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    How to copy contacts from tablet to phone without surrendering them to google?

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      • advocatuxA Offline
        advocatux @dtarrant
        last edited by

        @dtarrant there are some bugs related to Contacts in 16.04.

        Some of them are fixed already, see for example https://github.com/ubports/ubuntu-touch/issues/857

        Are you sure your contacts.db is corrupted or empty or something like that? Maybe all the data is still there but is just not showing for the moment.

        See https://github.com/ubports/messaging-app/issues/40 and https://github.com/ubports/ubuntu-touch/issues/844 too

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        • D Offline
          dtarrant @advocatux
          last edited by

          @advocatux My new contacts.db isn't empty, but it's not a text file. I renamed it contacts.txt and opened it with document viewer and it looks like a binary file. On my travels, I've noticed that the xenial file manager doesn't seem to have a rename facility. In any event, my N4 contacts app is really sulking. This is a shame because UBports is about freedom from google and google is currently blocking my progress.

          advocatuxA 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • T Offline
            tera
            last edited by

            The following worked fine for me: open the Contacts App, select the Contacts wanted, click Share and the Folder wanted with the File Manager App.
            This generate a vcf file that you can read, amend, import back in the Contacts App or almost anywhere else 🙂

            D 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 4
            • advocatuxA Offline
              advocatux @dtarrant
              last edited by

              @dtarrant yes, it's a SQLite database. You can copy your contacts.db to your computer and browse the content easily with something like DB Browser for SQLite (use a database file copy for that if you aren't sure about how to use that tool) but you said isn't empty so you don't need to do that now.

              I've noticed that the xenial file manager doesn't seem to have a rename facility

              Drag to the right the file you want to rename, and tap on the 'edit' icon 😉

              G D 3 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 1
              • G Offline
                guru @advocatux
                last edited by

                https://gurucubano.gitbooks.io/bq-aquaris-e-4-5-ubuntu-phone/content/en/chapter9.html

                matthias

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                • TheBirdT Offline
                  TheBird @dtarrant
                  last edited by TheBird

                  This post is deleted!
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                  • H Offline
                    hummlbach
                    last edited by

                    @guru Woho, eh, cool! 🙂 please apply for https://ubports.com/de_DE/community/community-sites by sending a mail to marketing@ubports.com

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                    • D Offline
                      dtarrant
                      last edited by

                      Thank you everyone for the various nuggets of information. Before I can proceed, I need some advice on how to fix the broken contacts app on my phone. I'd like to delete the app and reinstall, but it's not in OpenStore. Is there some other way to fix it? I was very foolish not to have made a backup of contacts.db before I deleted it. I don't understand why the contacts.db from my tablet doesn't work on my phone. Maybe it's an incompatibility between vivid and xenial?

                      advocatuxA 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • D Offline
                        dtarrant @advocatux
                        last edited by

                        @advocatux That rename feature is really nice, I like it a lot! Thanks for the tip.

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                        • D Offline
                          dtarrant @tera
                          last edited by

                          @tera Just tried the sharing to vcf trick. That's really neat. Thanks for the tip.

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                          • advocatuxA Offline
                            advocatux @dtarrant
                            last edited by

                            @dtarrant did you reboot the phone after copying the database?

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                            • D Offline
                              dtarrant @advocatux
                              last edited by

                              @advocatux Hey! Just tried the reboot as you suggested and things are much better! I can now see the first contact from the tablet database that I copied across and I've also been able to manually add a new contact! Thanks for that inspired suggestion! I wonder why it's only showing one of my original contacts?

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                              • D Offline
                                dtarrant @advocatux
                                last edited by

                                @advocatux said in How to copy contacts from tablet to phone without surrendering them to google?:

                                @dtarrant yes, it's a SQLite database. You can copy your contacts.db to your computer and browse the content easily with something like DB Browser for SQLite (use a database file copy for that if you aren't sure about how to use that tool) but you said isn't empty so you don't need to do that now.

                                I have about 20 contacts saved on my tablet and when I copy the contacts.db file to my phone the contacts app only displays one of them. I have copied my tablet contacts.db file to my laptop and opened it with db browser for SQLite3. I can still only see one contact. Bizarre! Maybe it's time to try the vcf sharing approach.
                                🐧

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                                • D Offline
                                  dtarrant
                                  last edited by

                                  Success!!!
                                  I finally solved my problem with the vcf sharing approach. Once again many thanks to all you Ubuntu Touchers for your help and patience. Now to bed!

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