macbook-contacts-iphone Help...

[purplenut]

Hi ive just been setting me iphone up on my macbook and somehow cleared all my contacts,i can not do a back up so stuck,then i remembered i saved them on my external hard drive so i have them now on my macbook desktop.
And that is where it ends,i can not add them or import them.
Any ideas please VERY welcome.

[davidmog99]

I have heard of a company that makes a product that may help. They are called Bic, and make a product called a biro.
You will need to source another compatible product, although its not environmentally friendly, and is called paper.
If you use the biro to write the required information on to the paper, then you could transfer this onto your required device. You could even re use it again if any other electronics prove to be faulty or unreliable.
I Know for a fact that my little welsh nan has used paper and a bic biro to record important information for nearly eighty years, with almost no compatibility problems even when she changed manufacturers of diaries or excercise books.
Some of the youths in the town where i live seem to even be abandoning facebook and twitter and are using more traditional methods of abusing each other by using permanent marker to communicate, their medium not being paper but walls and street furniture, but i am not sure how relevant that is. But i do now know donna sucks **** and her mum ****** ***** quite a lot.
Sorry to have been f*ck all help.

[ianjoyner]

Try importing the file int the address book app on your MacBook. Once they're in the address book on your Mac you should be able to sync them to your iPhone with iTunes.

[bodgit]

If you,ve got online billing or paper billing then all numbers dialled or texed will be on there. You may recognise some or just ring them all see who answers.

[purplenut]

Originally Posted by davidmog99

I have heard of a company that makes a product that may help. They are called Bic, and make a product called a biro.
You will need to source another compatible product, although its not environmentally friendly, and is called paper.
If you use the biro to write the required information on to the paper, then you could transfer this onto your required device. You could even re use it again if any other electronics prove to be faulty or unreliable.
I Know for a fact that my little welsh nan has used paper and a bic biro to record important information for nearly eighty years, with almost no compatibility problems even when she changed manufacturers of diaries or excercise books.
Some of the youths in the town where i live seem to even be abandoning facebook and twitter and are using more traditional methods of abusing each other by using permanent marker to communicate, their medium not being paper but walls and street furniture, but i am not sure how relevant that is. But i do now know donna sucks **** and her mum ****** ***** quite a lot.
Sorry to have been f*ck all help.

hay thanks for that i had no idea

[purplenut]

Originally Posted by bodgit

If you,ve got online billing or paper billing then all numbers dialled or texed will be on there. You may recognise some or just ring them all see who answers.

Hi ive got all of then with names just need to figure out how to paste them into itunes or macbook..

[purplenut]

Originally Posted by ianjoyner

Try importing the file int the address book app on your MacBook. Once they're in the address book on your Mac you should be able to sync them to your iPhone with iTunes.

Yes tried this but when i try to highlight it i wont

[terry.sc]

What type of file are your contacts in? Address book should import any csv or tab delimited file as well as vcards.

[purplenut]

Originally Posted by terry.sc

What type of file are your contacts in? Address book should import any csv or tab delimited file as well as vcards.

Basically i saved all i could from my broken lap top to my external drive and i still have it there and now i have put the file on my mac dest top.

If you let me know how to find out what kind of folder it is i will do so and let you know
Thanks for this

[terry.sc]

If you click on the file and choose Get Info from the File menu it will list what the file is in the General section as the Kind.
To be easy to import to Address Book the Kind should be VCard, Plain Text Document or the name of whatever application can open it. As long as it's a suitable text or database file then Microsoft Excel should be able to open or import it and convert it to a CSV file that Address Book can handle.


Also if the file was the backup file on the old computer, in theory you can swap it with the backup file on the new computer, although more often or not they require a bit of hacking about to get those to work.

[purplenut]

Originally Posted by terry.sc

If you click on the file and choose Get Info from the File menu it will list what the file is in the General section as the Kind.
To be easy to import to Address Book the Kind should be VCard, Plain Text Document or the name of whatever application can open it. As long as it's a suitable text or database file then Microsoft Excel should be able to open or import it and convert it to a CSV file that Address Book can handle.


Also if the file was the backup file on the old computer, in theory you can swap it with the backup file on the new computer, although more often or not they require a bit of hacking about to get those to work.

Next to the word it just says folder??

[terry.sc]

If it says it's a folder then it is just a folder, not a file of your old contacts. When you open the folder if there's nothing in there then you haven't copied your contacts over.

[Big G]

Open address book from your applications and all your iphone contacts should be in there. If they're not then you'll need to import them into address book like someone said above.

Once they are in there open itunes and you should be able to sync it back to your phone. After it took me 2hrs to manually enter my contacts I make a habit of backing them up regularly just in case