Importing Contacts into the Alcatel Go Flip - Sprint Product Ambassadors

The Alcatel Go Flip is a very advanced flip phone, claiming to support import of contacts from Exchange or Gmail.  However, with two factor authentication and the way I had my Gmail account set up, I could not get it to connect to my account to download my contacts.  What good is a phone without contacts?  I wasn't about to manually key in 500 people to test this phone, so I set about finding a workaround.

I remember back in the day we would use Group VCF files - an older format for exchanging contacts in a specially formatted text file.  And the Go Flip is easy to put files into - no proprietary software or cables; just insert a MicroSD card with your files on it!  So, off to Google to see how to get my contacts out of there as a VCF.

For Google, it's easy - just visit https://contacts.google.com/ and you'll see a list of all your contacts.  Select all your contacts and choose More - Export.  If you've migrated to the new version of Google Contacts, you'll find 'More' below your contact groups on the left side. The new version will prompt you to switch to the legacy version to get to the export screen.  Choose "VCF" and which contact groups to export, and save the file to your hard drive.



For Outlook it's a bit trickier - you'll have to export them as a CSV, then import them to a GMail account, then export them as above as a VCF file.  From MSOutlook.info:

In Outlook, export your contacts to a csv-file.

• Outlook 2007 and previous
  File-> Import and Export-> Export to a file-> Comma Separated Values (Windows)
• Outlook 2010
  File-> Open-> Import-> Export to a file-> Comma Separated Values (Windows)
• Outlook 2013 and Outlook 2016
  File-> Open & Export-> Import/Export-> Export to a file-> Comma Separated Values

Now that you have a VCF file on your hard drive, insert a MicroSD card in your computer and copy the VCF file to that card.  Eject the MicroSD card from the computer and insert it into your Alcatel Go Flip phone.  Go to Contacts and choose Import.  Find the VCF file on the MicroSD card and in a few moments all your contacts will be loaded into the memory of the phone!
Importing Contacts from Memory Card



Disclaimer:
       The Product Ambassadors are Sprint employees from many different parts of the company that love technology. They volunteer to test out all sorts of Sprint devices and offer opinions freely to the Community. Each Product Ambassador shares their own opinions of these devices, therefore the information in this post does not necessarily reflect the opinions of Sprint. The PA's do not represent the company in an official way, and should not be expected to respond to Community members in an official capacity. #sprintemployee