How many times in your life have you been unlucky enough to lose all your contacts from your cellphone?
Maybe you lost your cellphone, had it stolen, accidentally wiped your data, updated it without saving your contacts or your phone just thought that it would be fun to accidentally have an amnesia. This usually happens at a very timely manner when you were just thinking about backing up your contacts. This happened to me several times already and it’s not fun especially since I can’t memorize all the 1000+ numbers of my friends, colleagues, family members, relatives and the likes. Ok, so maybe I don’t have 1000+ contacts in my phone, nonetheless, it would still suck if I lost all my contacts without having any backup.
Sure, having facebook, multiply, myspace, friendster or some other social networking site makes it easier to reconnect but it would still take a tremendous amount of time and effort to get all your contacts back. You would have to PM all your friends or view their profile one by one and jot down their phone numbers. Having synced your phone to your computer also helps, but when was the last time that you did that? Does the office computer have the latest backup or was it the home computer? Did you ever sync your phone after having added those 50+ important people you partied with last week?
My solution to this dilemma? Google. Yes Google. See video below for a brief overview.
How to get started?
- Sign up for a Gmail Account
- You need to have a mobile device that can sync with Google, otherwise, you can only use your Gmail account to backup your contacts. See List for compatible phones
- Android Devices
- Apple iPhone/iTouch
- Blackberry Devices
- Windows Mobile Devices
- Most Nokia Devices
- Most Sony Ericsson Devices
- Devices that support SyncML
- If you are starting back from scratch, then you will have to add your contacts one by one to your Gmail address book
- Start syncing. Instructions for syncing your devices are listed below
- Android Devices. Read setup instructions
- Apple iPhone/iTouch. Read setup instructions
- Blackberry Devices. On your Blackberry device, go to m.google.com/sync
- Windows Mobile Devices. Read setup instructions
- Nokia S60 Devices. Read setup instructions
- Compatible Devices that support SyncML. Device compatibility and setup instructions
- You can also have the option to sync your calendar, email and other data if your phone supports it
- Once everything is setup properly, your phone should automatically sync your contacts every time you connect to the internet
Should you ever lose your phone, or in any case, all of your contacts again, just hook up your device to your Gmail account and you’ll be good to go in a matter of minutes. You just saved yourself from posting embarrassing status messages on your facebook and twitter account telling people that you’ve lost their number and ask them to PM them to you.
*Should you mess up because you were too lazy to follow instructions properly, please don’t sue me, I’m just here to help.