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Sync Iphone contacts with Google :(

I have been using an iphone sense they came out and I now have an iphone 4. Apple still has not come up with a simple way to sync contacts without duplicating items or messing them up. I am a hvac contractor with over 1200 contacts that I must not lose or mess up. I can sync with outlook to backup contacts to my pc but I really want to sync with gmail for on the go use. Main problem is, gmail duplicated about 400 items and lost some (using itunes contacts sync to google). I want the phone to be the master in the sync, not google. It seems google wants to send down its contacts and overwrite my phone. I only add contacts using the phone not google or outlook. Even if you look at itunes info tab, it has a check box to send all contacts from this computer to the phone but no check box to make Iphone the master and overwrite the computer. I just switched to a new win 7 computer and I had to sync back to the old computer to fix the contacts and then back to the new one before it finnally worked, at least with outlook. I have herd about exchange sync with google but im scared to try it! Please help simplify this proces
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Lee Johnson

Comments: 9 Responses to “Sync Iphone contacts with Google :(”

    13 years ago

    It sounds like the problem may be on the Google end, not the iPhone one. But it is hard to tell. There are so many ways to sync contacts (iTunes, MobileMe, Google, Exchange) and options for each. That's why I've never done a tutorial on it. Too many variables.
    It is a shame that you can't sync contacts directly from Gmail like you can with MobileMe. Then you can take iTunes out of the equation and things will work better. Maybe syncing through the Exchange protocol will fix that? Could be worth a try. Haven't tried it myself.

      13 years ago

      Follow Up: I decided to test this out. I created an Exchange account on my iPhone and pointed it to my Gmail account. Brilliant. It syncs fine and I have the option to include contacts. The contacts show up in my Contacts app on my iPhone and sync quickly with Google. I think this is what you want.

    Lee Johnson
    13 years ago

    I setup the exchange gmail account and I checked to sync mail and contacts. It prompted me to keep or delete local contacts. I kept local contacts. Email works fine. My contacts are on my phone just like before but none of the contacts were pushed up to gmail. I now have a empty group on my phone called (gmail global address list) which is empty! I guess google does not want you to push contacts up to them.

      13 years ago

      So the contacts were not on your gmail account to begin with? Use your computer to put them there. I'm pretty sure there are "import contacts" options. You can export from your Address Book (Mac) and then upload to Gmail. Then you have them "in the cloud" on Google's servers and you will see them on your iPhone as well.

    Lee Johnson
    13 years ago

    Then I will have two groups on my phone with the same info.

      13 years ago

      You wouldn't keep the iTunes-synced group. You would just keep the Google one. No need to sync your contacts from iTunes anymore. They will do so directly from your iPhone to Google over the network.

    Lee Johnson
    13 years ago

    I will try that but I am still wondering if I add a contact or edit a contact on my phone, will it be pushed up to google?
    Thank you for your help. I really enjoy your videos/howto's

      13 years ago

      It should, yes. As an "Exchange service" they should be in sync.

    Lee Johnson
    13 years ago

    Well, it worked great! Only problem I found was that any contact that had a phone number in the "iphone" field in my phone, which were only a few, did not get imported to gmail. The contacts did, just not that phone number.
    The sync part works fine. It only takes about 2 min after editing or adding a contact for it to show up in google.

    thanks again.

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