We need your help now
Support from readers like you keeps The Journal open.
You are visiting us because we have something you value. Independent, unbiased news that tells the truth. Advertising revenue goes some way to support our mission, but this year it has not been enough.
If you've seen value in our reporting, please contribute what you can, so we can continue to produce accurate and meaningful journalism. For everyone who needs it.
Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
By continuing, you are indicating that you accept our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.
WHILE GETTING A new phone is always fun, just to play around with nay new features and see how much faster it is, it also brings its own fair share of grievances.
One of which is having to transfer contacts, which can be a pain at the best of times. For the most part, however, you can avoid this through a number of ways. It just depends on what phone you have and where you’re transferring your numbers from.
Before you start
To make things as easy as possible, it’s best to save all your contacts on the cloud storage account of your old device. That means saving them onto iCloud, Gmail or Outlook. While not all transfers will be straightforward, this will at least make the process easier.
iOS
Probably the most straightforward of the three, transferring contacts from Android or Windows Phone is a matter of connecting these accounts together. All you have to do is go into settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars and select Add Account.
Then it’s just a matter of selecting either Google/Gmail or Outlook, entering in your account details and turning on contacts.
Android
Provided you have a Google/Gmail account, it’s a matter of syncing your old iPhone with your Google account. If your contacts list is massive, this may take a while, but you can check Contacts.Google.com to see if you have the entire list.
Once that’s done, it’s a matter of connecting your Android device to your Gmail account and it will sync automatically.
Importing Windows Phone contacts is a little different since you will have to do it from the desktop and not your phone. Log into Hotmail/Outlook and click on the drop-down button next to the Outlook logo at the top-left.
Select people and click on manage. Select Export and save the list onto your computer. Once that’s done, log into Gmail, click on the drop-down menu located above the ‘compose’ button and select contacts.
When you’re in the contacts page, click on the more button and select import. Upload your contacts file and when it’s finished, sync your Android phone with your Gmail account.
Windows Phone
Transferring your contacts from iPhone to Windows Phone is the least straightforward of the three since iCloud doesn’t allow you to download your contacts as a CSV (Excel) file.
Instead, what you need is an app that will turn your contact list into one. A good example would be My Contacts Backup which allows you to turn it into a CSV file.
Once you’ve done that, it’s a matter of importing them into Outlook.
As for Android, you can connect it up directly to your Google account, or follow the same instructions for transferring from Windows Phone to Android. The only difference is when you’re in Outlook People, you have to click on the manage button and select ‘Export for Outlook.com and other services.’
Feature phone to smartphone
While the very thought brings up images of having to type out each contact one by one, there are some methods that will make it easier.
The easiest way is to pair both devices via bluetooth, provided your old phone has it. You have to go into settings for each phone to pair them up but once you do, go into contacts on your feature phone and you should have the option to share them via Bluetooth.
The other is to connect up your phone to your computer and download your contacts file. Most feature phones come with third-party software (e.g.: Nokia Suite) which lets you do this so you can download it as a CSV file and transfer it through iCloud, Outlook or Gmail depending on what you use.
The other is to use a third-party service and transfer them that way. Some providers like Vodafone offer a contacts service which you can sign up to which is useful if you were say using webtexts and have some of your contacts saved there already.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
I used iCloud, never bothered with it before until I had to change phones. Great service.
Just get an Android. When saving contacts, ensure they’re being saved to your google account. If you get a new android, you’ll be prompted to sign into the new phone with your Google credentials, after which all your contacts will be automatically synced to the new phone. Despite what the article says, this is actually the easiest way. Also, if you ever need to access your contacts and don’t have your phone with you, then just visit google.com/contacts and all your contacts will be listed there.
Get yourself unlimited gcloud. Best 20 you’ll ever spend. The limited 1 is free but for the price we have 5 devices that back up every night and can we can restore at a click. Even use it to share music
The preinstalled “Transfer my data” app on Nokia Lumia (Windows Phone) does the job of moving your contacts from iOS via Bluetooth. It’s probably the most straightforward of all options and doesn’t require a cloud account.
I transferred my contacts using an app called bump. It used Bluetooth to transfer across the contacts or anything else you wished to transfer. All you had to do was knock the phones or phone and computer off one another -bump- to transfer it was so simple. Bump itself has been bought over by one of the big tech companies and for some bizarre reason discontinued. I wonder will there be a similar replacement soon.
Gcloud by far the best. Photos, contacts, messages.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.genie9.gcloudbackup
Enter this code for more extra space 6HONXG
Auto backup also…
With windows phone, all you have to do is add your email account and it transfers all your contacts on to the phone. Or as mentioned above, use the Nokia transfer my data app, which transfers everything via Bluetooth.
If your coming from iOS, Windows Phone has a built-in iCloud account option, which will transfer all your contacts that you have saved on your account once you login, just like it does with a gmail/outlook/ibm account etc. No need for any third party apps or going to the desktop.
I just use a spare sim just in case I somehow manage to delete everything as I did before.
Unless you’ve a Windows phone (Which are crap!) download an App called “My Contacts Backup” which is free and email your entire contact list to yourself and then on your new handset set up your email and import the file to contacts.
If your a Vodafone customer you can an app called Vodafone Contacts simply
I presume this article relates to changing phone brand say from Apple ios to Android because with Apple you just do a backup and restore.
I use fullcontact.com an absolutely super, and free service. Merges all your duplicate contacts from various social networks and links them to tour Google account. Also fills in all the empty photos of contacts. The sync.me app will automatically update your contacts info based on social profiles too and has a nifty feature where when someone calls, it shows you an overview of their latest social postings on screen. Highly recommended.
Nice guide, keep the good job. I used this phone to phone transfer ( http://www.reviewstown.com/phone-to-phone-transfer.html ) to copy my contacts, worked fairly well too, share it here.
I backed up my contacts to gmail but when restored there are duplicate copies of every contact. I think the phone shop copied my contacts from the old sim to the new one and thus the duplicates when they were restored. You can also backup your text messages with an app called sms backup. It works by saving the messages to a folder in your gmail account. Only problem I had was it wouldn’t restore to the new phone. But at least the text messages are in gmail.
have your say