Despite the fact that using iSync isn't an option, I did find some information on how I could transfer my numbers from Address Book to my new phone. The steps I took varied slightly, thus the reason for this blog entry.
- Open Address Book
- Address Book -> Preferences -> vCard: Set vCard Format to 2.1.
- File -> Export Group vCard: Save Group vCard to a new folder anywhere.
- Download vCard Splitter and install.
- Open your saved Group vCard using vCard Splitter.
- System Preferences -> Bluetooth -> Devices -> Set Up New Device: Pair your phone with your Mac.
- System Preferences -> Bluetooth -> Settings: Show Bluetooth status in the menu bar.
- Menu Bar -> Bluetooth Status -> Turn Bluetooth On
- Menu Bar -> Bluetooth Status -> Send File -> Select all the vCards generated by vCard Splitter -> Select your paired phone.
Jay,
ReplyDeleteThank you for this solution, works very well. I was going to take the Samsung back to the store.
I hope this posting is right, since I am now going to buy a Samsung phone I wouldn't have otherwise bought
ReplyDeleteThanks for this post. Simple, yet I didn't think of this myself (and I couldn't find it explained elsewhere).
ReplyDeleteThis worked very well for my Samsung X680, but it had some problems with names that contain accents. I fixed those manually.
This worked for me, thanks. Too bad we have to resort to this just to send phone numbers.
ReplyDeleteI just tried this with my new A870, and got the message "Device does not have the necessary services." This phone might go back so I can get the basic Motorola & a sync cable. :-(
ReplyDeleteAnne
i love you. where do i send my first born!
ReplyDeleteAfter following all the instructions, for some reason my phone will not accept the files. It tells me that the file tranfer failed. Any reccomendations?
ReplyDeletemichael,
ReplyDeletesorry, I've not seen that error. In the end I gave up on my Samsung and went to a Motorola. I found I couldn't live without sync'ing my calendar (and address book)
also got an internal error message. not sure where to go from here. but thanks for tip.
ReplyDeleteHi,
ReplyDeletethanks for the tips, worked fine for me, even better than expected:
http://blog.gramels.info/blog/archives/109-Samsung-SHG-X820-no-iSync-workaround.html
(I wish blogger.com would support trackback)
-gramels
Before sending your vCards to your phone, pair your phone and authorize your blurtooth connection. This will avoid the phone asking for approval for each vCard and your thumb will not wear out.
ReplyDeletes very useful guys but most people actually want to go the otherway.. ie back up phone details to address book.... how do you do that with a samsung....
ReplyDeleteeven better, select all and then do the transfer. Worked for me. Thanks so much!!!!
ReplyDeletethanks for the ideas, but i am really saddened that we can't have a standard iSync. I'm actually more interested in syncing in the other direction - phone to mac.
ReplyDeleteAn easier method would be to just pair the phone, open Address Book, and select the cards you want, then menu Card -> Send these Cards... and select your phone. This will do all the hard work for you.
ReplyDeletecoooooool, thanx that you found out this solution...
ReplyDeleteGreat solution, but how does this work backwards??? I mean how can I send all my Vcards from my samsung to the computer? thanks
ReplyDeleteWorked perfectly on my m610. Thank you a ton.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the extremely useful post. For the hell of it, I tried uploading the whole vCard file rather than splitting it to my Samsung a501 phone (Telstra's bottom of the line standard issue) and it worked like a charm...
ReplyDeleteThanks for your very helpful info. One thing to add: the v-card splitter program can create a few v-card file names with odd characters, "/" and the like. At least with my set up the result is that a batch of v-cards will upload via bluetooth and then stop when they hit a v-card file with an unusual character in its file name. To get them to all upload in one go, simply remove the strange characters from the file names.
ReplyDeleteAWESOME
ReplyDeletegreat.it works perfecty.
ReplyDeletedo you know the way to import event from ical too?
Can i get this to go backwards. Samsung to mac?
ReplyDeleteThanks!
Jay,
ReplyDeleteThank you so much! I was about to go crazy!
Take care,
Michael
i figured out that on a blackjack atleast if you accept one and then wait a lil bit and then hit accept they all build up and it says there is a total of ___ items waiting to be saved and they all build up so you dont have to hit yes on everyone
ReplyDeleteThanks!!!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteWow... life saver. Love the phone but was totally bummed I couldn't move my contacts! Thanks goodness an Angel helped me out by locating your page! Many thanks! :-)
ReplyDeleteamazing solution.
ReplyDeletethankyou so much
Thank you so much for posting the answer. Works as described.
ReplyDeleteJay - THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!!!
ReplyDeleteGreat!
ReplyDeleteThank you so very much for finding this solution!!!
Beate from Germany
Any chance theres a way to get numbers off the phone onto a Mac?
ReplyDeleteJAY: You save me a lot of time! Thanks! worked transfering my macbook address book to my samsung r470 two step. conroman@gmail.com
ReplyDeleteThanks SOOO much! It worked beautifully!
ReplyDeleteJust wanted to give my thanks. Worked for SGH-t456 over bluetooth.
ReplyDeleteworks for SGH L700. thanks. I almost lost it trying to export in a format that could be read by Samsung's PC Studio on my windows machine...
ReplyDeleteWorks for the SGH-a777 - you are a lifesaver for posting this. Along with everyone else, I want to say Thank You!
ReplyDeleteJay, I liked your posts before. Now I'm very thankful.
ReplyDeleteThank you SO much! worked perfectly on a Samsung S3600, I'm forever grateful :)
ReplyDeleteGreat solution - Thanks so much!
ReplyDeleteI have the Samsung s3500 (bought in India) over here in Canada... and I only have a MacBook (I think the software for the phone is for Windows only.)
Thanks a million for this work around. It worked great with my A777. Although it made doubles of each on the phone. No big deal.
ReplyDeleteWorks very well. One advantage I noticed with this method is that it is much easier to discriminate what you put in your phone. Make a group called "phone contacts" in the address book and include in that group ONLY those contacts you want in your phone before you do the group export. I have a lot of contact information on my computer that I don't want on my phone - and they are not there. I like that. Thanks, Jay. Great work around.
ReplyDeleteWorks great on the t456. Thanks!
ReplyDeletethanks, you saved my day!
ReplyDeleteIt worked right away! You are my hero. Internet wouldn't be the same without you :)
ReplyDeleteWorked graet for me!
ReplyDeleteYour advice worked perfectly for me. But the Samsung A777 is a late model, so I started experimenting. Sure enough, I can skip the vCard Splitter. I just select contacts from the Address Book, export them to a single file in vCard 3.0 format, and "Send" that one file to the A777 which opens the file and adds the numbers properly. In short, I get exactly the right result.
ReplyDelete...saved me lots of hassle!! Ride on!!
ReplyDeleteWow! thanks very much! Although i would like to ask one more question. Will it be possible to sync contacts back from the Star to our macs?
ReplyDeleteJay,
ReplyDeleteFound your article and was hopeful that I could sync my Samsung Intensity that I just bought with my MacBook address book. I followed your instructions, but got a -1409 error message when I tried to open the address book file with the v-split software...any ideas?
Thanks!
Really appreciate this workaround, works a treat
ReplyDeleteHave a AT&T Samsung Rugby SGH-A837 and want to go the other way...sync the phone's contacts to my Mac Address Book. The contacts were transferred from my old phone to the Rugby so do not have all of them in my Mac address book. Will this work to do that? What will?
ReplyDeleteGreat advice!! Works perfectly. Thanks.
ReplyDeletethank you very much works like a charm
ReplyDeleteGreat post! Just worked for the Samsung D980!
ReplyDeleteDoes not work with Snowleopard - plz fix. :)
ReplyDeleteWorks great with Snow leopard .. many thanks .. screw Samsung and their Windows only support
ReplyDeleteTHANK YOU SO MUCH!!!
ReplyDeletebluetooth won't recognize the device
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeletebluetooth won't recogize my device
ReplyDeletebluetooth won't recognize my device
ReplyDeletesorry for the repeats
ReplyDeletesolved - you've got to turn Bluetooth on on your Samsung... -:)
ReplyDeleteGreat stuff works perfectly
ReplyDeleteAny thoughts on how to sync the iCal calendar?
ReplyDeleteWorks a treat!!
ReplyDeleteExcellent! Thank you ever so very much. I googled, your tip was the first one to come up, and I didn't have to look any further (as says Dennis Edwards). As it says on the tin...
ReplyDeleteAwesome! Just what I needed. Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteWorks wonderfully! Further question though, how do you send ringtones/music files to the samsung intensity? when i try to send using file transfer, it says that the file format is not supported.
ReplyDeleteI've got the samsung epix... google voice will do every thing you need and you can sync isync with voice
ReplyDeleteWorks great. Thank you for this solution. You have saved me hours
ReplyDeleteThanks heaps for this work around, have you been able to work out how to get contacts off a Samsung phone and import them into Address Book on a Mac?
ReplyDeleteThanks! I have a samsung sgh-t469w from Wind in Canada and my Mac is running Snow Leopard. Didn't need to run v-card splitter - I just sent over the entire file as one. Worked great!
ReplyDeleteFor the Samsung SGH S7350, no splitting was needed. I simply pushed the (version 3.0) vCard that Address Book had spit out and all contacts appeared. (note that after the push, the phone appears to be doing nothing for a while with just the bluetooth icon blinking, that's OK)
ReplyDeleteThanks works fine with e2370
ReplyDeleteTo refine the above. My samsung phone does not transfer when there is phone information missing. Create a smart group called "Samsung Transfer" in your contacts and specify that: "Phone" = "Is Set"
ReplyDeleteI have tried using the contacts splitter, but find apple's built in contacts slitter causes no errors. The splitter app was jamming the transfer a few times. To use it, just hold the Option-A key while dragging your "Samsung Transfer" folder into a new finder folder to hold all the vcards that will be created.
IT'S NOW
ReplyDeletehttps://public.me.com/gaz
FOR DOWNLOAD
THX FOR SHARING THIS MAN IT'S AMAZING YOU SAVED MY LIFE!! :D
Thank you so much! Worked perfectly! Only downside is that the pictures of my contacts (on their contact cards) didn't sync through. But thanks anyways! :)
ReplyDeleteThe link to the vcard splitter software isn't working anymore. Neither is the updated link that is posted 2 posts above this one. Is there an new link or another place I can DL the software?
ReplyDeletethis didn't work for me at all. I got to the exporting part and from then on it wouldn't let me do anything else
ReplyDeleteI have a samsung guru dual GT E2152 and looking for a way to sync the contacts and calendar with my Macbook pro. I would e grateful for any guidance / advice. The comments in your column have not helped.
ReplyDeleteThank you. This is the only recommended method I have found.
ReplyDeleteNOW, have you figured out how to download pix from the Rugby to a MAC? :)
dhscobra@hotmail.com
Thank you so much for sharing. This will be the 2nd time I have used these steps. It's still better than re-entering them individually.
ReplyDeletethank you soooo much ur a star!
ReplyDelete