Discrepency in extracting Contacts compared to Fossify Contacts with multiple accounts backup

[connect-mahdi]

Hi @tmo1 and all contributors

First and foremost, your great project is a lifesaver !

For its SMS/MMS backup features:
It is even used as a backup in other FOSS projects like: QUIK, or Fossify Messages

For Contacts backups feature:
Easy backup, and most important, easy restoration feature

(Sorry I don't know how to scale the screenshots into this issue, feel free to edit)

Although I might have a discrepancy in the number of extracted contacts between a Fossify Contacts export and SMS I/E export

Does SMS I/E extract Contacts from all accounts ? Does it deduplicate contacts from multiple accounts during backup ?

My end goal is to extract all Contacts from all accounts from my device including my legacy Google account, and import them in a new phone without any Google account.

Below are redacted screenshots (in french):

• Fossify Contacts exports (I have contacts in several accounts) . If I add all the contacts from all the accounts it seems there are more contacts exported than SMS I/E.

• SMS I/E Contacts exports there are 2920 Contacts declared exported

My aim is towards full data control on such private data and to have all my contacts on Nextcloud and synced through DAVx5 onto the phone. Nextcloud imports only with the .vcf format.
So as a side note to #177 , I would be VERY interested to convert .JSON to VCF on Linux if you would still "consider the creation of a traditional (non-Android) OS tool to convert SMS I/E's JSON to VCF"

It might help me understand better and compare:

• what FossifyOrg/Contacts and SMS I/E do or do not export
• if the export is "thorough": is everything exported: all the data - pictures, all fieds, custom fields etc... ?

By the way you pointed out in #177 that:

Android has native VCF export, so adding VCF support to SMS I/E is of limited value.

I couldn't figure how to achieve this native VCF export

Any thoughts ? Thanks in advance for your help !

[tmo1]

First and foremost, your great project is a lifesaver !

Thank you very much!

It is even used as a backup in other FOSS projects like: QUIK, or Fossify Messages

Interesting - thanks!

Does SMS I/E extract Contacts from all accounts ?

To be honest, the Contacts code has always been experimental, and I haven't looked at it in a while. My recollection is that it tries to export all contacts, but I'd have to review the code.

Does it deduplicate contacts from multiple accounts during backup ?

No.

So as a side note to #177 , I would be VERY interested to convert .JSON to VCF on Linux if you would still "consider the creation of a traditional (non-Android) OS tool to convert SMS I/E's JSON to VCF"

Noted. Let's continue any further discussion of this idea in issue #177.

I couldn't figure how to achieve this native VCF export

On my phone (Android 15 / LineageOS 22.1), it's available in the stock Contacts app at "Hamburger (three horizontal lines) menu" / Settings / Export contacts / Export to .vcf file.

Although I might have a discrepancy in the number of extracted contacts between a Fossify Contacts export and SMS I/E export ...

Any thoughts ? Thanks in advance for your help !

For a possible explanation for the discrepancy, see here (paragraph beginning "Note").