SmartSync. Do not ever sync your iPhone contacts with Facebook

I had a terrible experience trying to import my Facebook contacts to my iPhone. I thought that would improve things. Nope. It did the opposite

Maybe this is related to the fact that i have many contacts. Maybe not. All i know if that i used a popular (apparently well done and rated) app called SmartSync that is supposed to match your contacts in your iPhone with your Facebook contacts and enrich it with photos, numbers and emails you don't have or that are not up to date

This has created a massive mess. Right after i used this app my iPhone was burning hot. Every app was crashing. i suddenly got double the number of contacts with a lot of meaningless "No Name" Contacts. All my contacts are backed up in iCloud. I tried to remove the iCloud settings. Crash.

I tried to reset my iPhone to a previous iCloud back up. that would not work and the iPhone would crash on the way. 

I knew this was because of the contacts. I had to find a way to clean the mess

The good news is that i found 2 great little apps that saved my contact book from duplicates and useless Vcards: Cleanup remove and Deduplicate

I merged the duplicates and erased the empty contacts: i did it from my iPad which is synced via iCloud with my iPhone.  Things got back to normal

So now you know. Avoid the Dumb Sync

So far the very best tool i know to enrich your contact book is by far WriteThatName

Comments

[vvvlad]

I'm actually using this app a lot and in most cases don't have any issues with my contacts.
Only sometimes I get a wrong picture for a contact or unrelated contacts get merged somehow.
On the other hand, I get the most updated info about my contacts which is nice.
I would suggest a nice app called Smartr, from the creators of xobni. All contacts in one place without actually merging them.

[Robbie Glenns]

I used to have an HTC, now I use iPhone 4S. I have learned to manage my contacts manually and to back them up in case something goes wrong during an iCloud or Exchange sync. I am using CopyTrans Contacts for the iPhone contact backup and editing part and am rather pleased with the results:

http://www.copytrans.net/iphone-contacts.php

I used to have some terrible time syncing my 900+ FB friends with the contact list of my HTC when more than 500 unneeded entries without a number were added to my contact list. I am not sure whether I used a similar app for Android. I have since learned not to trust cross-platform contact sync.

[Ivan Ballard]

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