T-Mobile G1 – Gmail Contacts Import is Completely Broken

I spent 10 hours working to import my contacts from Outlook 2003 to Gmail so I could use my T-Mobile G1. (which only integrates with Gmail contacts)

Here’s a short list of issues I experienced while attempting to import contacts to Gmail:

  • Email addresses are stripped from phone contacts and new “Suggested Contacts” are created. (leaving 2 contacts for each contact.
  • Notes, Anniversary, and Birthday are completely missing from contact records
  • Names missing and replaced with phone numbers

Before I discovered the workaround below, I created a new contact in Gmail and exported in Google’s proprietary format, then created a new CSV with only the data Google accepts in their CSV (thinking this would definitely work…) but importing even in their format didn’t get my contacts into Gmail…

The final workaround:

  1. Export CSV from Outlook 2003
  2. Import CSV to Outlook 2007
  3. Export from 2007
  4. Import to Gmail
  5. Manually enter names to 50+ contacts out of 235

My contacts are still missing valuable information..

I still haven’t figured out what to do about my new “Suggested Contacts” hopefully Google will fix their import so I can simply remove-reimport my contacts to Gmail…

Cake Icing
To top it all off, my G1 was faulty so I’ve returned it to t-mobile’s national returns center and will be receiving a new one “pending backorder”.. so I changed my service back and have a net loss of approximately 12 hours between Gmail Contacts import and Tech Support with T-Mobile..

So far my G1 experience has been a frustrating waste of precious time. (note: this post is commemorative and therefore not a waste)

For Shame Google, For Shame.

One more thing… Google, to fix the first issue add a “MERGE Contacts” feature for real and suggested contacts. Thanks!

2 Comments

  1. I had the same experience with Gmail Contacts import but I got it to work.

    Try this:
    – Log into Gmail, then at the top right, switch to “Older version”
    – Go to contacts and delete the “badly imported” contacts beforehand, if necessary
    – Do the import (I used an Outlook 2007 CSV)
    – Check that your imported contacts look right
    – Switch back to “New version” of Gmail

    Good luck.

  2. Incidentally, I no longer lose information as I once did. I can’t vouch for all data however postal addresses, birthdays, spouses, all go in their own respective fields, correctly, and the strange naming system I once experienced has gone (full name was never imported when there was a company – now resolved)

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