Backup Contacts

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Any recommendations for software that'll backup my contacts? I really don't want to install Outlook, and I don't want to just copy them to SIM as this screws up the names and other stuff, as the SIM only holds a short name and 1 number.

I'm shutting the door after the horse has bolted here, as I just had to do a hard reset and have lost all my contacts that I've had for years.

I don't want to backup anything else, just contacts - preferably in a format that allows me to restore them exactly as there are: First Name, Last Name, Home, Mobile, Work numbers, e-mail addy, etc.

Thanks

New Version of PPcBckpContacts available

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Originally Posted by markmcrobie

Any recommendations for software that'll backup my contacts? I really don't want to install Outlook, and I don't want to just copy them to SIM as this screws up the names and other stuff, as the SIM only holds a short name and 1 number.

I'm shutting the door after the horse has bolted here, as I just had to do a hard reset and have lost all my contacts that I've had for years.

I don't want to backup anything else, just contacts - preferably in a format that allows me to restore them exactly as there are: First Name, Last Name, Home, Mobile, Work numbers, e-mail addy, etc.

Thanks

I made a tool for that long time ago, called PPCBckpContacts. This tool allows to backup/restore the contacts from/to any ppc running WM2005 or WM2003SE. Because the format of the DB changed between the 2 OS, two versions of the tool have been made.
The tool creates a .csv file, that you can edit in Excel.

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Update in v1.6 :

- Removed the SD card presence check, now all backups can be saved wherever you want.

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Update in v1.5 :

- Speed Dials backup/restore (.csd)
- Tasks backup/restore (.cst)
- Appointments backup/restore (.csa)
- Call Logs backup/restore (.csl)

Each backup type has its own file type (see above). Caution I changed the extension from previous versions for contacts (.csc). These 5 extensions are associated to the program, so they can be restored via explorer directly.

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Update in v1.4 :

- fix for the notes (the contact notes were successfully exported to the csv file, but the import didn't work) (thanks lvlx for detecting the bug).
- VGA aware


Cheers,

.Fred

Thank You!

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Thank You this will save me a LOT of time if my phone needs to be reset again. I have already had to redo my contact list twice because I don't use Outlook (and let me tell you, it is NOT fun).

will this take all contacts of my sim so i can resend them to be on my actual device.

Originally Posted by sdnatlst

will this take all contacts of my sim so i can resend them to be on my actual device.

Nope, the contacts are taken from the pim database. I don't think the contacts from the SIM are stored in the PIM db.

That, sir, is brilliant - thank you.

I've signed up for a free exchange account at mail2web: http://live.mail2web.com/

This means you can get all your contacts back by just running active sync and a gprs or wifi connection. A good backup even if you have Outlook as it's remote and doesn't depend on your pc!

Just copy the pim.vol to SD card

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A quick and effective backup method is to copy the pim.vol in the root directory to your SD card. I used this method when flashing my rom. You'll need to use Totalcommander to change the rights of the file after flashing because it's read-only, then copy the pim.vol from the SD to the root directory and reset and all should be well.

All credit to the original poster of the tip. I don't remember where I got it from either either here or howardforums.

Originally Posted by tekknogenius

A quick and effective backup method is to copy the pim.vol in the root directory to your SD card. I used this method when flashing my rom. You'll need to use Totalcommander to change the rights of the file after flashing because it's read-only, then copy the pim.vol from the SD to the root directory and reset and all should be well.

All credit to the original poster of the tip. I don't remember where I got it from either either here or howardforums.

I completely agree with you except that it seems there is an incompatibility between the versions before AKU 3.2 and the ones after AKU 3.2

BTW In only tested AKU 2.3 and AKU 3.2, so I can't tell for the other versions.
I always copy the pim.vol to my SD card, but when I upgraded to AKU 3.2, I couldn't use my pim.vol, the contacts application just opens then closes directly.
The only solution I had, was to copy the pim.vol in the emulator on my pc and use PPcBckpContacts to have the backup, then I could restore my contacts on my ppc.

Cheers,

.Fred

Originally Posted by sdnatlst

will this take all contacts of my sim so i can resend them to be on my actual device.

Use SKTools 3.0 ("SIM Contacts") to mass-copy the contacts to the central Contacts DB; then you can alsready export them.