Software

Transfer Palm Treo Data to Blackberry Curve

173 Comments


A friend called me up tonight because he had run into an insurmountable obstacle. He wanted to transfer the contacts from his Treo 680 to his new Blackberry Curve. Simple, right? It comes with software to do that. Well, even after spending hours and hours with AT&T and RIM support, he was left without a successful migration. Even the software tool that’s supposed to transfer the data directly from a Palm Treo to the Blackberry Curve failed to work–it didn’t allow him to select the Treo device as the data source even though it was plugged into the PC. If you’re in this situation as well, here’s how we got the job done.

Note: Since I don’t own these devices, this is written from memory (very recent memory; half an hour ago). Thus, the actual names of some things such as menu items may be slightly different but that won’t prevent you from carrying out the steps.

Before you begin (things you’ll need):

  1. Palm Desktop (the software that came with the Palm Treo)
  2. Blackberry Desktop (the software that came with the RIM Blackberry)
  3. Microsoft Outlook 2000 or newer (even if you don’t normally use it, you’ll need it to act as a translator and synchronization source for the address book data)
  4. Blackberry device and sync cable

Exporting/importing the data:

  1. Start Palm Desktop. (The latest version as of this writing is 4.2 although Palm’s own web site only has the older version 4.1.4 available. [Update: apparently 4.2 has compatibility problems so Palm reverted to an earlier version on their site.])
  2. Create a new entry and in every field, put the name of the field as the value for the field (e.g. in the Last Name field, enter Last Name; in the First Name field, enter First Name). This will make it easier to do the data mapping later.
  3. Go to the address book and select all the entries you want to export (choose Select All from the Edit menu to choose everything). Failure to select entries will result in only the first one being exported.
  4. Choose Export from the File menu.
  5. Choose the file type as CSV (comma-separated value).
  6. Enter the name for the file (e.g. Contacts.csv) and remember where you’re saving it.
  7. Start Microsoft Outlook.
  8. Open your Contacts.
  9. Select Import from the File menu.
  10. For the file type, select Windows CSV or DOS CSV (the name may be different in your version of Outlook).
  11. Select the file you exported in step 6.
  12. If Outlook doesn’t automatically map the fields in the CSV file, you’ll have to map them manually. The easiest way to do this is to go to the address of the person named Last Name (remember that you entered this in step 2?) so that you can easily see which field is which in the CSV file. Then assign them to the appropriate field name in Outlook (the method to do this may vary with different versions of Outlook).
  13. Click the Finish button to import all the addresses.
  14. Go to the Blackberry Desktop and open the synchronization utility.
  15. On the configuration tab, make sure that the Address Book is associated with Microsoft Outlook (there will be a double-headed arrow between the two).
  16. Plug the Blackberry into your PC with the synchronization cable.
  17. Watch all the messages go by as the data is synchronized.
  18. When the sync is done, disconnect the Blackberry and check that everything appears in the Blackberry’s address book. If it doesn’t, reboot the Blackberry (not sure why this is necessary but my friend’s Blackberry wouldn’t show the new data until he took the battery out and put it back in).

That should do it. If you don’t have Outlook, then Outlook Express may also work. I believe I saw it as an option in the Blackberry synchronization software’s configuration options.

173 thoughts on “Transfer Palm Treo Data to Blackberry Curve”

  1. Thanks, I’ll try that, if it helps you diagnose: only the first entry gets synched. Does that help?

  2. If the first entry successfully transfers (i.e., it is saved in the Blackberry), then perhaps you have some bad data in there. Sounds similar to Naveen’s situation in his comment on 12/6. Check that out and my reply as well.

  3. Transfered phone book and calendar form my Treo 650 to my new Blackberry 8820. After trying Out look without success (could tranfer only 1 by 1 even with 4.1.4 sofat version) found that the new Blackberry soft allows easy and direct transfer.

  5. Has anyone tranferred data from a Palm Tungsten PDA to a Blackberry without outlook? We use lotus notes as email/calendar/contacts.

  6. Hello all, I have a bit of a different situation.

    Going from blackberry 7100, to a Treo 700. All I need to do is transfer my Contacts or Address book to Treo (or Outlook 2007). I never even activated the email on the BB.

    Thanks,
    Dave

  7. Hi Dave. To get your contacts from BB to Treo, first sync your BB with Outlook. Once it’s in Outlook, you can export the data to a CSV file (e.g. Contacts.csv). The Palm Desktop software can then import that file into its Contacts database. If everything looks good there, then HotSync the Treo and you’re good to go.

  8. For those who want to also go from Blackberry to Treo but don’t have Outlook, you can use the BB Desktop Manager though it’s a bit tedious.

    1. Sync your BB
    2. Open the Desktop Manager
    3. Go to Intellisync
    4. Click on Configure PIM
    5. Select the Address book
    6. Click on Choose and select ASCII Import/Export as the type of address book
    7. Select Export in Operation
    8. In the filename field enter Contacts.csv
    9. Click the OK button, then Synchronize Now
    10. When it’s done, you can import the file into Palm Desktop’s Contacts and then sync the Treo.

  9. I am having some issues with step #12 – mapping. I map the new contact that I created in step 2, but it doesnt seem to work for the other contacts. That contact is matched up great but by others the email is in the mobile field and some other mix ups?

  10. Hi Steve,

    I recently noticed some mixups when syncing between Palm Desktop on Windows and Palm Desktop on Mac via my Palm Centro. So, there might be some issues with some versions of Palm Desktop. I’m not completely sure. Funny thing is that it all looks fine on my phone even though it’s mismatched on the Mac. Bizarre.

  11. This is totally the most awesome thing ever! This post just saved my life! thank you! thank you! thank you!

    Middle finger to Sprint!

  12. thank you SOOOO MUCH for the info! i live in brazil and i have been trying for a WEEK to transfer data w no sucess! the BB suport here was no help!

  13. i’ve been trying to transfer my palm treo calendar to my BB. i exported the data, but the only available extension is .DBA and i cant import it to my outlook. HELP!!

    from brazil

  14. Anonymous in Brazil,

    To transfer your calendar from Palm to BB, you can do one of the following:

    1. Sync your Palm Desktop calendar with Yahoo! calendar, export from Y! calendar to Outlook, then from Outlook to BB.

    or

    2. The least expensive shareware/commercial tool I’ve found to convert from Palm DBA format to CSV is datebookCSV. I haven’t tried it but it looks like it’ll do the job.

    If you decide to use datebookCSV, I’d be interested to hear about your experience with it.

  15. Thanks for the advices! It works #1 to transfer memos and cnontacts. form treo to curve. But what about my calendar? Is there a way to transfer all of my apointments from my treo to my curve without re-creating them one at a time? Thx for all

  16. Danger Boy, try the two items I mentioned in my comment right before yours.

  17. I’m having trouble importing the csv file that I saved with the palm contacts into the outlook contacts folder. In the last window of the import wizard, the “next” button is not activated. Any ideas? My palm desktop is version 4.0.1.

  18. Peter,
    Thanks so much for your very thorough explanation of the process. I tried loading the Palm and Blackberry software on three different computers trying to get the transfer to work. I was about to start the tedious process of cutting and pasting hundreds of my contacts and memos that I had developed over the years. Your method worked perfectly the first time. You saved a lot of frustration!!
    Thanks,
    Glenn

  19. Thank you sooooooooo much!!!!!!!! I asked Palm, Blackberry, and Verizon for help. And everyone suggested to go back to a Palm system. But I knew I wanted a change. This was my last resort and it worked. I was able to transfer my contacts, my calendar and my MEMOS (which everyone said would never happen). THANK YOU THANK YOU Thank YOU
    And by the way, I LOVE my CURVE

  20. Thank you! You explained a seemingly impossible task very clearly. My 8130 finally has all of my Palm contacts!

  21. Look carefully at your data in the address book… I have this issue that I am still working to fix… On the Palm desktop, the field names are not static…that is you can make the first phone number “WORK” or you can make it “HOME” etc. by changing the dropdown box… When you import into Outlook (or Blackberry) it does not know that the first phone field (for example) has changed.

    Therefore…your FAX number may show up as a HOME NUMBER, or an EMAIL.

    Has anyone else had (and solved) this issue?

  22. Syncing Yahoo Calendar to Blackberry Curve…

    So I am trying to transfer my calendar from Treo to Blackberry. I don’t have Outlook , so I need to use Google or Yahoo to edit my calendar on the computer.

    I am using Desktop Manger version 4.3.0.17

    I have done the following:
    1. Transfered my Treo to Blackberry using Switch Device Wizard.
    2. Transfered my Treo to Yahoo using Yahoo Autosync.
    3. But when I try and Sync Blackberry to Yahoo using Desktop Manager, it deletes my Blackberry calendar, and doesn’t transfer any info from Yahoo to Blackberry.

    Any advice??? Should I bite the bullet and buy outlook?

  23. The problem lies in the BB’s desktop manager software. Version 4.1 was out at the time of rollout, not 4.5. By rolling back the version the problem is resolved accordingly.

  24. Wow, so many “Anonymous” commenters. Makes it hard to tell who said what and if a problem was already resolved.

    Regarding the dynamic field names for phone numbers, there isn’t an easy way to deal with that since Outlook doesn’t support such flexibility. You’ll need to either fix it in Palm Desktop by making the order of the fields always the same (e.g. first one always Home, second always Word, etc.) or rearrange them in Outlook. I’m not sure of an easier way. On Linux, perhaps something could be done using sed but that sounds like quite an endeavor unless you’re really good with regular expressions.

    As for the BB Desktop 4.1 vs 4.5, did that solve the issue with 4.3 syncing with Yahoo calendar?

  25. I’m thinking of getting a BlackBery, and thought I’d look into data transfer issues first, since I would be a wreck without my data. I was glad to find this page, but I use a Mac, so don’t use Outlook… do you think I should get a BB?

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