Such a simple thing. Backup my phone numbers into the sd card
 

But an hour has gone by and I've done nowt but format the sd card


I've put my UK sim into my Motorola Cliq XT to run the UK T-mob so they don't forget me. I was pleased to find a mass of numbers on that sim which I though I'd lost. However, while I can copy them to the phone with an APP, I can't seem to send them to the SD card.

Is it an across the board procedure for all makes and an easy answer?


I've downloaded the full manual in the past, but that seems to need to be called afresh every time. And it's a mile long. :ugh:


EDIT


Got an extra hour before school pickup, so downloaded manual again. I can do everything it suggests like copying photos to the SD card, but nowhere does it say anything about sending one's phone lists there.

Surely this has to be possible!!??



.

Doesn't it run Android? In which case can it not sync with GMail? GMail can export to CSV and VCard formats.

Yes, and yes I think it can. Oh dear, I knew I should have got a phone with some string and two tins.

I leave everything switched off as cost is a factor now I'm not on a family plan.


I'm just surprised it needs any 'outside' help to send a list to what is in effect part of its extended brain.

Not quite sure what you're trying to achieve, but you've tapped "USB drive" in the phone's remote connection dialog to make the SD card appear as a drive on the PC, right?

Yep, that all works fine. I even keep a backup of me book on the SD card.

Having said that, I erased everything from the SD and formatted it using the phone. I wondered if a foreign formatting might be fooling it.

So, now a phone with a known working and formatted SD card and I simply want my phone lists - commonly known as Contacts - on it.

Via settings, I can unmount the card and check it has 1873MB out of 1874.


Now to get any further functions, I have to go to an APP. This I find odd. I thought APPs were add-ons for children - of all ages. Anyway, manage SIM card gives me options to import and export contacts. Simple.

No mention in the phone or the vast manual gives an option to copy my contacts to the SD card in one simple move. Seems such an obvious omission.


If I use a button on the phone while contacts selected, I can Mange accounts or select Settings. The former takes me to [email protected] It has a lock symbol.

Settings offers me MOTOBLUR ADDRESS book. The green check box does nothing.

It does seem one has to go the g-mail route and indeed send my lists into cyberspace. But I Don't want to!!!!!:ugh::ugh:

In fact, I don't want anything to do with anyone that would name a system, BLUR. It sounds like the noise someone with a coated tongue would make.

The screen is covered with BLUR BLUR BLURS while booting, which this phone seems to do on a whim. Yes I can wait for one and a half minutes to call the cops. Why should I care about 911 calls being called in quickly. Take your time and reboot, why don't ya.

Grief, I hate this phone with a vengeance, but as mentioned, I've stockpiled so many spares during the four replacements, it seems a shame to waste them.:rolleyes:


One last thing. This phone was unlocked for me cos we were once a busy customer. In the UK, with a UK SIM, it worked fine. Just another reason to keep it.


(T-Mobile in the UK were very kind to me. They turned off money wasting things and refunded me over £20 to set things straight. All the issues restarted after landing in the US again. But, they carried on when I went to a cheepie phone deal with a new SIM, so it wasn't that. )








.

If you had a stockpile of Merc bits that just didn't work, would you keep them or chuck them?
I've now got to the point with clutter that I tend to chuck more now than I ever did. Especially with the history of mobiles around the Ancient household. The last time I dug out an old mobile was for the brother, who wanted the battery. "Here", said I in triumph....... "As dead as a do-do", said he a couple of days later..

On your specific point, I've never wanted to copy contacts on to the SD/micro card. I just keep the contacts that I want on the sim, and move them between phones using the sim card, with a backup on the pc from a simple sync every now and then. (Not a sync to Outlook - that would be a sledgehammer!)

Yes, I may well be trying to do something no one ever wants to do. Does no one on this forum copy 'contacts' to SD card?

It seems a handy way of passing info from phone to phone without messing with people's SIMs. Or it would be, if there was any easy way of doing it.

How do the files appear on a PC if not with something like outlook . . . can they just be a simple backup file stored in its own directory?

This seems more appropriate.

http://us.123rf.com/400wm/400/400/ze...aying-help.jpg

Sometimes I get the feeling one is beyond help.


But here's a thing. When I for some reason formatted the SD card the first time, that's when I noticed most of my numbers had disappeared from the contacts list.

It is just possible I managed to lose them some other way, but I only recalled the above having posted in the early hours of this AM. It really did lead me to believe that's where they resided.

Well, providing the screen is unlocked as I connect its lead to the PC, it offers Charging Only, or USB drive. Certainly, the drive reveals the folders on the SD card, and I can create a folder for, as mentioned, a backup of me book. But, no means of a contact list it seems.

Odd about the list disappearing, only remembered that after hitting the sack last night. But I may have stripped the SIM at that time, though it gives 3 stages of warning before final erasure. It's a puzzlement.

That's understood, but I simply assumed the SD card could be a contacts list storage place as well. I say simply, because it would be so handy. For example: Copy all one's UK numbers to a clean SIM from the SD upon entering the UK. And vikki verkie.


Mind you, while addressing another issue, T-Mob in the US, had me do a factory reset of the phone. Everything went TU and after ages of fumbling he told me to go to Motorlola and ask for a new phone!

I've mentioned this before, but it does show how the unwary can lose their entire list with a little help from an idiot with an odd accent. An SD card with full backups would be of great value.

I gather all this can be done with Apps / Goo mail etc. However, I'm loth to send my phone lists into cyberspace and indeed, now I'm on a penny-pinching contract, $50 can disappear in a few days with nothing to show for it. Again, the (separately run) UK T-Mobile, were superb, and refunded money lost in this way. Here in the US, such generosity has not been forthcoming. Also, we have to pay to receive calls! So easy to forget and let one of my kids with limitless minutes ramble for a while and use up a month's money!

The SIM card might be a bum steer. I haven't used the SIM card to actually store contact information in my last 5 or 6 phones, because the normal SIM only supports single name and number pairs. To store full contact information, including full names, addresses, email addresses, multiple numbers per contact, etc. all my recent phones have used in phone memory, from the Nokia 8210 through Nokia 8310, Nokia 6230, Nokia N95 and iPhone, ending with iPhone 5.

I believe there was a change to the SIM card specification to allow the storage of more detailed contact information, but I am not aware of any phones that use it.

It seems to me that you prefer to talk about rather than solve the issue. If you don't want to take the easy route of synchronizing your contacts with your Gmail account, then there is no shortage of apps that will copy them to the memory card.

That is what apps are all about, making your phone do what you want it to.

The issue is simple now I know what should be possible in the phone - isn't

Don't want the phone interacting with Goomail all the time. Costs too much. Well, I assume it does, because I can't think where else me money went.

The name of a simple App would be helpful. But one I could trust.


I'm still astonished that a phone with a reasonably modern Operating System needs outside help to do simple functions.