I love being part of the Verizon network and generally don't have any issues with my service. But recently, I started having recurring issues with Backup Assistant being able to backup my contacts to the cloud.
I have an HTC One and I love it. I would prefer not to have to reset and reboot multiple times nor do I wish to receive a new phone. Sometimes, getting a new phone is more hassle than it's worth. Not to mention, I like my phone. A LOT.
I went to the Verizon Community and found that I'm not the only one having this issue. Cloud contacts backup failed I don't know why this issue started happening and from what I've been able to read, it seems that Verizon isn't quite sure either. In some instances, customers have been told to reset and reboot or they've received a whole new phone.
One contributor suggested that instead of using Verizon's backup utility, that you backup your contacts to Google instead... and I thought, " well, DUH... I should be doing that!" If you don't know, when you add a new contact to your address book, you have the option to save to either the Phone or to a Google account. If you save to your phone, then your contacts will be backed up to Verizon's cloud using Backup Assistant. If you save to your Google account, then your contacts will be backed up to your Google (Gmail) account.
If you're anything like me, you have contacts (sometimes even duplicates) saved in both places because you arbitrarily choose between Phone and Google. Most customers generally won't even notice or recognize the difference. Until you have an issue with backuping your contacts, that is.
I like having consistency in how my contacts are managed, so I decided to go ahead and move my existing phone contacts over to Google. This way, my contacts are saved to my Google account, and can easily be viewed and managed from within Gmail.
Moving your phone contacts while on your computer
TechRepublic has a really good post on how to move your phone contacts over to Google Pro tip: Migrate all of your Android contacts to Google - TechRepublic however, what's not specified in their post is that you actually have to login to My Account using your computer and complete the steps. This is further explained in this great post: How to Move Verizon Backup Assistant Contacts to Gmail | Writing Towards Happy.
There's an app for that
However, I wanted a solution that allowed me to move my contacts from the phone over to Google while on my phone, rather than managing my account using my computer. Unfortunately, this solution proved to be a little bit more difficult, so I was more than just a little bit gleeful to find an app in the Google Play market that allowed me to move and manage my phone contacts super easily.
Contacts Optimizer is an app that allows you to use their Accounts Merge feature to move your contacts from your Phone Memory to Google, synchronize them, and then find and delete duplicates. Two extra nice bonuses? A really slick, intuitive design and NO ADS!
Moving your contacts from phone memory to Google
So, say, for example, you have one contact in Phone Memory and want to move it to your Google account, which currently has 299 contacts. Just follow these steps:
1. When you first launch the app, you'll see the intro screen. Just press "Next"
2. The next screen lists all of the accounts that you use on your phone that has contacts associated with it. In this screenshot, you will see that there is one contact under Phone Memory and 299 contacts under Google.
Select the account that you want to optimize, which is Google.
3. To transfer the one Phone Memory contact to Google, choose "Toolbox"
4. In the Toolbox menu, choose "Account Merging"
5. In the next screen, you will choose the source account (the account from which you want to move your contacts). Select "Phone Memory" and then press Next.
6. Now you will choose the target account (the one you want to transfer your contacts to) which would be your Google account. Select Google and then press Next.
7. In the next screen, confirm that you want to transfer your contacts from Phone Memory to Google by pressing "Save changes". Voila! You're done!!
If you want to confirm that your contacts have been transferred, you can go back to the Home screen, and choose "Select account". If you have moved your all of your contacts from Phone Memory to Google, you will no longer see "Phone Memory" listed in the available accounts and the number of available contacts listed under your Google account should have increased. Referencing the screenshots above, you will see that I moved one contact from my Phone Memory to my Google account. My Google contacts increased from 299 to 300, meaning the transfer was completed successfully.
