Neil asks:
Here is my problem: I have been trying to create a backup copy of my old iPhone 3G (no iCloud supported) to my PC.
I would like to use this backup and restore it to my new iPhone 4S. I do not keep my contact information in my email, and I would prefer to keep my contacts offline and to simply transfer them from my old iPhone to my new iPhone.
Thank you for your help!
Browser: Firefox 11
System: Windows 7
Tagged: backup, best app, contacts management, iphone, iphone 4s, iphone tips, sync contacts
System: Windows 7
Tagged: backup, best app, contacts management, iphone, iphone 4s, iphone tips, sync contacts
9 Answers -
ha14
June 14, 2012perhaps CopyTrans Contacts free limited time only
http://www.copytrans.net/iphone-contacts.php
Thank you this did the job!
June 18, 2012Mike
June 14, 2012Personally I recommend using Lookout Mobile.
It will not only enable you to backup the old phone and restore to the new one it will also do future regular backups.
https://www.mylookout.com/
How to restore contacts
https://support.mylookout.com/entries/20879602-how-do-i-restore-contacts-to-my-iphone
Laga Mahesa
June 15, 2012You have a number of options, so I’ll list them in order of difficulty, from easiest to most fiddly.
Zeroeth option: Do an iTunes backup of your 3G and restore to your 4s. I called this the zeroeth because you’re likely to run into problems restoring from such an old iOS version to the latest version. Don’t do it if you can avoid it, unless you’re good at cleaning up the backups.
Now, the real options. I doubt you’ll get to the end, but just for completeness I’ll include the hairy ones, too.
First, there’s the regular Windows Contacts or Outlook syncing, done via iTunes itself. I’m assuming you’ve eliminated these for whatever reason.
Second, unless you’re anti-cloud period, there’s GMail. Aside from iOS itself, there are numerous syncing apps that can assist you here.
Third is via apps – look at Contacts Tool by Marcio Almeida. This does a superb job of exporting and importing contacts and, depending on which mode you choose, keeps the photos, too.
Fourth uses iFunBox. Unfortunately all my devices are jailbroken so I can’t test this directly, but this should NOT require you to jailbreak. Look at the “Raw File System” section. On a fully jailbroken device, the files you’re looking for are here :
var/mobile/Library/AddressBook/AddressBook.sqlitedb
var/mobile/Library/AddressBook/AddressBookImages.sqlitedb
On a non-jailbroken device, the paths should be more like this :
Library/AddressBook/AddressBook.sqlitedb
Library/AddressBook/AddressBookImages.sqlitedb
Once you’ve found them, copy to the desktop, replace the existing ones in your new device, then reboot.
Fifth requires you to identify those same two files within the normal Apple backups. Now, before you start, if you have multiple devices, first you need to identify WHICH backup folder is which. Load iTunes – go to the device page. See the Serial Number? Click it – it should change into Identifier (UDID). Now go to your profile area (C:\Users\YOU in Windows 7), then “AppData\Roaming\Apple Computer\MobileSync\Backup”. Look for a folder with a name that matches that UDID code. THIS is the backup folder for the currently plugged-in device. Here’s a screenshot for you.
Take a look inside that folder… nasty, eh?
Now for the identifying. To do this, you need to find software that does this for you – no need to pay, just use the demo in order to identify WHICH files they are. Once you’ve done that, either replace the existing ones in a new backup or follow the iFunBox route above. Ideally, just fork out the cash – I recommend iBackupBot. Pay up and erase your problems so you can do something else more fun.
Another way is to do a file search in the backup folder.
AddressBook.sqlitedb contains the following identifiable strings :
“FirstPhonetic”, “LastPhonetic”, “PreferredNamePersonID”
AddressBookImages.sqlitedb contains the following identifiable string :
“ABFullSizeImageRecordIDIndex”
That should pretty much cover it. My dog’s getting lonely so I’ll stop there. Good luck!
HTH.
Terrence Reeder II
June 15, 2012gmail is what i have used via google voice
ryandigweed0
June 15, 2012I usually use Google Contacts Sync,it’s available for iOS, Android, BlackBerry, Nokia Etc. It’s way more easier i guess, since it’s always available to me, even without my phone.
Michael
June 17, 2012Hey Neil,
I’m Michael and I work for connex.io. We do just that: with connex.io you can simply connect one or more devices (such as your iPhones) and sync them. Additionally, we also de-duplicate, merge, clean, complete and automatically update your address books across all devices. So you sync once, and all of your contacts will stay up to date.
If you would like to try it: https://connex.io/tour-1-what-does-connexio-do or you can send me a mail: michael@connex.io
Munish Gupta
June 21, 2012I use gmail contacts. Works just fine.
Tracy Amanda
October 1, 2012With iTunes you can transfer iPhone contacts to Computer but in unreadable form. If you’re not interested in iCloud either, you can give a try to some third party tool like CopyTrans or iPhone Contacts to Computer Transfer. Refer to this tutorial to backup your iPhone Contacts without iTunes or iCloud:
http://www.iphone-to-pc.com/how-to-backup-or-copy-iphone-contacts-to-mac.html
Here you will find other helpful iPhone File Transfer utilities as well.
P:S I didn’t try all the tools available on the above site. So try before you buy anything instead of following my opinion blindly.
Katie Conway
October 8, 2012Gmail. Why don’t you want to use iCloud?
Hi I’m the others but I cannot use iCloud because I only run Windows XP on my PC and using Internet Explore iCould runs very very slow it is totally useless and it is sad that should be so hard to go from my old andriod phone to my new iPhone 5 – 4 days gone and I’m still missing all my private contacts from my gMail acount. My contacts from work through Outlook has been syncronized but not the other important ones…..
So I’m also seeking a solution how to import a vCard file into my iPhone
Br. Mr. Borg
November 6, 2012