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How to Transfer Contacts from iPhone to Samsung Galaxy S3 Android?

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Updated on 28/1/2013

(This is part of the My Quick Start Guide for Samsung Galaxy S3 Series.)

After getting my Samsung Galaxy S3, one of the very first things I did is to transfer my massive contacts from iPhone to S3.

The whole process is divided into following 2 steps:

  • Syncing iPhone Contacts with Google Contacts
  • Logging in to your Gmail account on Android.

But, before you embark on exporting the contacts, you MUST make a backup of all the contacts to avoid any mistake causing data loss.

Syncing iPhone Contacts with Google Contacts

1. Connect your iPhone to the computer with iTunes.

2. On iTunes, select your phone on the left and click the Info option.
iTunes Info Tab

3. Check the Sync Contacts with check box, select Google Contacts from the drop down menu and click the Configure… button.
Sync Contacts with Menu

4. Enter your Google ID, password and click OK.
Google ID and Password

5. At the bottom of this page, click the Apply button to start exporting the contacts.

6. Lastly, login to Google contact to ensure all the contacts are imported, and then disable (untick) contacts sync with Google on iTunes.
G Contacts

Now, I would suggest that you should tidy up the contacts before exporting them to Android.

Updated Note 1: According to Ray and Wayne Freeth from the comments, if the above steps don’t work for you, try turning off “sync with iCloud” in the iPhone Settings first. Thanks guys.

Updated Note 2: If the above method doesn’t work for you, maybe you can try a more manual way of exporting using My Contacts Backup app.

Logging in to your Gmail account on Android.

When you first power on the Samsung Galaxy S3, it will ask you to login to your Gmail account. This step can be skipped.

So, if you didn’t login at the start, below are the steps to create a Gmail account on your S3.

1. Tap the Option key on your home screen.
Samsung Galaxy Option Key

2. On the appeared menu, select Settings.

3. On the Settings screen, select the Accounts and sync.

S3 Settings Accounts and Snyc

4. On this screen, tap the Add account button at the bottom.

5. Then select Google.

Add Account Button G Account Option

6. On the Add a Google Account screen, select Existing.
Choosing the New option will let you go through the steps of signing up for a new Gmail account.

7. On Sign in screen, enter your username and password and then press Sign in. Following the rest of the instructions to complete signing in for the first time.

New and Existing Button G Sign in Screen

8. Now, go to Contacts on your phone to verify if you’re getting the similar list of Gmail contacts.
(This is part of the My Quick Start Guide for Samsung Galaxy S3 Series.)

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Comments

  1. With the new version of Itunes I could not find the sync with Google. Lucky had an old version on other computer and that worked!!!! Awesome, so happy!! Thanks.
    Maybe you can help “others” that don’t have the “OLD” Itunes??
    Thanks

  3. Hi I turned off sync with icloud on my iphone which didnt work so then I downloaded backup pro and sent myself a .vcf file with all my contacts I followed the guide above but on my galaxy i dont have accounts and sync under settings,

    Please advise

    • The above guide is based on Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich), if you’re have the latest 4.1.2 (Jelly Bean) it should be Settings > Add account > Google.

  4. Worked perfectly, thanks. Better than earlier syncs in the distant past from Palm and other old stuff like that. Those took a day to figure out; this took minutes thanks to your guidance.

  5. My itunes does not have another drop down available for gmail only outlook. I do have the latest version of itunes

    Any help gratefully accepted
    Thanks

  13. On I Phone I installed My Contact Backup. It asked for an email address. I gave it the Gmail address associated with the III.
    On the III I opened Gmail and open the mail from the iPhone and the 500 contacts imported.
    Thanks

    • Hi

      I tried but i couldnt find intouch app could you help with the exact name of it and its maker

      Yours

      Ben

  15. Thanks. The instructions to transfer contacts from iPhone to galaxy has been invaluable. Took me couple a days to do it as I am illiterate with these gadgets but somehow managed
    Thank you unr a legend

  27. I followed your instructions and at first it didnt work, I went back in as Ray and Wayne suggested and turned off my sync with icloud, followed your instructions agin and it worked a treat, now all my iphone contacts are on my new Galaxy SIII, thanks heaps.

  30. contacts were successfully transferred to google account. but i could not find any names under contact of my galaxy note.

  35. I’ve followed the steps as shown and it seemed to be working find till i realised that my contacts synced were only up to J. All contacts after that are not there. What did I do wrong??

  37. I’ve synced all my contacts from Iphone3 to my GMAIL contacts on my laptop, I can see them when I click on above link to Google contact, but when I just go on my GMAIL account I don’t know where they are. So I can’t see them on my phone, thru email or on my Galaxy Tab. What am I doing wrong? Thanks in advance 🙂

    • 1) On Gmail page, click the “Gmail” on top left to get the drop-down menu to select Contacts.
      2) You need to do the 2nd part of the tutorial (Logging in to your Gmail account on Android) on this post in order to see all the contacts on your phone.

  46. I just finished doing this.. If youre still having problems its probably because your contacts are synced to Icloud. Log into your Icloud account via the internet and export your contacts from there. Then, try the above steps.

    Hope that helps any stragglers. Peace 🙂

  47. Hey, I followed your instructions (Thanks big time by the way) and got all the way to the sign in page but the screen has been saying “signing in” for the past 25 mins. I don’t know why. I have 350 contacts – does it usually take this long?

    • Strange, but ensure your internet connection is working, and then try to do that again. The number of contacts should has nothing to do with the duration of the sign in.

  48. Will this transfer my contacts additional info such as Address, website, fax, etc? Or will it just simply transfer the contacts name and number?

  50. It wouldnt let me do it to start with. i had to turn off “sync with icloud” in settings and it worked fine.

    thanks

    Wayne

  52. Thanks for the post. Is there a way to do it without using Google Contacts, reason I’m asking is because I have about 2000+ I follow on G+ and I don’t want their contact details on my Android.

    • Instead of Google contact, you would want the contacts to be imported directly into the phone. I hope I understood you correctly. In this case, one way is to make use of Samsung Kies, using the “Transfer your Back Up data from non-Samsung device” option. All contacts imported are store on the phone. Here’s the guide that shows you how to do it, but you just need to select contacts instead of sms.

  53. Thanks a lot! I planned a whole evening to transfer my phone numbers but thanks to your manual I managed it within 5 minutes!

  60. Thank you for all of the above info in regards to transferring contacts to S3 from iphone,,was easy as 123..I did not want to manually transfer 111,,this was sooooo much easier!!Hats off to you^

  62. Now i try with the bump apps. U can download to both devices and bump all the contacts.It really works. Enjoy!!!

  63. If you’re having trouble with the directions above (i.e: it’s not working for you) try disabling contacts options via iCloud and try again.

    The above steps worked for me after I did that.

    Thanks for the guide OP 🙂

  64. Hey guys,
    Thanks for the clear instructions, I managed this fine which is saying something! Problem is my contacts are now just my Facebook and email addresses, no phone numbers???
    Help!!

    • You can use Mac Address book to make a vCard from apple/itunes contacts. Sync this to google contacts. sync s3 with google account. Viola

  65. Thankyou!!! This is a very sinple procedure…if i can do so can anyone else 🙂 although for some reason my photos didnt get transferred over only my contacts…save me a bundle of time
    Thanks so much for this simple procedure!!!!

  66. Thank you very much, I’m still waiting for a call from Samsung, they drew a blank, maybe I should recommend your site, thanks again

  67. Your instructions are explained in a simple and easy fashion. I managed to export 1000+ contacts within minutes! Thank you so much! 🙂

    • I tried using the methods explained above (using google contacts, windows contacts) but none of them worked

      Then I tried the MyContacts backup app and THAT WORKED!!!!! I was able to backup over 700 contacts in less than a minute.

      Thanks tonnes Ethan, you da man

      S3….here I come

  68. Just got the Galaxy S3, and cannot for the life of my get my contacts across!
    Even after trying the windows windows contact sync that someone else suggested, i still have nothing to sync across (nothing shows up in the window on my itunes).
    Any ideas? 🙁

  71. I followed all the steps but nothing was transferred to my Gmail! any idea why or how to do it, the only sync contacts was Apple Inc. ??

    • Instead of Google contacts, have you try doing one round of Windows contacts sync by selecting Windows contacts and click sync. After that select Google contacts and follow the steps above to export the contacts to Google.

      I personally tested this twice. It worked every time.

  78. All sorted now. I downloaded Samsung Kies and that did it, although my contacts are somewhat dis-ordered now. There are a LOT of unknown, which I will have to manually delete.
    Many thanks for the forun.

  79. Nothing is working and I am getting increasingly frustrated!

    iTunes will does not show an ‘apply’ button when trying to sync contacts to Google. I switched to Window and it supposidly syncs to windows contacts but when I check the folder, there are none there.

    I have also tried the new app ‘easy phone sync’ and it will only tell me there that the USB connection, on the selected device if not responding correctly.

    Any ideas. Getting the S3 is starting to seem like a mistake!

    Am using windows7 and itunes 10.6.3.25

    Many thanks in anticipation.

  80. Worked a treat!

    Thanks for taking the time to post this up so clearly. Much appreciated.

  81. hey there i followed the steps to transfer my numbers but for some reason they are not showing up in my google contacts

    • Instead of Google contacts, try to do one round of Windows contacts sync by selecting Windows contacts and click sync.

      Note: if you’re using windows 7 the contacts will be backup to C:\Users\your_user_name\Contacts

      After that select Google contacts and follow the steps above to export the contacts to Google.

      Tested this twice and it worked for me.

      • I’ve tried this several times and nothing is working. Any ideas?? I’ve using Vista if this makes a difference.

        • I got it. I your Iphone th edefalt account should be set to windows contacts. Then everything get sync correctly. Another reason apple sucks!

        • Hi, thanks I tried twice then it works! Windows contacts has to be synched prior to the step of synch to google contacts.