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. Hi, Urge. Yeah, it is amazing how many people are actively migrating data between these devices. Glad the info is still helpful.

  2. I have seen so many great stories here. One item seems to be missing. How do I transfer over all my pictures. I have many folders of pictures on my Treo 650. I have not made the decision to move to BB or Iphone. Can the pictures be transfered out of palm into thise phones? I would like that the phone carry the pictures and that the data follow my contacts, calander, notes, etc.
    I dont want to have several locations for the data. Im actually on my 4th 650, due to freazing or pool water, or over heating or dropping issues. I would have moved over to another phone long ago had I found this blog earlier.
    Todd

  3. Hi Todd. To transfer your photos, first sync your Treo with the Palm Desktop. The photos will then be on your hard disk as JPEG files. The exact location will depend on your operating system. On my Windows XP, the pictures are in My DocumentsMy PicturesPalm PhotosPalmUsInternalPalm

    To transfer the photos to the Blackberry, be sure your Blackberry Desktop Manager has the Media Manager installed. If necessary, install it. Then, load the files into the Media Manager and sync your Blackberry. That will sync the pictures into the phone’s main memory.

    If you want to sync your photos to the Blackberry’s microSD card, set the phone to Mass Storage Mode Support under Options, Media Card. The memory card will then appear as a drive on your computer and you can just drag and drop the files.

  4. I am also a L-O-N-G-term Palm user thinking of leaping into BB for phone (& thus addressbook) activities.

    Does BlackBerry have categories for addressbook listings?

    Can you prepare separate Palm exports as a category (eg: Work, Personal, Commercial, Hospital) and export them to csv (yes)…
    and then import these pkgs into a pre-named category in BlackBerry ?

    Thanks for your thoughtful contributions here.

  5. Hi Gary. I’m not sure what kind of category support the BB has. As for creating separate Palm exports, you can just export all your data and then edit the CSV with a text editor into as many files as fits your needs. CSV files are just plain text.

  6. HELP!! I am no techie, but I know my way around computers. I recently got a BB curve and have been using my treo for over a yr. I rely heavily on my calendar and contacts – HEAVILY. So, in reading your instructions I did the contacts and am now trying to import into BB. took a few times but i finally figured out how to configure it so it would import from outlook (i have 5.0 soits a bit diff) Its importing now – so hopefully this is a good fix. I tried the yahoo calendar and it would not import my .dba file?? this has def been a mission so thanks for spelling it out for us!

  8. OK,
    Im missing something, my outlook express doesnt have “memos” so how can I use it to transfer? and my blackberry desktop has no “memos”. Only my palm desktop has it, as well as my actaul blackberry and palm devices. Where can I put the exported file? Any help would be appreciated. I have tryed most posted methods

  10. I have a BlackBerry and a Palm Treo. Sorry don’t have the exact versions. I also don’t have a cable and options such as hotsync etc don’t work. I want to transfer my contacts from Treo to BB. one-by-one it works (transfer to SIM card), but is there a ‘Select All’ option?

  11. You could copy the entire database file (prd) to an SD card and then extra that data using the info in my comment #93 above. However, it might be easier to buy a Palm sync cable on eBay or Craigslist.

  12. I have a windows Vista computer and the palm version I have is 6.2.2. The older versions that are compatible with Blackberry do not work on my computer. I have tried on other computers with XP with the correct version of Palm (4.1.4) and the transfer still didn’t work. I do not have Microsoft Outlook on my computer with Vista because they didn’t include it. In addition I not only want to import my calendar I would like to import my Memo pad. My memo pad and my address book are the most important to me. Is there any way to import them? I have exported them into a CSV file, but don’t know how to import based on the options with blackberry.

  13. I’m sorry but in regards to the previous post I wanted to mention that I have a Treo 650 and am trying to transfer the data to a Blackberry Tour 9630 on sprint.

  14. Jennifer, I’ve only been able to get data transferred to the BlackBerry via Outlook. That’s what the BlackBerry Desktop communicates with. Do you know anyone nearby or at work who has Microsoft Outlook installed? Then you can do the transfer on their PC.

  15. OMG thank you so much, I cannot even begin to explain or show you my gratitude. Bless you heart for sharing this information! Your directions work like majic,I was on the verge of giving up and then you answered and solved my problems. Keep up the great work!

    Best Regards,
    T.G.

  17. I have been a palm user for about 10 years and have been on a Treo P700 with Verizon. I have recently switched to a BB tour and was promised that the calendar and memos etc would transfer easily -NOT!
    You seem to have had amazing success with so many peoples similar problem.
    I have the memos and the contacts but I cannot get the palm calendar events to go to the BB or to outlook. I also want to be able to organize the memos into groups but the lack of my very full upcoming calendar is hurting. Help!
    … and many thanks

  18. This was more helpful than the documentation that came with my BB tour.

    I transferred files from My Palm Treo 700 to my BB. I have Palm desk top 6.2.2. I do not have Outlook, so I transferred my contacts using the export vcard option. I saved them in my Windows contacts. This process is a bit more tedious, but it got the job done.

    I hope this can help someone else.

  19. @Mr Marcus: Thanks for sharing your method for accomplishing the transfer without using Outlook. I’m sure it’ll be very helpful since more people are needing to take that route.

  20. Thank you for the step-by-step instructions. I had to get the info from my palm Treo 600(!) into the shiny new BlackBerry and your instructions performed as advertised.

    Good work!

  21. Peter,

    I’m thinking of moving from my Treo 700p to Blackberry Curve. Have you checked the standard transfer software lately? If so, is it working smoothly now, or do you still need a complicated work-around?

    Paul

  22. Has anyone used these step-by-steps with palm desktop version 6.2.2? Trying to get info into the Tour. Any suggestions before I begin?

    Thanks

  23. Peter, you are a benevolent genius. Thank you. I just used your info to transfer contact, memo and other data from my Centro (which has been discontinued, BTW) to a Blackberry Bold 9000. I have over 1800 contacts so this was a major accomplishment after 5 days of trying to deal with the relevant “tech support” departments. The guy in the AT&T store made it sound like it was going to be a synch. Impossible to do with their instructions, got the gray screen, but then used Microsoft Outlook. Thank you again. I posted your blog on FB.

  25. I have a Palm Treo and am migrating to a Blackberry Storm. I also am a Mac user and exported all my addresses from Palm Desktop to a file on my desktop and then imported them all into Address Book. Then using Blackberry Desktop Manager I sync’ed them to my phone.

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