Import Contacts From Palm Desktop To Iphone
If you are one of those people upgrading from a palm pilot to an iphone probably you are having a hard time importing your contacts from the palm software to the iphone. luckily there is always a way to do things, so in this article I will share some tips on how to do that.
The only way to synch contacts to the iphone is by using itunes ( that’s the only way I know of) so the route we need to take is getting our contacts from the palm desktop software to Outlook and then to the iphone. some palm software have the ability to synch to outlook using software like PocketMirror etc. so that would make things simpler by just synching your itunes with Outlook. but I guess that’s not your case, otherwise you wouldn’t be here (:-)
The Palm Desktop software does not let you export data in many formats, the most common formats you can export are .ABA and .CSV, and the only formant Outlook accept is .CSV so I guess the only option we have is to export contacts as .CVS format, here is how you do it.
Step 1: from your palm desktop software click on File and then Export . choose to export the file as “comma separated (*.csv;.text) and on range select ALL. save the file anywhere you want, but make sure you remember where it is.
Step 2. once the contacts have been exported, you need to modify the field names in the .csv file , so Outlook can recognize it. these are some of the fields Outlook will recognize:
- First Name
- Last Name
- Job Title
- Business Name
- Business State
- Postal Code
- Business Country
- Business Phone
- Home Phone
- Mobile Phone
- E-mail Address
for example your spreadsheet will look like this:
step 3:
after you finish modifying the spreadsheet you need to import them to Outlook. to do that go to your outlook and click on File, and then choose Import and Export:
Then choose Import from a another program or file:
Choose Comma Separated Values (Windows) on the following screen:
choose the .CSV file you created earlier, by clicking on the browse button:
from here choose if you want to import duplicates or not.
select your destination folder on the next screen.
click on Finish on the following screen.
that should import your contacts to Outlook.
Step 4 :
now you need to synch your Outlook contacts with itunes.
when you open itunes, your iphone should get recognize automatically. click on the iphone icon, and the following screen will show up:
under the info tab.
scroll to the bottom, and click on Synch.
that should start the synching between Outlook and itunes.
good luck.
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The style of writing is quite familiar . Did you write guest posts for other blogs?
Clarence
How about this easy way:
All the instructions I found online suggested going through Outlook, but that didn’t work for me for a variety of reasons. I found this other method that worked really well.
1. Bring up Palm Desktop. Make sure your Palm phone is sync’ed up. Show the Address page, select all contacts (Ctrl-A), and export them with File, Export vCard… This puts all contact information into a single file as a sequence of vCards.
2. Bring up Windows Address Book. You can find this in Start, All Program, Accessories, Address Book.
3. Using Windows Explorer, drag the vCard file you created in step 1 to the Windows Address Book window. I had never used Windows Address Book, so it was empty. If yours isn’t empty, you’ll have to decide whether you want to merge your contacts.
4. When you drop the file, you’ll get a window asking you to confirm the first contact. Press OK. Another window will come up for the second contact. Press OK until all windows are gone. It’s easiest to hold down the Enter key.
5. Bring up iTunes with your iPhone plugged in. Go to your iPhone page, to the Info tab, and configure it to sync from Windows Address Book. Click Apply in the lower-right corner of the window.
6. Sync your iPhone. Verify that your contacts transferred over.
7. Tell iTunes to stop sync’ing with Windows Address Book, since you probably only wanted a one-way sync. Your contacts will be backed up anyway by iTunes, so the Address Book sync feature doesn’t buy you much.
Michelle
Thanks so much for this great info– I updated all my contacts with no problems!!!
I have had this Treo for a long time and when I finally upgraded to the IPhone I was worried that it would be really difficult to sync the contacts– but this was great help!
Tom
I’m an Iphone newbie (which may seem obvious from following question). I will use Clarence’s suggestion from above to move from palm to Iphone. If I also want some of my contacts to sync from my work outlook, can I do this without syncing the contacts that I imported from palm back to outlook? Basically, I don’t want my personal contacts on my work outlook, but want both personal and work on my Iphone…. so I want 1-way sync from Outlook to Iphone. Easily accomplished?
Kim3258
WOW! that worked great!!! Thanks.
Elizabeth
Clarence’s idea and instructions were fantastic!! This worked perfectly to transfer contact info from my Palm LifeDrive into my new iPod Touch. I’m not a techie and could accomplish this without a flaw. Thank you, Clarence; You da Man!!
Ted
Wow, thanks Clarence! worked great and my wife is so happy I got her data transferred. Thanks to you, I’m a hero.