Unless you use a program that doesn't export contacts to a single file, like... bbdb for instance

Maybe not, but for GNU, is this such a special case? I've got this problem.

I haven't developed for the N900 yet.

Could you give me a hint, so that I can write this, just a simple commandline app, no hildon UI stuff etc.. Where can I look for the code? Thanks.

http://wiki.maemo.org/Documentation/...dress_Book_API

and
http://maemo.org/api_refs/5.0/5.0-fi...book/ch01.html
http://maemo.org/api_refs/5.0/5.0-final/libosso-abook/

If you've migrated from Symbian, then you probably have imported hundreds of vcf files. We could just drag and drop, then sync from the contact app. Not possible with Maemo. pretty stupid for something we call a computer. Why does a computer need a computer? I can keep stuff in my Files on Ovi account and retrieve them online, but I have to add to COntacts one by one.

Chris, if you have a vcard with multiple contacts in it will the N900 split the contacts out, or will it only load the first contact in the file?

If it splits them out, then you could always write a bat file to combine multiple vcards and then import that., this is what I did with my N97 and google

that's beyond my skill level. and I don't know how to combine my 300+ contact into one anyway. what phone does that? Please don't recommend a desktop app. I only use mobile platforms.

Technically you can't have a vcard with multiple contacts. What you can have is file with multiple vcards in it. The N900 Contacts app can import that w/o any problem.

I maintain my contacts in Evolution. I saved my entire addressbook as single vcard file. Scp'ed it the N900 and imported the vcard file in Contacts apps. All of my contacts got imported with no problem. I just had to merge IM server contacts with my imported contacts.

The N900 Mobile Computer can do that. If you can get your 300+ vcards copied to the N900, it's trivial to combine them into 1 file. If the file names are something like 'xxxxx.vcf', you would do something like this in the Xterminal.

cat *.vcf > combined.vcf

Yes. It is just that simple.

I downloaded all my gcontacts in vcard format then synced them all in a oner with my n900, hope this helps.

do I type it exactly as above?

OK a more intensive howto. First you need to have all of you contacts vcards copied into your N900. It's best if you can put them all into the same location (i.e. in a folder under Mydocs). And the command to use depends on the files names of the vcard files. Evolution used the extension '.vcf' when I export my contacts. If you copied all of you contacts vcards to a separate folder it makes things even easier.

I'll give step by step for 2 scenarios. First files named 'xxxx.vcf' dumped into MyDocs along with everything else.

1. Start up the X Terminal application
2. enter the command the following commands

That will concatenate all of you individual vcards into a large vcard file called 'combined.vcf'

3. Go into Contacts -> Menu -> Get Contacts -> Import contact file.
4. drill down into your named N900 folder and you should see the file 'combined.vcf'
5. Select 'combined.vcf' and let Contacts do it's thing.


Another scenario, you copied all of you contacts to a folder under MyDocs (i.e. the 25GB mass storage partition). Let's assume the folder name is called 'contacts'.

1. Start up the X Terminal application
2. enter in the following commands

Note: in this case it doesn't matter what the vcard file named as. The asterisk ('*') wll pick up all of the files in the contacts folder.

3. Go into Contacts -> Menu -> Get Contacts -> Import contact file.
4. drill down into your named N900 folder -> contacts folder and you should see the file 'combined.vcf'
5. Select 'combined.vcf' and let Contacts do it's thing.

Edit: And yes, syntax for those commands is very important. But you really can't hurt anything if you get it wrong.