Finally ready to tackle my Contacts

This is a situation which has been an obstacle to me making a clean switchand I’m ready to find a workable solution.

Background: Long time ago, my mobile device of choice was a Windows Mobile 5device and it served me well via ActiveSync with Outlook on my desktop. I have had an occasion each of losing data onmy mobile and restoring painlessly via ActiveSync and also losing data on mydesktop Outlook and using the same connection to restore the desktop. I felt the data protection it allowed wasconfidence inspiring. After awhile, Iupgraded to WinMo6 to get threaded text messaging by default – and it stillworked via ActiveSync. It was short,sweet and painless.

Over time, my Contacts list had grown and I had a management problem where Ididn’t need to see everyone in the list but I didn’t want to delete their contact(BTDT), so I added a nested folder, called it “Old Contacts” and simply did adrag/drop from my desktop to that folder, and ActiveSync removed them from mymobile device. It worked very well andif needed I could drag/drop them back.

A few years ago, my software needs caused me to buy an iPad2. I found using the iPad such a joy, thatalthough I bought it for the use of literally ONE application (Foreflight),that I ended up using it for email, web and more that soon other applicationswere loaded onto the iPad. Soon after, Ithought it would be prudent to have a backup for Foreflight, and since I loathecarrying multiple devices, I purchased and iPhone5, which didn’t work withActiveSync and didn’t integrate with Outlook and didn’t handle my contacts inthe way that I’d become accustomed.

Current Situation: Now I have since upgraded the i5 to an i6+ and have 2contact lists that are out of sync. Ihave the list that is still in Outlook with the nested folder and I have theone on my iDevices that I have allowed to sync to my iMac via iCloud. I need to assimilate the contacts on Outlook,then I can retire Outlook J

Questions: I exported both folders to .csv file and I can live with the lossof the contact picture – small loss. I’drather not if there is a better way to export/ import the contacts fromOutlook. Suggestions? What would be the Apple way of managingcontacts that I would like to archive?

Questions: I exported both folders to .csv file and I can live with the lossof the contact picture – small loss. I’drather not if there is a better way to export/ import the contacts fromOutlook. Suggestions? What would be the Apple way of managingcontacts that I would like to archive?

Click to expand...

I've never used the .csv format for contacts or for financial data because it's more difficult to work with being a comma delimited format. For contacts it's best to export them as a .vcf file as that will directly import to your contacts.app with most of the data intact. You may have to fill in some note information and other things but for the most part, everything else should import OK. I've done this and it works.

If I export/import the .vcf files, will it warn me of duplicates?

What about the contacts that I want to keep but not necessarily keep active?

Jaybird180 said:

If I export/import the .vcf files, will it warn me of duplicates?

What about the contacts that I want to keep but not necessarily keep active?

Click to expand...

No warning about dupes whether you use csv or vcf. You'll need to weed out any dupes manually. Contacts are contacts, doesn't matter if they're active, they'll still show up in your contacts.app.

When I wanted to migrate all my (500-sh) contacts from Outlook to the Apple native app I exported them as a PST file and then used PST converter pro to import them:

https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/pst-converter-pro/id446401009?mt=12

It worked well. Can't remember if it brought the contact photos, however (it was about 5 years ago now I made the change).

There is no way I am aware of to mask some of your contacts in the Contacts app, however.

OK, just done a little experiment.

If you open the Contacts app on your Mac, you will see a side bar which says 'iCloud' and under that it says 'All iCloud'. If you mouse-over where it says 'iCloud' then a + symbol will appear. Click this and a new group will appear under 'All iCloud'; give it a name like 'active contacts'.

You can now drag contacts from your 'All iCloud' list to the new list. The new list is a view into a subset of your contacts. If you delete a contact from all iCloud it will go from the new group too. If you attempt to delete it from a sub group then the app will ask you to clarify whether you want to delete the contact from iCloud or just remove it from the group.

In your iDevice, when you open the contacts app you will now see a 'Groups' option top left. Use this to select the 'active contacts' (or what ever) group to only show that filtered set of contacts.

Sorted!