[HOWTO] Move contacts from Google account to /e/ (export, import)

eOSWiki HOWTOs
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Let’s say you were using Google Android, having all your contacts on your google account, syncing with your gmail, etc… and you switch to /e/, and you want to transfer all your contacts to your new beautiful operating system. Here’s how to do it.

1. Export from Google

On your computer, open your favourite browser and open this location: https://contacts.google.com/

Log in with the same google account you used on your old phone.

On the left side, at bottom, you should see the “export” section. Click it.

Choose vCard format and click export. You will get a .vcf file. Save it somewhere.

2. Import into /e/

In the same browser, open https://ecloud.global/apps/contacts/

Log-in with the same /e/ account you use on your phone.

On the left side, at bottom, there’s a “Settings” engine icon. Click on it. Then click on “Import”, a file dialog should open. Select the .vcf file you downloaded before. All your contacts should appear soon.

It could take a while before the contacts get synced to your phone. To speed things up, on your phone, go to “settings → accounts → /e/ address book → three vertical dots → sync now”

Regain your privacy! Adopt /e/ the unGoogled mobile OS and online servicesphone

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Another tutorial which saved my life. Thank you!

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Absolutely thanks :joy:

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Thnx for the solution!
I have my own nextcloud so I synced with that. Awesome!

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I downloaded it to my desktop and then sent the file over to my e.email on my phone, opened with contacts and voila! All my contacts are there, thanks! :+1: :slightly_smiling_face:

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thank you for the tutorial. i have tried a few .vcf files as a test and they do indeed seem to work though sometimes various fields get missed, like Skype user names, possibly others.

on odd thing in particular is that the Contacts app for /e/OS seems to not have separate fields for the parts of a postal address, e.g. Street, City, State, Country, Postal Code, etc. is this by design or are the contacts not being transferred correctly?

thanks, w

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I think that is ‘working as designed’ for the phone app. If you have imported your contacts to your /e/ cloud account, when you view them in the browser (https://ecloud.global/apps/contacts/) you should be able to see the different address fields

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There are a couple of issues I have found when moving from Google Contacts to Ecloud Contacts:

  1. Availaibility of contacts in Webmail (Rainloop) - Fixed, but it should really do this more automatically.
  2. Export of contacts from web interface - apparently not possible. I used Google Contacts to do my Christmas card list and could export a group of contacts as a csv file.
  3. Custom fields - I used a custom field in Google Contacts to set the name to go on the Christmas card envelope (e.g. Mr & Mrs J Smith). In Ecloud these get dumped into the Comments field along with the name of the field. This is not a huge issue as I can edit out the old filed name and just use the comments filed for this, but as I
    can’t export my group of “Christmas Card” contacts its a bit of a moot point.

I am 54. People my age still send Christmas cards, and this system has worked for years. Download CSV, run label mail merge. A few minutes work, and because its a dynamic database each year it has the correct people and addresses.

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  1. Export of contacts from web interface - apparently not possible

contacts within rainloop or within “contacts”? → it’s a bit hidden, and it’s not in a csv Format, but you can export all contacts as .vcf in the lower left “Setting” menu where you also import .vcf files. The three-dot-menu to the right of each addressbook (usually named “Contacts”) there is a Download option.

You can convert this with locally running javascript as in https://github.com/sauternic/vCard-to-CSV

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thanks for the quick reply and apologies for my slow one. unfortunately it does not work as you say: the contacts imported from a Google Contacts created VCF file by the /e/OS Contacts app have their addresses put into a single line in the Address field with the following form “5555 Name Road, Town, State, Country” and viewing the same contact via the ecloud.global shows the same thing i.e. the parts of the address are not parsed out in to their correct separate fields unfortunately.

however the same file imported through the ecloud.global Nextcloud interface seem to work as expected for the address, though some of the other fields like Relationships defined in a Google Contact are lost.

thanks again for your reply and take care.

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