Google Contacts Grrrrrrr

Let me start off with im really feeling my G1 about 90% satisfied with it right now and I also like Google.  But I think the way Google Contacts is set up is not as good as the contacts on my old Dash... I use outlook a lot without exchange support and I have about 700 contacts that I communicate with one way or the other.  So to my point I tried to export my contacts and then import them into Google Contacts and most of the fields are all messed up.  I kept detailed information on my contacts and most had links to sites that they have, I dont even see a field for a website input on google contacts so over the next 3 or 4 weeks Im going to have to copy and past each one of my contacts into Google contacts which kinda sucks. 

Does any one know of a better way to handle google contacts

If I'm not mistaken, using something like Outlook would allow you to re-map the fields as you import or export them, like in a CSV file.  So you should be able to set the contacts' websites to whatever Gmail matches up under the "Other" field.  At least, I would think.  You're right though, there are way fewer entries in a contact than before.

Im going to looking in to this Re-Map now

i used outlook i had very little issues, i exported contacts as a csv file. i imported into gmail. the only issue i had was contacts that were saved under business names had to be renamed, but that was like 25 out out of 597 contacts, I was happy

How to import contacts using G-mail
We support importing contacts in the CSV file format (Comma Separated Values). For best results, please use a CSV file produced by Outlook, Outlook Express, Yahoo!, or Hotmail.


From Outlook select File > Import and Export.

 
Select to a file.
 
Select Comma Separated Values (windows)
 
Select contacts > Next.
 
Select where to save it to > Next.
 
Select Finish.
 
You will now have contact save to your desktop.
 
Log into G-mail > select contact > browse and find file > select import.
You contacts will now sync to you device.


i have this in a word document with screen shots but I am at work and there i a firewall hampering my posting it

Let me start off with im really feeling my G1 about 90% satisfied with it right now and I also like Google.  But I think the way Google Contacts is set up is not as good as the contacts on my old Dash... I use outlook a lot without exchange support and I have about 700 contacts that I communicate with one way or the other.  So to my point I tried to export my contacts and then import them into Google Contacts and most of the fields are all messed up.  I kept detailed information on my contacts and most had links to sites that they have, I dont even see a field for a website input on google contacts so over the next 3 or 4 weeks Im going to have to copy and past each one of my contacts into Google contacts which kinda sucks. 

Does any one know of a better way to handle google contacts

I first tried mapping fields in Outlook, and that didn't do the trick for all of my contacts - I found myself losing information, or data was being imported into incorrect fields. Even though the Gmail Contacts interface is pretty intuitive, it is slow and REALLY annoying if you're doing a lot of editing manually.

I am a software engineer, and I spent about 2 hours figuring out the best way to preserve all my Outlook information and put it into a nice format in Google Contacts. I think I found the best solution. I made a custom CSV file in Excel using fields that Google Contacts recognizes, and used Excel formulas and regular expressions to convert strangely formatted Outlook information into fields that are readable by Google Contacts. Once everything was clean and dandy, I just imported this file into Google Contacts. Let me know if you need more info.

Let me start off with im really feeling my G1 about 90% satisfied with it right now and I also like Google.  But I think the way Google Contacts is set up is not as good as the contacts on my old Dash... I use outlook a lot without exchange support and I have about 700 contacts that I communicate with one way or the other.  So to my point I tried to export my contacts and then import them into Google Contacts and most of the fields are all messed up.  I kept detailed information on my contacts and most had links to sites that they have, I dont even see a field for a website input on google contacts so over the next 3 or 4 weeks Im going to have to copy and past each one of my contacts into Google contacts which kinda sucks. 

Does any one know of a better way to handle google contacts

I first tried mapping fields in Outlook, and that didn't do the trick for all of my contacts - I found myself losing information, or data was being imported into incorrect fields. Even though the Gmail Contacts interface is pretty intuitive, it is slow and REALLY annoying if you're doing a lot of editing manually.

I am a software engineer, and I spent about 2 hours figuring out the best way to preserve all my Outlook information and put it into a nice format in Google Contacts. I think I found the best solution. I made a custom CSV file in Excel using fields that Google Contacts recognizes, and used Excel formulas and regular expressions to convert strangely formatted Outlook information into fields that are readable by Google Contacts. Once everything was clean and dandy, I just imported this file into Google Contacts. Let me know if you need more info.

That is the same problem that Im having now data getting imported into the wrong fields and some data not being imported at all... Im very far from a Excell guru so any extra info that you can give me would be much appreciated about this "custom CSV file" I have manually copy and pasted like 70 so far and this is kinda sucking...... also a side note Im sure there's no way to import the photo attached with the outlook to Gmail contacts right.

I edited the wifes stuff in Excel after it was created by Outlook. I came out alright she just had to fix a couple.

Husky403 I think we would all like more info on what you did. Maybe even a sample spreadsheet with the correct formulas.

Does anyone know if you have people's pictures in your Gmail contacts, if they will download to your phone?  Or do you have to add them to your phone and associate them with the contacts in the phone?

Does anyone know if you have people's pictures in your Gmail contacts, if they will download to your phone?  Or do you have to add them to your phone and associate them with the contacts in the phone?

the pics sync both ways so if you add a pic from ur pc to google contacts it will be on ur phone, or if you add a pic to ur phone it will show up on ur pc

Today I tried to play with the excel file so I exported the 50 or so Google contacts to a csv file and I also exported my 700 outlook contacts to a csv file and I opened them both up side my side and tried matching the columns that were the same and added the extra entry's to the exported Google file and imported that file back to google and that did not work husky403 can you tell me what Im doing wrong?

Here is a link with pix and instructions for how i moved contacts...

http://kilen.us/documents/G1%20Contacts.pdf

Let me start off with im really feeling my G1 about 90% satisfied with it right now and I also like Google.  But I think the way Google Contacts is set up is not as good as the contacts on my old Dash... I use outlook a lot without exchange support and I have about 700 contacts that I communicate with one way or the other.  So to my point I tried to export my contacts and then import them into Google Contacts and most of the fields are all messed up.  I kept detailed information on my contacts and most had links to sites that they have, I dont even see a field for a website input on google contacts so over the next 3 or 4 weeks Im going to have to copy and past each one of my contacts into Google contacts which kinda sucks. 

Does any one know of a better way to handle google contacts

I had the same issue where many names disappeared after I exported using the csv file format from outlook to gmail. I had about 300contacts and had to figure out about 100 of those. I had to dial each number on my WM phone to figure out what the name linked to the contact was. It worked out because I cleaned up many of the contacts but it was time consuming.

Click older version in Gmail, import contacts, then set back to newer version.

Unfortunately Gmail Contacts has an issue with setting photo icons for contacts. Unless the user has an email address listed, you can't set a photo for their entry. If you set one on the phone it syncs, but does not show until you add an email address (any address) for that contact.

Edit: If you switch to Older Version and go editing, there are options there to add photos for contacts that do not have email addresses.

Edit2: Aparrantly while it lets you upload one and all that jazz, you can't save the contact.  You just get the error message "You must specify an email address for a contact with a picture." Stupid gmail contacts.

Click older version in Gmail, import contacts, then set back to newer version.

What happens with you click older version and then import what does it do different?

Click older version in Gmail, import contacts, then set back to newer version.

What happens with you click older version and then import what does it do different?

The older version of gmail seems to import CSV files better than the newer version.  I switched to the older version imported my contacts then switched back.  No issues.

I've been using gSyncit ($9.99). It works but not completely. There is no way to customize it that I can find and I get a lot of server errors during the sync process. You can download a demo version but it will only sync 20 contacts. Demo was flawless for me, it wasn't until I purchased and tried to sync about 1400 contacts that I started getting errors and inaccurate syncs. I think it is the same issue as those that are trying to manually sync. Business names as contacts don't show up properly. Not sure I even get that, seems like it should still show up as a name.
Anyhow, if you want to check out gsyncit;
www.daveswebsite.com/software/gsync/index.shtml
As I said, it's not perfect but it works for now. They are updating all the time so hopefully it will only improve with time (or was that the wine I had last night?)