

Other than that I really do not remember the specifics of the sync. I may have checked something under info about syncing contacts, but i guess i didn't read into that enough.

Is there a way for my wife's phone to keep her numbers?

If I add the names to all the numbers I have (in the text conversations and recent calls) and re-sync, will the names all go into the mac from my phone?
Then I could sync my wife's phone and all the numbers I have accumulated will go to her phone? Right?

any help is great
thanks
tt

 

[MYmacROX]

My suggestion to you is to FIRST in Address Book on your Mac to create a new contact group and name it something specific. You and your wife can share one or create a separate one for each of you.

When you initially set up your wife's iPhone with your new iMac, there are settings in iTunes under each tab ("Music", "Apps", "Photos", etc.) that you can specify how syncing is handled. You want to look under "Info" and in the first Box are options for Contacts.
So, in that "Info" tab in iTunes you can check "Selected Groups" and then check which contact group to sync her phone with and then check the box that says "Add contacts created outside of groups on this iPhone to:" and then select her contact group (or your shared contact group) from that drop down next to the box you just checked.
That will add whatever contacts from her iPhone to your Address Book contact group on the iMac. Then when you sync your phone, you can choose the same one or create your own contact group in Address Book app by copying hers over.

I hope that wasn't too detailed/confusing. Basically you need a contact group in the Address Book app to sync to and you need to copy what's on your iPhones to the contact group in the Address Book app on your Mac. Play around with those tabs and settings and I'm sure you'll figure out anything else you need.

HTH