Lost all contacts on phone after linking to google

Hi all,
It feels like google has become master of my FP2, which I’ve been happy enough with since getting it in March. Worse, I appear to have lost all my saved contacts after allowing it to communicate with my existing google account. (I like storing stuff locally).
They disappeared after I’d used Play Store for the first time (to download skype). It seemed that to do the download I was required to identify myself as a google user, though I thought I’d clicked on the “don’t sync” option when I did the download.
Now I can’t even save new contacts as before. The only options offered (say, after someone has rung me) are to create a new Exchange account or sync the number with the google acc. It doesn’t appear to acknoweldge the fact that I used to have a perfectly adequate list of contacts associated with the phone.
I would prefer to have as little as possible to do with google, but I’m not an advanced user or enthusiastic about tinkering with electronics.
Can anyone help? Particularly with finding the contacts? Are they buried somewhere in the phone?
Also, can I restore my FP2 to a state where stuff is stored locally, not linked to google or equivalents? I can’t really afford to delete the google account itself as I use it to for work.
Thanks,
Eeva

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I locally sync my contacts between Mozilla Thunderbird and the phone using MyPhoneExplorer.

When I once wasn’t fast enough to disable syncing to Google after a reinstall I noticed that MyPhoneExplorer is able to distinguish between contacts synced with Google and contacts stored locally on the phone.

3 of my contacts didn’t show on the phone anymore, but MyPhoneExplorer listed them separately as Google contacts. With MyPhoneExplorer I could then copy them back to the phone storage from there and could delete them at Google.

Perhaps you could try that.

Many thanks, AnotherElk,

I really don’t need any syncing, just a way to find out whether the contacts got saved somewhere within the bowels of the phone itself. And a way to save future contacts somewhere that is not linked to google or any other account.

I’m not sure where “locally on the phone” means right now. Does a contact have to be associated with some account (gmail or other?)

Currently when I try to save a contact it offers only the google account or the option of opening a new Exchange account, which I don’t need or want.

If there’s any way my FP2 could get a “divorce” from google that would be grand…

Any ideas?
Eeva

Sorry for not being clear about that.
You don’t need to sync anything with MyPhoneExplorer, you can just use it to have a look at the stuff on your phone, like its name suggests.

I only tried to describe how I noticed that it was able to do what could perhaps help you, not just throwing a “try that thing, it might help, I don’t know” at you :wink: .

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Hello! I had the same problem, and now have I found the solution on my new Fairphone, with android 6.0:

  • Settings > accounts > google:
    Then i turned off the synchronisation for the contacts.

Solved!!

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Thanks Isidor,
I thought that would solve it, but alas, I still can’t save contacts locally. Are you able to save contacts locally?
Whenwever I go to save a contact, I am offered the option of saving it to the gmail account (which I don’t want) or of creating a new account (which I don’t need - already have 2 accounts that work on the phone but appear not to communicate with all functions).
What I’m hoping to be able to restore (or rebuild gradually) is the list of contacts that was up and running perfectly until I (stupidly) allowed gmail to get anywhere near this handset in the process of downloading the new app.
Thanks,
Eeva

No. I´m afraid I don´t know. I see that when I create a new contact, the default option is with my newly created gmail account, and I´m not able to deselect it. So, to be honest, I don´t know if the new contacts are stored ALSO locally, or only in my account.
I´m wonder if the solution for people like us would be to go to a Linux OS (Ubuntu for mobile devices). But my knownledge is quite limited, so I have no idea if this is reallistic :frowning:

Good luck!

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Don’t know if this was already mentioned in the thread above: you could install “MyLocalAccount” from Play store. This creates a new local pseudo-account By assigning contacts to that local account they won’t be synced anywhere.

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So, I have exactly the same problem as the OP, but alas, MyPhoneExplorer didn’t give me back by old contacts…

Anybody further suggestions? Somewhere the contacts are still in the phone… when I add an old contact as new with the same name, I get the suggestion to merge it with another contact of the same name, which I cannot find either in the contact list nor on MyPhoneExplorer…

And, should I update the phone? Or will all chance of getting back my old contacts lost? Or will it even remove GooglePlay and mayhaps give me my contacts back?

Totally frustrated

Dome

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