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Today I got a new Nokia 6300 – my old Sony Ericsson W810i had hard times charging. Of course I wanted to copy my phonebook onto my new phone, but it wasn’t as easy as I hoped for – but after a while I found an alternative and easy way.

First you need your phonebook as a VCF-file. This can be done be backing up your phonebook to the memory stick (this option is available on the W810i and possibly on several others). Now copy the file, e.g. by bluetooth or with a cable.

Now connect the Nokia 6300 through bluetooth and write down the port – it has the format 00:11:22:33:44:55.

Now install gammu:

sudo aptitude install gammu

Then create a config file:

nano ~/.gammurc

with this content:

[gammu]
port = 00:11:22:33:44:55 # change to fit your port
model = 6300 # change to fit your model
connection = bluephonet # if connecting with something else than bluetooth, you should change this
synchronizetime = yes
logfile = /home/username/.gammulog # change username to your actual username
logformat = textalldate
use_locking =
gammuloc =

And now check that everything is alright:

gammu --identify

And if it is, just copy the phonebook (remember to change the location of the VCF-file):

gammu restore Desktop/PB_Backup.vcf

While restoring, I got errors like this:

Location 12                    
    LUID                 : "00020000006D"
    Function not supported by phone.
Location 13                    
    LUID                 : "000200000090"
    Function not supported by phone.
Location 14                    
    LUID                 : "000200000007"
    Function not supported by phone.
Location 15                    
    LUID                 : "0002000000E9"
    Function not supported by phone.

But despite of that, it still worked.

I didn’t know gammu before, but it seems very nice! Thanks to the authors of it!