Sync ONE GROUP of contacts only (6th site/forum I've joined seeking solution :P)

[Guest cormie]

Hi,

I recently purchased a HTC Desire Android phone and I'm looking for a way to keep a simple, basic contact list updated and synched with my Gmail account.

The problem with the default way on my phone is that it will sync every contact on my Gmail. This is a problem as I only want to have contacts from my phone book synched to one gmail group and vice versa. There is an option to "disply only contacts with numbers" but I still don't like the idea of having every contact on the phone. There is also the problem of the extra empty groups I won't be using, can these be gotten rid of?

I basically just want one list and it to be my default list with all contacts and not have to go through an array of menus to get to that one list on the phone. I don't want that list to be populated by contacts who I may have only emailed once and will never email again. I don't want any gimmicks in between, no gtalk contacts, no facebook contacts, no default gmail contacts and I want to be able to then export this group to a CSV file to use with spreadsheets etc.

This seems to be possible on Android stock and even on HTC Hero Sense UI according to here: androidheadlines.com/2010/04/tidy-up-your-contact-list-with-a-custom-sync-group.html

but in the Desire Sense UI, when you go to people/groups/menu, it only gives the option to delete or add.

Seems this guy is having the same issue, he has the sync group option but his friend doesn't, both using the same phone :confused:

androidforums.com/htc-droid-eris/47533-no-sync-groups-option.html

There are reports from this thread that some users have had this same problem. Some have a "Sync Groups" option when they go to People>Group Tab and click menu, most don't have this option however and I'm yet to hear from a desire user with this option. Also from this thread (google.com/support/forum/p/Google+Mobile/thread?tid=0ff2b08f98943ccb&hl=en) one user reported that a "hard reset" gave him the "Sync Group" option. I tried this but had no luck, still the same menu as before.

I've been trying to sort this for days and have asked on multiple forums. Hopefully somebody here can help and I'd appreciate any feedback at all!

:huh:

[Guest The_IMF]

Which ROM are you on?

On mine; when I go to the People App, I can click on menu->view and deselect "show auto Gmail contacts". Seems to work fine for me.

[Guest cormie]

Which ROM are you on?

On mine; when I go to the People App, I can click on menu->view and deselect "show auto Gmail contacts". Seems to work fine for me.

Hi, thanks for the reply, I only saw it now for some reason and don't think I got an email notification?... I'm not sure what ROM I'm on, it's just the default Sense UI that came with the phone. I haven't done any modding or anything, the only thing I've done is a hard reset. It's 2.1 as far as I know.

Thanks for the suggestion but that doesn't solve my problem, I need to be able to select the groups and only the groups I want to sync with the phone. I need the "Sync Groups" menu option when in the group tab of People, but it's not there and this is the problem :huh:

[Guest cormie]

So according to this thread: http://android.modaco.com/content-page/305...0/#entry1253966 it seems the MoDaCo founder has rooted the Desire. I wonder will this help at all in being able to resolve this issue?

[Guest zaphod0]

EDIT: Scratch that: it actually syncs everything. Anything with a phone number is in "My Contacts" in my case. Anything with a phone number is synced to the phone book: :huh:

Under my Google contacts, inside my Gmail account, I have a total of 220 Contacts in a group called "All Contacts". Then there is a group called "My Contacts" anything labeled "My Contacts" is synced from and to my phone.

Is you contact config similar?

Edited April 28, 2010 by zaphod0

[Guest cormie]

Thanks for the reply, I'm not sure if your "Edit: Scratch that, it actually syncs everything" was written before the rest of the original post, or if you deleted the whole original post and everything after the edit part was your new solution?

I just need the "sync group" option however, as it's more than just "my contacts" I'll need to sync and will need this in the future too. It's just strange that the exact option I need is in seemingly all other HTC phones and has been left out of the desire for some reason. It's such an important feature for me!

[Guest cormie]

Just thought I'd give this another quick bump since the Root method and instructions for the desire have now been released. Perhaps a solution can be had :huh:

[Guest cormie]

Just thought I'd give this another hopeful bump in the off chance of somebody who may have solved the issue on the desire (now that it's been rooted) seeing it :huh: I'm still waiting on HTC to get back to me too!

[Guest cormie]

So with the extensive help of partyatmygaff over msn, I was able to root my desire and I finally got the contacts app working on it! :P I saved the chat transcript as it may be helpful for anyone else wanting to install from Windows XP. This is an ultra dumbed down version. I made sure to ask as many questions as possible, even if I was 99% sure of the answer myself :P

Some of the files were sent to me over msn like the market enabler etc, but these should be easily found online anyway. Also, the program I use for the commant prompt is called "command prompt here" I think, but you can just type in the address of the folder in DOS if you know how anyway!

You can see the transcript here: http://www.vantasks.ie/xpdesireroot.html

There is a good bit of filler, but it really covers absolutely everything you need to know so once you get to the bottom of the page, your desire should be rooted and ready to go :D

So I got the contacts sync thing working anyway, I can now sync with my chosen group from Gmail, but I can't believe it, if I have this group selected and I save a new contact, it wont save to that group, but just the "all contacts" group even though that's not selected :D:eek:

Always something! The guy in post 10 here: http://androidcommunity.com/forums/f9/add-...t-groups-12668/ seems to have got it going, but as you can see in my reply, post 11, it's not saving to the desired group for me!

:P