Redo all contacts with NextCloud sync

General
#1

Hi!

It looks like my sync with NextCloud is totally messed up. My contacts are partly on my phone, PC and cloud. I would like to redo everything but I am not sure how to do this best. My idea was:

  1. Backup all contacts from the phone as vcf (how can I do that?)
  2. Backup all contacts from NextCloud
  3. Stop syncing
  4. Import all in Thunderbird
  5. Get all contacts corrected
  6. Redo the sync to NextCloud
  7. Delete all contacts from the phone
  8. New sync with the phone

I hope starting out fresh will resolve all syncing issue I have.
Is this how you would do it?

#2

Yes, that’s how i would do it (except that i use evolution instead of thunderbird).

Don’t forget to completely delete your nextcloud account on the phone between step 6 and 6 (step 6 shall be sync between TB and nextcloud, not between the phone)

For step 1, open the people app, choose select contacts, then select all and share them to your email address (if you’re ok with your vcf file being sent in plain text email). IIRC this will create a VCF file of all your contacts.

#3

Thanks for the help and confirmation. Looks like it worked.

#4

You can also use something like vdirsyncer for steps 4ff as an intermediate storage for all the vcf files, and correct them as files.

In case you want to do some kind of mass update by scripting.

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#5

Although probably obvious, vdirsyncer is also really handy for managing calendars. I use it for syncying but also recently moved a whole company worth of calendars and contacts from one system to another … it’s flexible.

#6

Jep, especially when paired with khal

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