Dear Berry: How do I import contacts from my Curve to the Z10

Hello again readers! Dear Berry is here once again with a mailbag full of BlackBerry questions and woes. Today's question comes from Heather who asks:

I have gotten rid of my old Curve, and saved my contacts on Blackberry Desktop Manager before letting it go.  I now have a new Z10.  There seem to be a couple of ways of switching devices and transferring old contacts and everything else from one to the other, but only if you still have both devices!  I am getting frustrated with the whole thing.  Is there anything I can do with the saved contacts in my old desktop manager files?

In order to help Heather with her issue, I first instructed her to download BlackBerry Link. Once the program was installed on her computer, I said she should be able to pull the old Desktop Manager backup files by performing a selective restore to retrieve the address book entries. 

I am happy to inform you that this procedure worked for Heather and have shared the instructions on how to do so below. For those of you unfamiliar with performing a selective restore when transferring from a legacy device to BlackBerry 10, simply follow these steps. When going from one BlackBerry 10 device to another or just restoring the same one, these advanced features are not offered. You can learn more about backing up and restoring your BlackBerry 10 device with Link here.

However, please note these directions are for Windows running the latest version of Link only. Those who utilize the Mac version will find this feature is limited. 

Perform a selective restore - Windows 

• ​​Connect your device to your PC via the USB Cable 
• Launch BlackBerry Link from the desktop icon if it does not automatically run
• From the menu on the left hand side under your device name select Back Up and Restore 
• Under Settings, ensure the application points to the correct backup location
• Under Actions click on Restore Device
• In the popup box, select the backup (device and date) that you wish to restore information from
• Make sure "restore all data" is not checked off
• Under that heading, check off all of the available databases (not all legacy data is supported) that you wish to transfer from your old device to your BlackBerry 10 handset (i.e. Address Book, Calendar, or Browser Bookmarks)
• When finished, click on Restore and accept the warning that the current data will be replaced with that on the file selected

Using these directions you will be able to transfer select data from your legacy device over to your new BlackBerry 10 handset just as Heather did. 

Download the latest Windows and Mac versions of BlackBerry Link here

See you next time!

Have a question about BlackBerry etiquette? Need advice on how to cope with your BlackBerry addiction? Dear Berry has you covered and there's no question too big or problem too small. Submit any of your BlackBerry woes by email to [email protected] or on Twitter @DearBerryCB.