Backing up contact is very important. We may lose our phone sometimes and all our contacts along with other files go with it. It is a time consuming task to get back your contacts again. So why not keep it safe?
There are various ways to keep a backup. Many keep contacts in their SIM cards but the space is limited. So if you are backing up contacts on SIM card, let it be your most important contacts. Anyway, that don't help if you lose the phone.
Your Android phone is normally linked to at least one account - at least a Google Account. So you can choose to sync contacts with it. I don't prefer to do this personally because my GMail has many other contacts that I don't need on my phone. It looks clumsy and messed up to see so many contacts that I won't even use. Likewise, you may have other accounts linked such as Whatapps, Facebook etc. And they too have contact sync options. So you can choose what to display in your contacts and what not to.
Choosing your contacts display in the contacts:
  • Open contacts on your phone
  • Press the MENU > Contacts Display Option



Select what to display as per your requirement
  • You will see various options and accounts to sync with.
  • You can choose all contacts or choose one. Phone is the simplest. Or if you don't have many then SIM is also fine.

Backup up contacts:
  • Your Android phone gives you various options to export/import to/from - SIM, SD Card etc. And if in case your contacts gets lost, you can restore from the backup file.
  • In case you lose your phone, your SD Card will also go along with it. So is your SIM card. So better try something else.
  • Why not backup to some other storage outside the phone? You can export to SD card and then keep this file on your computer or another storage. That way you can easily restore later.
  • Also, when using another phone temporarily, you can export contacts to SD Card, insert the SD Card in that phone, import and start using.
To backup contacts
  • Open CONTACTS on your phone > MENU > Import / Export

Choose where to export to
  • You can choose to export to SD Card

  • On successful export, a ".vcf" or similar file is created. You can then keep a backup of the file elsewhere outside the phone for safe keeping in case of phone loss.
  • This can then be used for restoring contacts later. Follow the same steps.