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I had to export my Android contacts and then import them. Now I have a mess.

All the contacts are offline contacts - they are NOT synced with the Empire... I mean Google.

After the import, the order of the fields within contacts was not maintained. For example, I have contacts with 10 phone numbers that were in a specific order. Now the order is random. I also had contacts with 10 email addresses or physical addresses, and the order of those was lost as well.

I also lost the descriptor labels for many fields. For example, Android provides "Work" and "Work Fax" as labels for phone numbers. I had added custom labels such as "Work Kitchen" and "Conference Room". Those useful labels are now all gone.

I tried to avoid these problems by posting this question, but it did not work out.

Since performing the import, I've added many contacts, so my old export is no longer current.

So now I need software to fix everything, and I'm looking for recommendations.

I'm open to all software recommendations that will actually solve this specific task.

Ideally, I would like to edit my contacts with as much flexibility as a text editor or spreadsheet would offer. I tried an app that exports all contacts to a spreadsheet, but it could not handle complex contacts like the one specified in this question (I apologize that I don't recall the name of that app).

The software needs to run on Android KitKat or Windows 7. I prefer gratis software (freeware), but am willing to pay up to the price of a milkshake. I always prefer portable and open-source software, but neither is required.

As part of my research before posting, I found the excellent app Reorder-It! for part of the task, but it will not reorder addresses and is too unwieldy for a task of this size. By design, it also does not edit labels.

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MyPhoneExplorer

I have used "MyPhoneExplorer" for years. You can download the contacts on the PC and edit them as shown below.

screenshot of mpe

You can also grab the calendar, files etc and back them up. I do it weekly.

It works by installing an app on your phone and the executable on windows. You can connect with wifi or USB.

MyLocalAccount The other nice thing is that they have another app called "MyLocalAccount". When installed, it creates a phone account that is not synced to Google. All my contacts are on this account.

Contacts Optimizer

If you have lots of duplicates, like I ended up with, then this will very speedily find and delete them. It will also allow you to bulk transfer the contacts from one account into another. It has many other functions, this screenshot shows one of the menu options.

screenshot

Declaration

I do not work with any of the companies that own these software. I just find them very useful.

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  • Thanks for your recommendations Rohit! I tried MyPhoneExplorer in the past, and IIRC, it had trouble handling complex contacts like the one presented here: softwarerecs.stackexchange.com/questions/21639/… Would you be so gracious as to try creating a contact like that one and see if it handles all the fields and field labels properly? Jan 13, 2016 at 19:39
  • I have a hectic day, but I will see if I can try it tonight for you. Jan 13, 2016 at 19:47
  • Thanks Rohit! Your help is greatly appreciated! :-) Jan 13, 2016 at 23:49
  • On my S6 (unrooted), I can create only one custom label. Which MPE backed up and restored. I am unable to test more than one custom label, because the phone will not let me create the entry. Jan 14, 2016 at 10:42
  • Thanks for checking it out! That's quite a limitation of the S6 dialer. Just FYI, custom contacts app / dialers should be able to create more custom labels without difficulty. Jan 14, 2016 at 10:58

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