How may I copy the contact list from LG C440 to iMac?
 

A friend recently lost his cell phone, which meant that he also lost his contact list which had not been backed up elsewhere. I would like to avoid this in case my LG C440 cell phone should fail or go missing. The LG C440 owner's manual fails to mention any way to back up or copy the contact list to a computer. Do they not consider that contact lists should be backed up?

An online search has failed to find a solution.

I will be very grateful for advice on how to copy the LG C440 contact list to our iMac that runs on OSX 10.11.6.

https://mac.filehorse.com/download-lg-pc-suite/ or try to find the official version from LG.

On those phones it used to be possible to copy contacts to the sim card. Depending on the sim, you may not be able to fit all of them on there. The option above is a better one of course.

Thanks for the suggestions.

On the phone I selected Save to Sim but all it did was duplicate every entry on the Contact List. I then had to one by one manually delete all the duplicates.

The Owner’s Manual does refer to using LGPCSuite. I obtained v1.1.6 and installed it. I am unable to get it to work. I tried connecting by both USB cable and bluetooth.

LG’s Support then advised by email that USB connection does not work (why then is it referred to in the manual?) but it SHOULD be possible using Bluetooth. They fail to advise how in spite of follow up requests for step by step instructions or a link to an instruction video on their website, YouTube or elsewhere.

It is staggering that what should be a simple and routine operation, backing up a cell phone contact list to an iMac, should be so difficult and lacking in support from LG. Has LG management and sales not heard of repeat business and referrals?

LG apparently no longer sells phones. Perhaps the obstructive design and lack of support I am facing caused the phone part of their business to decline. I am looking to buy aircon for our house but why should I consider any aircon made by LG? I think it is fair and reasonable to assume that their aircon products are as impractical and lacking in support as their phones as evidenced by my LG C-440 flip phone. Who designs LG’s products and who manages LG’s after sales service?

My C-440 works fine for voice and SMS in different continents. All that is needed is some simple support on how to copy the contact list to an iMac. Why should this be so difficult?

On this back up issue LG has a track record of failure and incompetence:

1. The cell phone should have been designed to be simple and intuitive for routine tasks such as backing up contact lists, texts, etc
2. The Owner’s Manual should accurately and simply explain how to do them.
3. LG Support should be readily contactable by email by a proper email address, not obstructive online forms that fail to accept phone numbers and addresses in different international formats.
4. Follow up requests to LG Support should be responded to to solve the problem

It would not have been necessary for me to ask for help here if LG had got its act together!

When you try to connect using Bluetooth, what kind of problem do you run into? Can you connect the phone to your iMac using Bluetooth? You should be able to do this from either the phone end or the iMac end through the Bluetooth options. If that works, the LG software should be able to see the phone as well. I saw on the LG site that there is a newer piece of software, LG Bridge, aimed at newer LG phones. I'm not sure if that includes your model but if the LG PC Suite software is no longer supported, it may not work under the newer operating systems. I think I also saw a 1.1.7 version somewhere. You could try that one...

I have looked into this for Samsung. Same lack of interest.

They provide a tool (name changed recently, was Kies, same non-functionality) that sounds hopeful but all it can do is make a copy of the phone and restore it to another samsung. It takes a lot of manual reading to determine this. It all seems so hopeful. It ONLY works over USB and my phone data connection no longer works.

There seem no third party tools either.

I have got an FTP Server to work on the phone but ALL the current ones I tried fail because they are limited to 1024 (I think it was) bytes of directory listing. I assume this is some limit in the API.

Against my better judgement I found an old FTP App I had used previously that is no longer on the Google Play Store and that works great. I had to download an APK file which of course could have been altered by malicious parties.

This allowed access to the photos etc but the contacts are in some unknown propriety format and location.

It's unbelievable. Is it 1985 again?

If you can't get PCSuite to work this may be the only way.

You can get sim readers for not a lot but buyer beware, the ones listed on my local Amazon are multi card readers but the fine print says the sim reading function is only available on Windows. There are other types from other outlets but I have no idea whether they will work on Mac OS.

Alternatively, get a cheap Android phone, put the sim in, open the Android contacts app &, at the bottom, tap fix & manage & then import from sim. Once that's finished, fix & manage again & then export to file & Android will save your contacts as a vcf file in downloads. You then plug the phone in to your Mac, turn on file transfer on the phone & you should be able to import the vcf file to your iCloud contacts.

If your phone doesn't have the Android contacts app there are any number of contact backup apps in the Play store.

The idea of inserting the SIM in an Android is a good one except the C440 uses a "mini" SIM which is the largest format and I doubt you'll find a modern phone that will take it.