How do I get my contacts onto DROID/GMAIL?

[isitkiller]

Turns out maintaining contacts is a big pain for DROID.
I have contacts in the Microsoft Personal Folder (Contacts.pst) file. I no more have access to the exchange server where I kept all my personal contacts since it was easy to sync with all other devices I had in past.

Now this is a new thing DROID came out with to annoy me.
Only wireless sync, no wired sync with outlook.

I have outlook that can import all the .pst contacts. How
do I get them on to the DROID? I know people are going to ask me to use CSV, etc.

I tried that. But GMAIL is really really bad about it.
It can not maintain all the information intact. It turns everything into stupid notes.

I also loose the pictures that are associated with contacts.
It is next to impossible to data entry nearly 1000 contacts manually.

People who design such smart pone can't design basics.
Looks like all Newtons out there where they have two
holes for two cats, big hole for big cat and small one for
small cat!

 

[srodsimpson]

I'm not an outlook user but if you can export to virtual card format (.vcl) it should import into gmail contacts realatively smoothly.

 

[isitkiller]

I already tried that. Same results, contact picture is lost all information
(work/home address, etc) pushed into NOTES.

Further, I could not find an option in the outlook to export all
the contacts in vCard format. I have to do each contact one
by one.

 

[Mateles]

Try manually adding one contact to gmail and then export that as CSV. Then you'll have the column names and you can fix up your full .csv list to match up with it.

 

[Deverall]

Transfer contacts from Outlook to Gmail (droid)

Here are the instructions for transferring contacts from Microsoft Outlook to your Droid, you can do this from your gmail account. Here are the instructions:

1. In Outlook, on the File menu, click Import and Export.
2. Click Export to a file, and then click Next.
3. Click Comma Separated Value (DOS), and then click Next.
4. In the folder list, click the contacts folder you want to export, and then click Next.
5. Choose a location on your computer to temporarily save the file. Note You can delete this file after your contacts are imported into Google Gmail.
6. Type a name for the exported file, and then click OK.
7. Click Next.
8. To add or remove fields to determine the way the contact information is saved in the new imported file, click Map Custom Fields.
9. Note The Map Custom Fields button in the Export to a File dialog box might not be available when you try to import data from another program or file. In the The following actions will be performed box, select the Export check box, and then the Map Custom Fields button is available.
10. Additional help on mapping custom fields
11. In the From box, drag the field that you want to convert onto the Outlook field that is listed in the To box. Note The Name field doesn't appear in the To box, because Outlook reserves the first row of a named range or field names. If the range that you import does not contain field names, the first row of data will be interpreted as field names and will not be imported as data. To make sure that all of the data in the named range is imported, use the first row for field names.
    • To see additional records in the From box, click Previous or Next.
    • To remove all mapping, click Clear Map.
    • To reset the original mapping, click Default Map.
12. To display additional fields in the To box, click the plus sign (+) next to the field. For example, to display the Business Street and Business City fields, click the plus sign (+) next to Business Address.

1. Click Finish.
2. Log on to your Google Gmail account.
3. In the left column, click Contacts.
4. On the right side of your screen, above the message count, click Import.
5. Under Import Contacts, click Browse.
6. Select the file you exported in step 9.
7. Click Open.
8. Click Import Contacts.