Backing Up iPhone Contacts

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Does anyone know how I can back up my iPhone contacts without them getting erased? If someone could help me out would be great! Thanks.
 
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I believe iTunes automatically backs up your iPhone when you sync it
 
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I believe iTunes automatically backs up your iPhone when you sync it

So does iTunes decide which contacts list was updated last and sync to the latter? Or does it sync differences between the two (ie. If you added a contact through address book on your mac during the day, later got a phone number on the street with your iPhone, does it sync both or does one overwrite the other?)
 
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Just sync contacts on your iphone with your computer through the settings, it will automatically adjust so that the contacts on your phone copy over to the computer.
 
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Sync is a two-way process. If you add something to your address book on your mac and also add a contact directly to the iPhone, the next time you sync the mac will get the one you added to the phone and the phone will get the one you added to your mac. If they are identical names or it has other similarities, it will ask you which one to use. Its cool. If you take a pic on your iphone and add it to a contact on your phone, the pic will sync over to your address book on your mac and vice versa. Now if you use Entorage, you have to turn on its own internal sync with the address book and ical for it to be updated as well as it is the main OSX address book and ical that gets the updates. Entourage will simply sych with them if its own sync is turned on. It wont get the pics though, so you have to manually add the pic to entourage contact or if you had pics in entourage you have to manually add them to address book to get them over to your phone.
 
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Sync does not work both ways

The sync only works one way. For whatever reason, it erased all but 3 of my contacts from my (new to me) iphone. There were no contacts in my macbook address book and since I had read here that it was a two way sync, I just thought it would transfer my contacts to he macbook address.
So now I have an iphone with only 3 contacts, and an address book on macbook with only 3 contacts.
No, there was no warning or pop up dialog. No, there was no option on itunes that allowed for me to back up my contacts. No, there is no option to import or export into my address book on macbook. And lastly, resorting to my old Razr, there is no way to import those contacts into my macbook.
This is why mac has haters. I have lost every family name, number, and address, because I trusted that mac was a two way sync.
 
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Personally I've found the best way to sync Contacts, Mail and Calendar is via Google. I currently have two iPhones, an old 2g and a new IP4. I have them both set to sync everything with my google account. The computer is setup the same way. That way not only is every device I have always up to date, the syncing is done over the air so I don't have to wait till I can connect the phones to the computer. I even sync notes that way too now. Syncing is two way, so when something gets added or updated on one device, it's propagated to all other devices and vice versa. It even syncs contact pictures as well. When I bought my iPhone 4, setting up my mail, contacts and calendar was as simple as pointing it to my google account. Obviously your google account can be sync'd to almost any client any platform too so you aren't limited to iPhones and Macs. I use a PC with Outlook personally.
 
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Calendar and contact sync options for Mac and iPhone

I have a PC that I sync OTA with my iPhone via Exchange and Outlook. My wife has a Macbook and a Palm Centro phone that she syncs with the Palm desktop software.

I want to get her an iPhone. But I'm a little confused on the best option for calendar, contacts and notes. Researching this, I have found several options -

iCal and Mac Address book (I don't see a notes option)
MobileMe
Entourage (Outlook clone?)

I know I can export her contacts, calendar and notes from her Palm software to other formats (I was able to export then import to iCal). But I'm just wondering what others would reccomend for the best calendar, contacts, notes solution - and syncing between the iPhone and Mac. Any suggestions would be appreciated. She does not want to convert to Google, so that is not an option. She also uses notes a lot, so I need the solution to support syncing notes.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.
 
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The sync only works one way.

BZZT...WRONG. Maybe yours only does, but you're doing it wrong.

timwilmath said:
iCal and Mac Address book (I don't see a notes option)
MobileMe
Entourage (Outlook clone?)

You could also use Google as suggested. I use MobileMe and find it quite worth the price. The real time over the air syncing is nice.
 
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Hmmm... I can sync everything but contacts. It does go both ways, but apparently, it stopped syncing new contacts from the iPhone to the computer. Anyone have any real knowledge about how to solve this?

iPhone 3GS
MacBookPro

all OS' up-to-date.

thanks
Billy
 
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BZZT...WRONG. Maybe yours only does, but you're doing it wrong.



You could also use Google as suggested. I use MobileMe and find it quite worth the price. The real time over the air syncing is nice.

I've experienced the same problem when syncing my iPhone to my iMac and nearly flipped-out. Could you explain how to make sure 2-way sync works? I just bought a MBP and I'd like to use MobileMe to sync all 3, but I'm afraid something will go wrong again.
 
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Hmmm... I can sync everything but contacts. It does go both ways, but apparently, it stopped syncing new contacts from the iPhone to the computer. Anyone have any real knowledge about how to solve this?

iPhone 3GS
MacBookPro

all OS' up-to-date.

thanks
Billy

i have the same problem. can somebody help resolve this "sync" issue.
 
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my iphone 4 has been sync with my itunes but i cant seem to view the contacts on my laptop. do you know anyway that i can do this?
 
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The contacts should be in the Address Book app on your Mac
 
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To backup iPhone contacts to PC/Mac you can take help from professional iPhone backup software. Get the cheap and affordable software for this purpose. Use software to create iPhone backup. Complete iPhone backup software let you to backup complete iPhone data but if you want to backup only contacts and SMS then use iPhone contacts or SMS backup software.

Download cheap and affordable iPhone backup software (iPhone 3gs,4,4s Backup Software Tools for Contacts, Music, photo, SMS backup) :Mischievous:


Well, at least you didn't spam us!
mathews_cry_laughing.gif
 
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Hi I have all my contacts loaded in both my Address Book and on my iPhone 3G.

I would like to also back up my iPhone contacts on my work laptop which is a Windows. Is there a way of doing that without iTunes since I do not use the iTunes on my work laptop and never synced it with my iPhone?

I.e. if Is there a way to export the contact entries from the Address Book to a flash drive and then import them in the Outlook of the laptop? Or maybe there is a way to extract the iPhone contacts directly to the laptop? :Confused:
 
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I would like to also back up my iPhone contacts on my work laptop which is a Windows. Is there a way of doing that without iTunes since I do not use the iTunes on my work laptop and never synced it with my iPhone?

Try exporting your iPhone contacts to en email account via Exchange setup on your iPhone. Or use a 3rd party app. Read this: iPhone contacts sync, backup and editing
 

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