Editing phone contacts on laptop rather than on phone (Samsung S3 mini)

[Laquila]

I've just got a Samsung S3 mini, which I really like, but when Orange upgraded me to the new phone, my contacts all went a bit crazy. It looks as though all my Gmail contacts are all in there too now. In fact, I think there are addresses in there that aren't even in my Gmail contacts - just people who've emailed me once or twice. I've had the same number for 13 years now and there are loads of duplicate numbers too, or one person's home/mobile/email addresses stored under separate contacts etc.

Does anyone know if it's possible to somehow edit them on my laptop? I logged into my Orange account online but although you can "clone your phone", it looks as though this just backs up your contacts.

There was no CD/software with the phone, but if I plug it into my computer, would I be able to edit the contacts somehow, and if so, with what program? I guess I could just give it a try!

Any advice much appreciated :)

[Naoko]

I have a full size S3, not a mini, but I assume it's fairly similar - if you go into the contacts tab and hit the menu button, on mine there is an option labelled 'contacts to display', and you can choose to display only the contacts from your phone, which eliminates all those Gmail contacts and thus gives you only the people you might want to call rather than email. Would that help at all?

Also, if you go into an individual contact, you can merge it with another one via the menu's join contact option.

[niceguy2]

Under phone contacts you can choose what to display. I set mine to Google only.

Then on your PC, you can go to www.google.com/contacts, sign in using the same google account and you can edit them to your hearts content.

Once done, on your phone under accounts, force a quick sync and bingo it should be done.

[HowardTJMoon]

You can download Samsung Kies software from here which you can install on a PC. You then connect your phone to the PC and Kies can read the contacts and allow you to edit them. Kies can do an awful lot more than that as well such as Android upgrades, backups, importing/exporting music etc.

I'll be honest though and say that I've found Kies to be a bit of a pain in the arse at times. Installation can be unreliable and it frequently asks to be updated. Avoid it unless you absolutely have to use it.