How to copy from MPE to Phone

Anmeldedatum: 28.09.2017 Beiträge: 3

The latest version of Google Contacts seemed to have mildly corrupted my phone book. I keep discovering individual entries that are missing some data (a home phone number, notes, etc.). The bad entries seem to just be ones that are stored on the phone, not linked to an email account.

However I have a good copy (pre-corruption) of the file Contacts.dat from my Windows copy of MPE. How do I tell MPE to copy all the entries from my computer to my phone? In other words, I want to sync the two devices, but I want my Windows data to have precedence over the phone data.

When I try just a normal sync, some of my Windows entries lose the data that is already lost on the phone entries.

Do I need to first erase all the entries from my phone? If so, what should I do first to make sure everything I erase it going to be restored when I do the sync? I don't want to accidentally delete things that I can't recover.

Moderator Anmeldedatum: 19.04.2014 Beiträge: 15906

The Kitchen Sync hat Folgendes geschrieben:

However I have a good copy (pre-corruption) of the file Contacts.dat from my Windows copy of MPE.

I can't do anything with the file Contacts.dat?!
Is this a copy of the MPE file Phonebook.dat ?
If yes, do the following:
- Exit MPE and copy the Contacts.dat > Phonebook.dat
- Start MPE and check if everything is OK.
- Exit MPE and copy the Contacts.dat > Phonebook.dat
- Start MPE and check, whether everything is OK
- Install MyLocalAccount or MyLocalAccount
After installation, the account must also be activated: Mobile => Settings => Accounts => Add
- Phone => MPE-Client => Settings => contact-accounts to sync aktiviere nur MyLocalAccount
- MPE => Contacts => Sync

Anmeldedatum: 28.09.2017 Beiträge: 3

My mistake, the file is named Phonebook.dat.

So forgetting your "copy the Contacts.dat > Phonebook.dat" lines, do I need to rename Phonebook.dat to Phonebook.da (or is that a typo)? If not, what is the purpose of renaming it?

Also will your steps keep the entries on my phone that ARE linked to email accounts (about 25% of the entries are from Gmail)?

Thanks for your help!

Moderator Anmeldedatum: 19.04.2014 Beiträge: 15906

The Kitchen Sync
hat Folgendes geschrieben:

So forgetting your "copy the Contacts.dat > Phonebook.dat" lines, do I need to rename Phonebook.dat to Phonebook.da (or is that a typo)? If not, what is the purpose of renaming it?

That was a typo, sorry Embarassed

The Kitchen Sync hat Folgendes geschrieben:

Also will your steps keep the entries on my phone that ARE linked to email accounts (about 25% of the entries are from Gmail)?

No, if you want/need to save your contacts in the Google contact account, it is more complicated and problems can be expected again in the future.

I recommend in the future:
Securing the contacts using MPE => Extras => Backup

Anmeldedatum: 28.09.2017 Beiträge: 3

Most of my contacts are stored locally on my phone, I have never synched those entries with Google because I don't want that data stored in the cloud where others could potentially access it. That's one of the reasons I've been using MPE, so that I could have a backup of my phone and maintain control of all the data.

However, I keep losing entries in the contacts section (of my phone) but many of the "missing" contacts continue to exist in my text app. I have avoided synchronizing my Contacts with MPE for several months because I don't want to lose the entries that are still in MPE on my computer. However, this disappearing contacts problem has continued for many months and it's getting frustrating (all the other apps seem to be working fine, and I can sync those without loss of info).

I think I need to completely rebuild the contacts database and start over. My thoughts would be to export them to a standardized format, possibly a CSV file, which I would then import into a spreadsheet. Then I could search through all the listings in the spreadsheet, clean them up, eliminate dups etc. and then finally copy them back to my phone (but keep the spreadsheet updated in case the problem recurs). Any suggestions for the best way to accomplish this?

Also, any idea why this might still be happening? I've had this phone for about 3.5 years and this problem started about 6 months ago. I do know that I frequently get very close to the storage capacity of my phone (above 95%), could that be causing this problem?

I should add that I'm still running MPE 1.8.14 on my computer (v3.9 on my phone). I haven't updated my computer version since I don't want to possibly complicate things until I fix the problem. However, if a newer version of MPE would allow me to copy from MPE to my phone (instead of doing a bi-directional sync, which risks losing valid entries on my computer), then I'm willing to upgrade (after I've backed up both sets of data to separate files!)

Verfasst am: Mi Apr 24, 2024 22:00

CSV is not a good idea for contacts because by far not all fields can be saved as csv. You should use vcf-Format. My recommened way would be this:

- update MyPhoneExplorer to Version 2.1 (there are no changes in the sync logic but alot new features which you will need)
- launch MyPhoneExplorer -> in the contact section choose rightclick -> Import/Export -> Export whole phonebook -> as *.vcf-File
- click on the second button in the toolbar - MyPhoneExplorer has to know the current dataset of the phone.
- now import the file back.
- MyPhoneExplorer will ask if he should do a intelligent import or if he should add all contacts. Choose "Add all contacts"
- you have alot of dupes now in MyPhoneExplorer - no problem. Click on the last button in the toolbar to fix them
- now you can do the same also with old MyPhoneExplorer backups, even with old Phonebook.dat if you rename them to *.vcf
- choose "Add all contacts" and then do a duplicate search
- if you think the displayed data are OK in MyPhoneExplorer then start again the sync to create the imported contacts on your phone

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