How to backup & transfer your Android contacts between phones

That phone you love so much will eventually come to the end of its life. You may move fromSamsung Galaxy S2 to a Note 3, an S4 to S5, or there may be a jump from an HTC One to a Sony Xperia Z3. When you do decide to invest in a new handset, there's more than one way to take your list of contacts with you.

You rely on your contacts every day, so backup to avoid losing them. 

If you are moving to a new phone, you probably want to make sure that you have all of your contacts moved across to your new handset. But even if you are not planning an upgrade it makes sense to have backup of your contacts in case anything goes wrong, you accidentally delete some contacts, or lose your phone.

Export from Contacts

Android's own Contact app could be all you need to move your address book from one phone to another. Launch the app, tap the menu button and then select the Import/Export option.

The Contacts apps includes its own backup feature. 

You then have a few options to choose from – Export to USB storage, Export to SIM card, and (if you have an SD card inserted) Export to SD card. Click OK and your contacts will be exported to the destination you specified.

Backups can be stored locally or to SD card and easily restored. 

Once the export is complete, you can then transfer the VCF file to another phone by email it to yourself, or using your SD card. This done, you can then select the Import/Export option from the settings menu, and choose where you would like to Import contacts from. You'll also need to specify which Google account the contacts should be imported to, or if you would rather import to the device itself.

You could also opt to import your backed up contacts to your Gmail account using your computer. Just copy the VCF file to your computer and use Gmail's Import option to transfer the contacts across.

Sync your Google account

If you have imported contacts to your Gmail account, you can then very easily sync them to your phone. Launch the Contacts app, tap the menu button and then tap the Accounts entry.

Google Sync is a great way to keep contacts backed up automatically. 

If you have not yet added your Google account to a new phone, you have the option of adding it here.

Select the entry to which you have imported contacts on your computer and then make sure that the Sync Contacts box is ticked.

Super Backup : SMS & Contacts

You may like the idea of using a third party app to take care of backing up and restoring your contacts. One app that can be great help is Super Backup : SMS & Contacts which can be downloaded from Google Play. This free app can be used to backup not only your contacts, but also text messages, apps, and more.

Super Backup : SMS & Contacts is a free app that can backup contacts and much more. 

The first time you launch the app, you'll need to specify where you would like to store you backups – just tap the Settings button and then choose your preferred location.

You can create as many backups as you like and name them for easy identification. 

You can then hit the Contacts Backup button followed by Backup, and after entering a name, your backup will be created. When the backup is complete, you'll be offered the opportunity to upload the file to a cloud storage service so that it can be easily accessed online.

Move your backups to the cloud to make it easier to transfer data between devices. 

Restoring a backup – be it to a new phone or to the same handset – is a simple matter of tapping the Restore button and selecting the backup you would like to use.

What's your preferred method for backing up contacts? Do you like to use Android's built-in tools, or are you a fan of third party apps?