Importing Phone book from SIM to Samsung S3

[Perryg114]

I am trying to figure out a painless way to transfer my phone book info from the old style AT&T SIM card to my new Samsung S3 smartphone. I can't find a way to connect to the old phone through the USB cable on a Nokia 6350-1b which appears to have a micro SD slot in addition to the SIM card slot. I wonder if I can download the phone book info to the mini SD card and put that in the new phone and import it? Anyone have any experience with this?

Perry

 

[stackkart]

Nice information buddy thanks for sharing it

 

[vshah]

is your samsung S3 on att as well? if so you can just put the old sim in your new phone and follow these steps

go to contacts app
click the menu button
click import/export
choose import from sim card.

 

[Perryg114]

The SIM cards are of a different format. The old SIM card is twice the size of the new one. The old SIM won't fit in my new phone and that is the problem.

Perry

 

[jiffylube1024]

The painful way is much more beneficial. I know it's about 1-2 hours of work, but I would strongly recommend just adding all of the phone numbers to contacts in a Gmail account. I did it, and now I can sync all my contacts (including all phone numbers, addresses, email addresses, and profile photos) to all of my devices, and switch phones at the drop of a hat. Plus, they're backed up on the cloud (Gmail.com) and at any time I can download a copy in an excel spreadsheet from Gmail.

My contacts are accessible on my galaxy nexus, nexus 7 tablet, and any computer. It makes your life so much simpler in the long run...

---

By the way - the best way to do this is on your pc. Much faster than using a touchscreen to input all those contacts!

 

[vshah]

^ definitely put the contacts in your google account. i know some samsung phones default to storing in phone memory, which removes one of the biggest advantages/conveniences of android. not sure if the S3 does this or not.

as to how to transfer....still looking. have you tried sending via bluetooth? it may be an option in the contacts page of the 6350 to send via bluetooth.

 

[Uppsala9496]

Best way would be to enter via google as mentioned.
You could try transferring each contact via BT but that won't be much quicker than typing everything in manually on the computer.
Good opportunity to clean out any unused contacts as well.

 

[VashHT]

You can always cut down the SIM card too. The contacts are positioned the same on full size and micro sims, you just have to cut off a bit of plastic. There are templates on the internet to do it and some places sell tools to do it as well. Then you could import your contacts from sim then import them to your google account and you won't have to worry about it again.

 

[RockinZ28]

Go to the ATT store? Should take 5 minutes.

Wife just did this from her dumbphone to a smartphone. Then you can just bring up your contacts on the S3 and link them to Google.

 

[vshah]

are LTE sims just micro sims? i assumed there may be some other difference.

 

[VashHT]

Nah they're the same, mine works in both my iphone 4 and my GS3. I guess there could be problems if he's already activated the new micro sim that comes with the phone though, in that case just add on google or go to the store.

 

[Perryg114]

I found a program from Nokia that took the contacts and put them in separate .vcf files for each contact. Now how do I get them into the phone from the computer? I am new to the smartphone world and am trying to catch up. There is another program (PC based) that is called Wondershare MobileGo and it does not seem to want to connect to the phone.

Perry

 

[VashHT]

put the vcf files on your phone then you should be able to import from file (menu>import/export>import from file) and it'll search for vcf files I think. I can't look at exactly how it goes in touchwiz as I'm using AOKP right now but it should be similar.

 

[Perryg114]

Well there is no easy way to do it. Nokia has screwed me over. Nokia will only export individual vcf files so you have to load them one at a time in the google application called kies which you have to download and put on your computer. This will import single vcf files but not all of them at once. THere are programs out there that are not free that will convert all of them to csv files. I could just put all the contacts in a csv file but what format does it need to be in for kies to read them?

Funny thing is you can download just about everything in file explorer accept the phone book files. You have to download Nokia Suit just to get the vcf files. What a mess.

Perry

 

[ponyo]

Go to the ATT store? Should take 5 minutes.

Wife just did this from her dumbphone to a smartphone. Then you can just bring up your contacts on the S3 and link them to Google.

This is the easiest way. The stores have a machine that can transfer your contacts from dumb phone to your smartphone. Then you can link it to Google and never have to worry about syncing and copying again.

 

[the DRIZZLE]

I would keep digging if I were you. I did this with a few years ago with a Verizon dumb phone with a program called bit pim, but it appears to be CDMA only. I find it hard to believe that there isn't some utility out there either from Nokia or a third party that can export your contacts as a CSV file, which is all you need to get them into your google account. Some quick googling found this.

http://www.labnol.org/internet/export-nokia-contacts-as-csv/20613/

If you can't figure out a way to do it I would go to the AT&T store and ask for help as other suggested.

 

[Glitchny]

Whenever I've had to do this I just had them do it at the store. Also once they are added to a Gmail account in android you never have to worry about it again. They will just stay synced to the gmail across all devices.

 

[Perryg114]

Yeah but I am a Yahoo not a Google.

Perry

 

[vshah]

Yeah but I am a Yahoo not a Google.

Perry

become a google. it will make your life infinitely easier and more productive on an android phone. you can forward from and set the reply to address to your yahoo address so you won't have to notify anyone of the change.

 

[cytoSiN]

become a google. it will make your life infinitely easier and more productive on an android phone. you can forward from and set the reply to address to your yahoo address so you won't have to notify anyone of the change.

QFT

 

[s44]

become a google. it will make your life infinitely easier and more productive on an android phone. you can forward from and set the reply to address to your yahoo address so you won't have to notify anyone of the change.

^^^^^^^!!!!!

Gmail on Android is the best mobile mail experience, period. Not to mention the calendar...

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

become a google. it will make your life infinitely easier and more productive on an android phone. you can forward from and set the reply to address to your yahoo address so you won't have to notify anyone of the change.

the thing is even of OP refuses to become a Google, at least sync your contacts with Google. You can use Yahoo mail and disable Gmail sync if you want, but get your contacts situation sorted out.

Having local contacts is a PAIN IN THE ASS.

 

[Perryg114]

Well I do have a Google account. Do the contacts from the phone show up in my Google account? How do I know when they are saved properly? I had to reset my phone and it looks like the contacts are gone that I manually put in. I saved them to the SIM card and they are gone now. I could not get Kies to load at work.

I see something about merging with Google. How does that work.

Perry

 

[vshah]

Well I do have a Google account. Do the contacts from the phone show up in my Google account? How do I know when they are saved properly? I had to reset my phone and it looks like the contacts are gone that I manually put in. I saved them to the SIM card and they are gone now. I could not get Kies to load at work.

I see something about merging with Google. How does that work.

Perry

merging with google will save them to the google account that you are using on the phone. you can then click the contacts button in gmail, or go to contacts.google.com, and they'll all show up there. any change you make online will instantly be pushed to the phone, and vice versa. if you ever get a new android phone, all you need to do is sign in, and all your contacts will be there. you can go in to settings > accounts > your gmail account, and disable sync for gmail but keep it enabled for contacts.

in the contacts app, see if there is a default setting for where to save new contacts, and if so, set that to your google account.

 

[Perryg114]

I just did that Merge thing and it is not working. I have one contact in my phone list and I merged and syncd that with Google and it is not in my gmail account.

Perry