backup assistant contact transfer
Hey -
I just got the BB Pearl 2 - 8130. I currently use the Verizon backup assistant to backup all my contacts. Verizon told me that there is no way to transfer my contacts from that system onto my new Pearl and that I have to do it manually.
Is there any way to download my contacts from backup now service online and convert them to contact files that I could transfer onto my BB?
I would just bring them to the VZ store and transfer my contacts but my current cell phone doesn't hold all my contacts b/c I lost my previous one and the limit is full. Entering 500 contacts is a big pain.
Please let me know if there is anyway to do this. Thank you very much.
This is how I did it and it may seem long and drawn out
I copied all of the contacts from the download assistance page. Then I pasted them all into Excel. (I use 2003 version). Then I saved it as a .csv and answered yes to all of popups. I closed excel and reopened the file. That got rid of all the hyper links and buttons. What you are left with is double rowes of data separated by an empty line. like this
Fred Flinstone 3335551234
Fred Flinstone 3335551234
That gives the phone number and the name each in their own field. No, I don't keep addresses in mine but I think if you follow onto how I did it you can adjust for yourselves.
I deleted every duplicate name and address so I was down to a single entry separated by two blank lines. I sorted the data. That's tools, data sort sort by name column and then I saved it.
I opened up outlook and started on import to my contacts. When you get the option to let Outlook assign the fields itself is where I selected to let me assign the fields. (I use outlook 2003). Then you just drag and drop the name onto the name field on the right and the number onto the business number on the right. All of mine are business related. When you finish up they are all in your contacts and once you sych they are all in your phone. Hope you all have great success with this in the future.
Kerry!!!
Easiest - no need for Excel
The original post almost works but there are a few important nuances needed. First, importing to Excel does NOT work unless you get it exactly right for Excel. Even then, you end up with a lot of extraneous stuff that you have to delete. There's no need for Excel at all. You don't need Excel to convert from tab-delimited to comma-delimited. Just use the text find-replace functionality. Here are the step I used:
Steps:
1. Log into backup assistant website
2. At the top click the print option which will show you the list in a more simple format
3. Highlight and copy the list from the web site
4. Open a text editor and paste everything into it.
5. Use Find/Replace to change the tabs to commas. Remove these keywords (case-sensitive): "Home", "Email", "Work", and "Fax".
NOTE: When you do the Outlook mapping, you create a mapping as described below but you can't change it on an individual contact basis. So, I dragged the name to "Name" and the 2nd field to "Mobile Phone". Unfortunately this maps anything in the 2nd field, including email addresses.
To fix that, use the text editor to position the cell phone number, fax, email, etc in their own "columns", e.g.
<name>,<cell phone #>,<email addr>, <fax>
Here are some examples:
-----------------------
For name, cell #, and email, format the entry in the text file like this:
john, 3038881515,[email protected]
For name and email, format the entry in the text file like this:
john,,[email protected]
^^ note the empty cell # field denoted by 2 commas
For name, cell #, fax #, format the entry in the text file like this:
barry,3308881515,,3205556161
6. Now click File > Save as and in the "Save as type" drop down select CSV (*.csv) - this is a generic file format that many applications will recognize
7. Open MS Outlook and select file > import and export. Select "Contacts"
8. Go through the wizard selecting to import from "Other apps", i.e. a CSV file
When you do this you have to help Outlook understand how to map what you have in the text file to Outlook. A "Map Custom File" wizard will pop up. You only need to map the first entry in your list. Outlook will assume that you want everything else mapped the same way. However, when it's done you may want to check all of your contacts to make sure they all got into Outlook Contacts with the fields mapped correctly.