When you switch to a new smartphone or when you update your operating system, you often run into the problem that your address book is full of duplicate contacts or contacts that you no longer have contact with. How do you synchronize contacts between different services?
01 Clean up contacts on your smartphone
As soon as you buy a new smartphone and you open your address book, you will see that there are all kinds of duplicate contacts. Instead of going through your address book manually, install a dedicated app. It is easiest to install the Cleanup Duplicate Contacts app on your iPhone, for Android you can install the Contacts Optimizer app. Both apps are free and analyze your address book for duplicate contacts. With one push of a button you can merge contacts and your address book is a lot tidier. Also read: 9 tips for safe use of social media.
02 Clean up contacts in Windows 8
The same problem can occur in Windows, of course, but you don't need to install a program for this. Open the People program and click on a contact you want to merge. Right-click somewhere in the white area and choose To link. The program will automatically make a proposal, click on the name below suggestions and the profiles are linked. If the correct name is not listed, click on Choose a contact, choose one from the list and click Add.
03 Clean up contacts on your Mac
The Address Book on the Mac is even smarter and can automatically scan all your contacts for duplicate profiles. Open the app Contacts and choose Map / Find Duplicate Listings. After scanning, the program will ask if you want to merge these contacts, click merge to confirm this. If you want to merge two profiles that the program did not find during the scan, select them by holding down the Cmd key. Then choose Map / Link selected maps.
04 Select synchronization service
Once you've sorted out all your contacts on one system, it's time to choose a service that automatically syncs your contacts to your other devices. Synchronizing means that if you change a contact on one device, the contact on the other device is also automatically changed. The best options are Microsoft's Outlook.com, Apple's iCloud, and Google's Gmail. Which one is best for you depends on the devices you want to sync, not every service is equally easy to integrate into every operating system. Keep in mind that all these services store your data online in the cloud, for the security of your data you are dependent on the measures of these companies.
