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December 17, 2010

Restore Google Contacts

One of the most annoying things about Google's contact manager is that it doesn't have a "trash" section. If you accidentally delete some of your contacts, it's impossible to retrieve them without a backup. This is a big problem if you use a buggy software that tries to sync your contacts, but manages to overwrite them.

Google tried to address this issue by adding a new option that lets you restore your contacts. You'll find it if you visit Google's contact manager and click on the "More actions" button. "You can restore your contact list to the state it was in at any point within the past 30 days. This is a great way to recover deleted contacts, undo an import, or undo a merge," explains Google.

While this is a very useful feature, Google's implementation doesn't help users who don't remember when they made a mistake. Google should have listed the most recent changes and allowed users to pick one of the revisions, like in Google Docs.


{ via Gmail blog }

13 comments:

  1. + 1 for your solution!

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  2. does it mess up with the gtalk friends list? I stopped syncing my gmail contacts with my mac osx/iphone address book because I noticed that I had to reinvite people to gtalk.

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  3. Useful feature, but: I wonder if the contacts are *really* deleted by google after those 30 days. Or do they simply set them to "deleted" and keep them forever?

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  4. I havent this option into "more actions"

    why?

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  5. Can't believe this just saved me from restoring over 1000 contacts.

    Phew. Android trapped me. :)

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  6. Thanks a ton for the solution man, you saved my life :-)

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  7. very helpful. I lost all my contacts and finally this info pulled me out of the mess..

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  8. I have lost my Android Phone and want to restore contacts saved that were syncd with the Goolge and Face Book Account. Pls help e to restore those

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  9. I didn't get mine back from the restore

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  10. Is there any way to restore a gTalk contact I accidentally "removed" without having to re-invite, if it is in 24 hours? I tried the restore function in gmail but it didnt change my gTalk friend list at all :/

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  11. I don't have the more options option. Please help I need my contacts back.

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  12. Thanks a mill boss ... u saved me

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