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Syncing contacts to an iPhone that has already contacts stored

desertman

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A friend of mine just got an iPhone 5 and the store where he bought it transferred all phone numbers from his wife's iPhone to it and on top he also put some more contacts in manually. When he now synced for the first time the contacts from his Mac (with OS X 10.6) to the iPhone via iTunes (not via iCloud) all the contacts that were already on the iPhone got deleted.

Was this deletion unavoidable or how could he have avoided it?

Should not iTunes have done a backup from the iPhone first before it put the new data on it? If there is a backup how can the old data on the iPhone be restored (without deleting the contacts on the Mac)?

Thanks for your help (if there is some)!

greetings - desertman
 
We would need more information on how your friend's contacts are set up. Are they linked to an e-mail contact list? Also we would need to know if he's connecting under his own account or under his wife's account. They need to set up two separate Apple ID's.

Why don't you steer your friend to the forum! :)
 
Thanks for your reply, xrayeyes. This friend of mine will certainly not join any forum. That's not his thing. He asks me whenever he has any problems or questions with his PC (in his store), or his Mac, iPad and iPhone. I have some more details.

He and his wife use the same Apple ID. He says that his contacts are not linked to any email account. However, he uses Google notes (or something like that that is linked to his Gmail account) to write notes on the PC in his store, and these notes then get synced onto his iPad. To be honest - I have no idea what he uses on his PC to write notes and how they could get synced to his iPad. Do you know what this could be?

He says that after trying to sync his contacts manually from his Mac (OS X 10.6 - no iCloud here!) via iTunes to his new iPhone all of his notes have disappeared from his iPad and his PC (or from his Gmail account). This is again something that I don't understand. How can something like this happen? In his iTunes preferences, under Devices, all automatic syncing has been disabled, and he says he did nothing else but syncing the contacts to his iPhone.

Could it be that he has iCloud active on iPad and iPhone and that this is messing up things? What does it mean that he and his wife use the same Apple ID? Should they both have separate Apple ID's?

I will look via Teamviewer onto his Mac tomorrow. Any ideas what to look for?
 
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I have now some more details after working on the iMac via Teamviewer.

The question has basically changed to: How to sync contacts from an iMac with OS X 10.6.8 via iTunes 10.7 to an iPhone 5?

The iMac is a "Late 2006" model with OS 10.6.8 and iTunes 10.7. The iPhone is an iPhone 5 with iOS 6.0.1. According to Apple's iPhone specs (Apple - iPhone 5 - View all the technical specifications.) it should be possible to sync from this iMac to this iPhone via iTunes. However, it does not work. The syncing does work with apps and music but it does not work with contacts. The contacts are stored on the Mac in the default 10.6.8 "Address Book" application. The iPad is connected to the iMac with a cable. Automatic syncing has been disabled in iTunes.

In iTunes (Devices - iPad - Info) "Sync Contacts" is checked and after clicking onto "Apply" a sync is set in motion but when it has finished no contacts are in "Contacts" on the iPhone. We tried this with and without having in iTunes under Advanced the option "Replace information on this iPhone: Contacts" checked. The result is always the same - no contacts on the iPhone. The first time when this option was checked all previously put on contacts on the iPhone got deleted but no new contacts (from the Mac) got put on.

It's not about syncing via iCloud or Google, it's about manually syncing via iTunes.

Does anybody have any idea what is going wrong here and what needs to be done to get the contacts synced via iTunes?
 
What is checked in the "Sync To" box? And they will need separate Apple ID's to keep contacts separated.

I sync to my gmail account. I also have the same contacts in my Yahoo account I can sync to. Very easy to sync and make changes.
 
Where is this "Sync To" box? If it's in iTunes, did this somehow change from 10.7 to 11? I (unfortunately) updated already to 11.

I will get them separate Apple ID's. But why and how is this relevant for direct syncing through a cable from Mac to iPhone via iTunes?

And yes, I know that syncing from Mac to Gmail to iPhone might be an option. I am, however, just very angry that I don't get it going directly as it is supposed to be possible. And going through Gmail probably means that syncing is happening all the time automatically and not manually under the control of the user, right?
 
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When you have the phone connected to the computer and Itunes recognizes it, you go to the "Info" tab, which is located next to the Summary tab. You will find the info to help you sync. I have no idea what you are talking about as far as "directly syncing". Maybe someone else can pipe in. The only way I know how to do it is through iTunes.

You can also google this and probably find lots of info to help you in you tube.
 
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You can root your iPhone and manually back up the contacts the drag and drop them over to your iPhone through iTunes. This method won't erase any non-matching contacts. Such methods would include FTP, iFunbox or a much easier option, iExplorer
 
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