How To: Transfer Contacts To Your New Phone

How To | Solopreneurs | Stories & Experiences
Written by Riley

I was at a swanky dinner and dance event not too long ago and I bumped into a very old and dear friend. It had been ages since we saw last saw each other. So, after the customary hugs, sharing photos of our respective children, and commenting on how much they've grown, we pledged to keep in touch. She asked me for my number so I told her that my number hadn't changed. It's actually the same one I've had since 1994! She then explained that she had recently changed phones and hadn't yet transferred all of her contacts. I then made a face similar to the one below.

I was astonished to learn recently that losing your contacts when you change phones is still "a thing". I have no idea why it's still "a thing" but apparently many people, despite having a smartphone, still encounter this problem at the end of their contract's upgrade cycle. So I'm going to share with you a way to avoid this laborious  task. I shared this same tip with my friend  and she looked at me in amazement as if I was some kind of Sage, in possession of ancient and forgotten, mystical wisdom.

So, without further ado, here's how to do it.

1. Save your contacts in your email account
2. Set up your email account on your smartphone
3. There isn't a step 3. It really is as simple as steps 1 and 2

Were you expecting more? Some screenshots, a diagram, or maybe even an instructional YouTube video? If so, I'm sorry to disappoint you but there really is no more to it than that.

Just to further explain step 1, you can do this on your computer by signing into your email account, going to "Contacts" or "People" and creating a new contact. Alternatively, you can do Step 2 first (adding your email account to your phone) and then create the contacts on the phone, ensuring that they're saved to your email account.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the vast majority of us who have smartphones use them to check our email and we do this through an app or by adding the email account to the phone (as opposed to using the phone's browser to check email on the web). Well, when you do this, all the contacts stored in your email account are synchronised to your phone's address book as if you had added them manually to the phone! Cool eh?

What's cooler still is that any changes you make to a particular contact on your phone are synchronised to the other devices where you have added that same email account (e.g. A second phone, your computer, etc).

Admittedly, if you're saving your contacts to your email account for the first time, it will take a while. But once you've done it, changing phones will be a breeze! Now, all you have to do is add your email account to the new phone and as if by magic, all of your contacts will be downloaded to it. You'll never have to endure the pain of losing all of your contacts again! And no more time-consuming manual transfers!

For the iPhone owners among us, of course, you can save your contacts to your iCloud account and accomplish the same results. But if you ever want to move away from iOS (believe it or not, some people actually do) you'll be in the same boat.

Please share this tip with your friends so that you too can be a wise old Sage. If we all pull together we can stop "losing your contacts when you change your phone" from being "a thing".

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