[TarekElsakka]

Hey there

I have a BB 9900 and I am thinking of buying an Android device, namely the HTC One X.

Anyway, what I care most about is contacts; I Googled and every site has "Google Sync" as their primary choice, but unfortunately Google seems to have discontinued it for BlackBerry because I cannot find its link on Google's site (I tried on Wi-Fi and on 3G, same thing). So I Googled again and confirmed that you cannot get Sync on BB anymore, no idea why.

Anyway, I used BlackBerry Desktop Software and chose to Backup addressbook to a certain folder, but then again it's a "BBB" file which cannot be open except by BB Desktop Software and for the restoration process, so it's basically useless. I also tried using the "Organizer" tab in order to Sync contacts from Device -> Contacts folder but apparently that failed and only copied 4 contacts; so then I tried using Device -> Microsoft Outlook (my GMAIL account) but it has been saying "Processing.." for about an hour now and no progress bar showed up or even increased a little.

What am I missing? How do I transfer the contacts to my computer?

Thanks

[wolfee48]

You can try contacts to Excel: Free Contacts to Excel - Download Contacts to Excel - Free Apps from BlackBerry App World.

[dangerousfen]

You can sync your contacts with Outlook using Desktop Manager.

[karenmil]

You cannot open a BBB file because that format is not native to the computer. You would need a special software to extract the BBB backup, Blackberry Backup Extractor can certainly help. It extract contacts along with other important data.

[parvifolius]

I'm trying the same.

Note there is another way that doesn't work. When googling for this, the 2nd search result points to instructions to add the gmail account to the BB, and synchronize this. This will add google contacts to the BB, but will NOT add BB contacts to google. And don't be too hopeful, the BB contacts will not even magically appear on the android if you complete the instructions and move the SIM card to the android device.

So the only feasible way to do it seems via CSV files. I'll continue to investigate this. Maybe the "contacts to excel" helps.Then compare this export format to the google import CSV format, and write a conversion script ...

Google says "we support importing CSV files from outlook, outlook express ...", I'll try this too.

--- Update ---
I used 3 apps, 2 named "contacts to excel" and similar, 1 named "contacts to csv". This yielded 1 csv file and 1 xls file. The csv file is very incomplete (e.g. no address column), the xls file seems to be complete.

--- Update ---
I converted the output to google export format with the attached perl script. It's not good, maybe you have to change it to get good results. Place it with your csv file in a directory. Call with

./filter_for_google.pl infile outfile

This will overwrite the outfile, if present. You can try to import this outfile in google contacts.

[parvifolius]

I can't find a way to attach a file, so here is the perl code:
(you need the perl module Text::CSV_XS from cpan)

I'm the author,
you can redistribute this under the GPL, GNU General Public License

#!/usr/bin/perl

use Text::CSV_XS;

my $ifile = shift;
my $ofile = shift;  
 
my @rows;
my @hashes;
my $csv = Text::CSV_XS->new({ binary => 1,
                              always_quote => 1, blank_is_undef => 1,     # to preserve quoting
                            })
  or die "Cannot use CSV: ".Text::CSV_XS->error_diag ();

# -------------- read header ----------------------
open my $fh, "<:encoding(utf8)", $ifile or die "$ifile: $!";
my $header = $csv->getline ($fh);

# -------------- change / sanitize header ----------------
for my $h (@$header) {   
  if($h eq "Name") { $h = "Given Name" }
  if($h eq "Last Name") { $h = "Family Name" }
  if($h eq "EMail") { $h = "E-mail 1 - Value" }
}

# ------------------ read ifile -----------------
while (my $row = $csv->getline ($fh)) {
  my %h; @h{@$header} = @$row;
  push @hashes, \%h;
}
$csv->eof or $csv->error_diag ();
close $fh;

# -------------- restructure ----------------------
# ^\s+$ == ""  (only space == nothing)
for my $h (@hashes) {
  for(values %$h) { s/^\s+$// }
}

sub try_concat {
  my($f, $l) = @_;
  if($f && $l) { return "$f $l" }
  elsif($f) { return $f }
  elsif($l) { return $l }
  return "";
}
   
# <Name> = <First Name> " " <Last Name>
splice @$header, 1, 0, "Name";
for my $h (@hashes) {  
  $h->{"Name"} = try_concat($h->{"Given Name"}, $h->{"Family Name"});
}

my %add_header;
my @ph_replace = qw(Home Home2 Home3 Work Work2 Work3 Mobile Mobile2 Mobile3 Other Fax Fax2);
# phone numbers
for my $h (@hashes) {
  my $i = 1;
  for my $tmp_ph (@ph_replace) {
    my $ph = $tmp_ph;
    if($h->{$ph}) {  
      my $val = "Phone $i - Value";
      my $type = "Phone $i - Type";
      $add_header{$val} = $add_header{$type} = 1;
      $h->{$val} = $h->{$ph};
      $ph =~ s/\d+$//;
      $h->{$type} = $ph;
      $i++;
    }
  }  
}    
@$header = grep { my $i=$_; !grep {$_ eq $i} @ph_replace } @$header;
# add %add_header later

my @addr_replace = qw(Home Work);
my @addr_suff = (qw(1 2), " City", " Region", " Postal Code", " Country");
my %h_addr_replace;
# convert addresses
# bb: "Home Address1","Home Address2","Home Address City","Home Address Region","Home Address Postal Code","Home Address Country"
# g: Address 1 - Type,Address 1 - Formatted,Address 1 - Street,Address 1 - City,Address 1 - PO Box,Address 1 - Region,Address 1 - Postal Code,Address 1 - Coun
for my $h (@hashes) {
  my $i = 1;
  for my $at (@addr_replace) {
    my $pre = "$at Address";  
    my $check;  # anything set for this address?
    for(@addr_suff) { $check .= $h->{$pre.$_}; $h_addr_replace{$pre.$_} = 1 }
    if($check) {
      $h->{"Address $i - Type"} = $at; $add_header{"Address $i - Type"} = 1;
      $h->{"Address $i - Formatted"} = try_concat($h->{$pre."1"}, $h->{$pre."2"}); $add_header{"Address $i - Formatted"} = 1;
      $h->{"Address $i - City"} = $h->{$pre." City"}; $add_header{"Address $i - City"} = 1;
      $h->{"Address $i - Region"} = $h->{$pre." Region"}; $add_header{"Address $i - Region"} = 1;
      $h->{"Address $i - Country"} = $h->{$pre." Country"}; $add_header{"Address $i - Country"} = 1;
      $h->{"Address $i - Postal Code"} = $h->{$pre." Postal Code"}; $add_header{"Address $i - Postal Code"} = 1;
      $i++;
    }
  }  
}    
@$header = grep { !$h_addr_replace{$_} } @$header;
# add %add_header later

push @$header, sort keys %add_header;

# force to google export format
my @google_header = split /,/, "Name,Given Name,Additional Name,Family Name,Yomi Name,Given Name Yomi,Additional Name Yomi,Family Name Yomi,Name Prefix,Name S
for my $a (sort keys %add_header) {
  if(!grep { $a eq $_ } @google_header) {
    push @google_header, $a;
  }
}  
push @google_header, "BBPin", "Company";

# -------------- output ---------------------------
$csv->eol ("\r\n");
open $fh, ">:encoding(utf8)", $ofile or die "$ofile: $!";
$header = \@google_header;      # replace format completely
$csv->print($fh, $header);
for(@hashes) {
  my @row;
  for my $h (@$header) { push @row, $_->{$h} }
  $csv->print ($fh, \@row);
}
close $fh or die "$ofile: $!";

[rapanui21]

Greetings ...

Go to my website https://sites.google.com/site/ipdbbbextract .
Download the IPD bbb Extract macro and run it. It runs on Windows and Excel.
This macro will accept your bbb file as input and will output one or more IPD files.

THEN ...

Go to my website https://sites.google.com/site/ipdparse .
Download the IPD Parse macro and run it. It runs on Windows and Excel.
This macro will accept any IPD file as input and will produce files/reports.
If you input an IPD file containing your contacts (Address Book), it will output your contacts in Excel, text and CSV (text) formats to your PC.

My 'contact' information is on my website. Contact me by email if you have any questions or comments.

All my services are free.

Regards,
Mike

(rapanui21)

[Bushra Shariff]

Thank you , the IPD bbb extract worked like magic !!

[Gearheadaddy]

Tarek, have the place you buy your new phone transfer contacts for you.

Posted via CB10

[Larry Gina]

I had the same problem before till I solved it with an useful tool. So I want to suggest you here. You can use BlackBerry desktop software to backup your contacts, and use Andriod Transfer to restore. It really helps.