[sgolick]

I have a new 2011 535i X drive. I am trying to import contacts into the internal drive on the BMW (into "my contacts").

I have no problem syncing my blackberry via bluetooth, but due to the extremely large number of contacts, it does take a bit of time.

I am also able to save a contact into the internal drive, and then export or import them onto a USB key (in the glove compartment). This of course, is very tedious, as I have to save each contact individually - in other words, once my phone is synced, I can go into a contact, go to the edit screen and then save it onto the internal drive, which can then be exported to the USB key, and either used in another BMW, or reloaded into the internal drive. Alternately, I can create a contact in the car, and save it, which will save to the internal hard drive, and of course then export the contact or re-import it once it is saved on a USB key in the glove compartment.

What I can not seem to do is make a list of contacts (either exported from MS Outlook, or using excel or any other program) on a computer and save that to a USB key and load it into the internal drive.

(I am not looking for info on syncing my BB Bold (9700) with the car - because while that does work, it needs to resync every time you start the car. With a large number of contacts, that takes some time)

The iDrive seems to only allow import and export of contacts to the internal BMW hard drive through the "profile" (there are 3 profiles and a guest profile). The exported file is a .MPD extension. I have tried opening the file in a text editor, but can not figure out the format.

Does anyone have any suggestions as to how to import contacts in bulk or alternately how to edit the MPD profile file?


Many thanks

Steven