samsung galaxy s 3 - Merging duplicate contacts - is my phone broken?

I just got my Samsung Galaxy S3 (Android 4.1.1) and I'm having the usual trouble with ridiculous amounts of duplicate contacts. I've tried the following methods to no avail:

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  My mom told me to go to Contacts, and click "Merge with Google" in the menu. It had me add a Google account and was able to remove some of the duplicates, but many still have 5-6 for a single contact. My mom said the whole thing would be ruined if I repeated the process.

  
  


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  I've been checking online, and I found similar questions here where the answer boils down to clicking "Find & Merge Duplicates..." on contacts.google.com. I tried it, and it claimed to merge four contacts. I still have many duplicates.

  
  
  


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  I tried to manually join some contacts a couple of ways:

  
  
  
  
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    Go to Contacts, click the contact to open more details, click the link icon under the Connection heading, tap "Join another contact," select another contact

    
    
  
  
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    Go to Contacts, click the contact to open more details, open the menu, select "Join contact," select another contact

    
    
  
  
  
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    Go to Contact, press and hold the contact, select "Join contact," select another contact

    
    
  
  
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    Go to Contacts, click the contact to open more details, open the menu, select "Edit," click the menu key

    
    
  
  
  
  

  For the first three methods, the phone flashed a message that said "Contacts joined." The contacts were not joined. The last one would not allow me to open the menu.

  
  

Is there another method that I'm supposed to use to merge my contacts? Did I do one of the above methods wrong?

I worry that my beautiful new phone is broken because joining contacts didn't work and it refuses to sync contacts with my google account :(

Answer

There are two types of contacts on your android phone. GMAIL contacts and PHONE contacts. You must decide which ones you are going to use, but you can't use them both (or you will get duplicates).

If you choose to use your PHONE contacts turn off google contact syncing and delete them from the phone. PHONE contacts do NOT sync. You may be getting multiple duplicates from turning on and off syncing. Once you turn off syncing all your current google contacts on the phone may become PHONE contacts. (I am not going to test this theory on my phone).

If you choose to use GMAIL contacts delete all PHONE contacts and make all your changes in gmail.

When you make a new or save a new contact on your phone the first choice is the type of contact you are making (GMAIL or PHONE). I have an EVO and you might have a newer version of android, but in my PEOPLE app when I open a contact it says what kind of contact it is.

I know I didn't describe any steps here, but seems to me you are missing the theory of how contacts with gmail and android work together.

I hope this helps.

EDIT: Your GMAIL contacts must be in the "My Contacts" group to sync or a custom group below that. "Other contacts" will not sync. EVERY email you send/receive from a new contact ads that contact into "Other contacts" by default.