Keeping Gmail, Cell Phone Contacts and Apple’s Address Book in Sync

Tagged Articles, Contributors, Neat & Nifty by Brent on April 4th, 2007

I know dozens and dozens of people who have ditched Apple’s mail, and Entourage – and now use gmail or Google Hosted email on their domain. I personally find myself working on multiple computers or constantly in situations when web based email is just easier – and gmail for my domain just seems to make sense – however because of this my Apple Address book has suffered in the meantime and I have developed 3 address books that havent been talking to each other lately.

Gmail

My gmail addressbook is huge and contains ever single email address I have ever sent/received from. But there are no phone numbers, address’ or IM handles. There are 469 Entries, but as I flip thru I see several duplicates and incomplete entries. Just plain sloppy. The anal-retentive part of me is crying. This is just plain unusable.

Apple Address Book

Actually not that bad. But again there are some duplicates and lots of missing info as I don’t update this often. Dozens and Dozens of people that I talk to daily aren’t even in here.

Cell Phone Contacts

Another beast entirely. Easy to sync with my Apple Address Book, and I do that fairly often – but it tens to be the most dynamic and frequently changing address book I have, but it never sync’s with gMail.

. . . . .

Plan of Attack

1. Sync Phone with Apple Address Book
2. Sync Gmail with Address Book using ABGMerge

Actually in interest of full disclosure, my RAZR fell into a pool a while back, and I’m using an old phone that doesnt sync easily, so I did’t sync it thru software – but I ended up manually adding all my phone contacts by hand into address book, but I will assume that the average reader will have a more modern phone than I have today and won’t have this issue.

So after that little hiccup I charged away and downloaded ABGMerge which is just an actionscript (and yay – it’s FREE!). Then I went into my email account and exported a CSV of my contacts.

I fired up ABGMerge and went thru a couple quick prompts, and she chugged away for a few minutes… until I had an error message that ABGMerge had given up and had found a bug, and quit.

I was a little surprised, and worried – but when I opened up my address book I noticed that there were tons of new entries and it appeared that it was successful. I couldnt find the bug. There were about 8 new groups over on the left hand sidebar, which contained the new entries, and honestly I just deleted them all and went to “VIEW > ALL” and started scrolling thru to see what I had to deal with.

. . . . .

Now is when I realised that I was an idiot. I absolutely should have gone thru gmail and pre-deleted all the contacts that I didn’t want to deal with. Literally over 500 contacts who I had emailed once, or was spammed by are now in my Address book. Contacts that I recognize were also duplicated 3, 4 or 5 times depending on their email address or sometimes as “Doe, John” instead of “John Doe”. Obviously this isn’t the programmers fault or anything – but I had just created myself a ton of work.

I took the next 60-90 minutes and went thru and deleted/merged/cleaned up this mess and When I was all done I now had a master list in Apple’s Address Book. This was nice, and if I had a decent phone I could just iSync like a normal person and my Phone would be in good shape. However, Now how do I get this data all clean and tidy into Gmail? I couldn’t just re-upload the CSV from ABGMerge, because it would just clutter up gmail.. so I went and found Addressbook2CSV Exporter And I exported a CSV and uploaded that info Gmail. …. aaaaand….

Nothing special, Rather than cleaning up and modifying existing entries it just ignored duplicate entries.

So anyway, in closing I would have to say that there is no easy or simple way to keep all 3 of my contact management systems in sync. And the problem seriously just is that it is my choice to have moved all of my email to gmail. If I used Mail or Entourage then we all know that this wouldn’t be an issue. But gmail just isn’t made to talk to anybody else. These applications are cool and handy. but they require either careful prep work to clean up your data – or substantial cleanup work.

Kudos to the guys who built these – you did a great job, and I left them installed on my Powerbook, but it wasn’t as smooth as I hoped.



  • I have Soocial, and its pretty weak IMHO.
  • @Billy Iadd: I haven't tested Soocial either. But it is only a contact management utility. It doesn't do calendar items, which isn't surprising as they are much trickier to sync and almost invariably generate duplicates when synced birectionally.

    You don't need to run Exchange on your own server. There are hosted Exchange plans where you get full use of a BES, costing about $10/month (yeah, MobileMe offers more for less, but then that's your choice). I can hardly recommend one BES provider in particular, but just Google "hosted Exchange server" and you should get plenty of choices.
  • Billy ladd
    Thanks for your comments Gentlemen. I have sent a request to Soocial - I'll give it a go when I get the invite. As regards an Exchange Server is this something I have to get up and running in the office. We all use individual PCs and Macs and a shared drive so have no server or for that matter a BES! Does that mean I will have to persevere with my current config (or lack of) until someone comes up with a solution for individuals like me?
    I will have a look at Google apps in the meantime and see if it can help me.
    I'll update you with my findings
    Bon Chance!
  • @Billy Iadd: The basic principle hasn’t changed since this post was written. The only way to avoid the issues you mention (duplicates, missing contacts) is to store ALL your items in one database and sync the various clients (computers, phones, webmail apps) from there.

    Plaxo in my experience engenders duplication and deletions, and so does Spanning Sync. Using an Exchange server and accessing it from a Blackberry (using BES, not BIS) and Entourage is one solution for a Mac user. Another, of course, since the summer, is MobileMe which, despite the adverse publicity it has received, is actually technically a far better product than Exchange.

    Also, now that Gmail and Google Apps can run under IMAP (which they couldn’t when this post was written, it makes sense to use them (with my preference going to Google Apps over Gmail because it means you use your own domain and can take your email address with you if you choose to change). It will work beautifully alongside MobileMe and iCal, Address Book, with no need for duplication iin any of your data.
  • @Billy Iadd: The basic principle hasn't changed since this post was written. The only way to avoid the issues you mention (duplicates, missing contacts) is to store ALL your items in one database and sync the various clients (computers, phones, webmail apps) from there.

    Plaxo in my experience engenders duplication and deletions, and so does Spanning Sync. Using an Exchange server and accessing it from a Blackberry (using BES, not BIS) and Entourage is one solution for a Mac user. Another, of course, since the summer, is MobileMe which, despite the adverse publicity it has received, is actually technically a far better product than Exchange (see a post I wrote recently about it here).

    Also, now that Gmail and Google Apps can run under IMAP (which they couldn't when this post was written, it makes sense to use them (with my preference going to Google Apps over Gmail because it means you use your own domain and can take your email address with you if you choose to change). It will work beautifully alongside MobileMe and iCal, Address Book, with no need for duplication iin any of your data.
  • Rob
    You might like to know about a new service called Soocial... it syncs EVERYTHING.

    www.soocial.com Sign up to get an invite - I got my invite in less than a month. This thing works. Really.
  • Billy ladd
    This whole subject is a mine field! My situation is.......I have a MACbook with Entourage and the included iCal and Address Book which updates automatically between themselves. I also have a Plaxo account. I have an iPhone that syncs using iTunes. Then I have a Blackberry that Syncs through Blackberry's software. Finally i have a Nokia N95 that I take on certain trips and that Syncs through iSync after a piece of software from Nokia installed itself. I also have an address book on Gmail but i dont sync it. Any thoughts on how I should manage all of this because invariably I get double or multiple entries all over the place in Calender and missing contacts in others.
    I cant understand why there is not one default set of fields how ever large for any contact based app then life for the whole world would surely be a lot easier.
    Maybe I should start from scratch and get a little black book??
  • I wrote a post on this here
    it all works great...

    http://flatwords.wordpress.com/2008/07/04/i-got...

    especially now with the iphone I just bought an extra usb lead for £2.95 and keep it plugged in at work so i don't have to think about it, when i plug it in, its all sync-ed up.

    Then Soocial does my contacts - busysync does my calendar
    (pre iphone days - spanning sync did my phone calendar and contacts)

    I'm so happy!!

    C
  • This is an old post, but it has some more recent comments and is still ranked highly for "sync address book gmail", so I figure there's still interest...

    Syncman ( http://wateree.net/syncman ) does full, bidirectional synchronization between Address Book and Gmail.

    I can testify that it's a great product, but then again, I'm the developer... so you might want to just try for yourself. ;-)
  • Damian
    Instead of using Gmail through the web interface, set it up to work with Mail via IMAP. Now you're using your OS X Address Book for your contacts instead of Gmail's walled-off and weird Contacts "system". (Gmail's system blows anyway, as it randomly adds addresses you e-mail, even if you have no intention of keeping them). So bypass it by using Mail/Address Book.

    Now, if you use a bluetooth phone, and it's no big deal to keep Address Book and your phone synched. And since Mail uses Address Book, you're keeping only two things synched.

    Now ideally Gmail would set up their address book better, and we could have a go-between to do what Spanning Sync is currently doing to keep iCal and Google Calendar synched.
  • I have been using Plaxo for some time now and it works pretty well, syncing my Mac Address Book, Gmail COntacts and Outlook contacts at work. It isnt perfect but it is pretty close.
  • AUdrey
    I need help syncing my Balckberry with Entourage.... If idon't get my mailing labels done soon I am gonna be a wash-out for Chirstmas Cards....
  • @HeaviKevi

    If you are using a BES on your Blackberry AND (repeat, AND) you are connecting to the same Exchange server as the one linked to your BES AND both client applications are set to synchronize all emails with that server, then the "sent" folder in your Exchange server will necessarily contain the same emails, since it will be used as the outgoing server by both mail clients (Entourage and Blackberry). That's the whole point of having that setup which avoids having to worry about synchronization.

    If your Blackberry-sent emails are missing when you connect to the server via Entourage, or vice-versa, there might be several reasons: one possible cause is that Blackberry and Entourage might use different outgoing mail servers (unlikely, but check this one first); another is that your Entourage mail account settings may specify that any emails you SEND do NOT get synchronized with the server.

    If you need further help, message me using the online contact form on my website to gve me details of what you are doing (the link to do so is in the sidebar on the bottom of the Home page).
  • HeaviKevi
    Astorg, I am using your recommended steup...Entourage w/ corp exchange server syncd to blackberry via bes. BUT, mesages I send from entourage do not sync to blackberry. everything else syncs great. Any thoughts? I am the only mac user in my office - so I have llittle internal IT support.
  • Rob
    I used ABGMerge on August 5, version 0.6, a "new" release... and it did work 100% for me.
  • Pol
    I tried ABGMerge, but it didn't work... without messing my Mac AddressBook up !
    Still waiting for THE KILLER APP !
  • I use an app called Spanning Sync to sync my iCal data with my Google Calendar - it's not free but it is quite cheap, $ 25 USD or something for a year's worth.
    It's a great little program that just does the job perfectly. Currently, it does not do contacts/addresses, but I think they're working on that so it might be one to look out for in the future.
    Further to that, I just use iSync to sync iCal/address book with my phone.
    Spanning Sync keeps my mac up to date, and then my mac keeps my phone up to date! Win!
  • @===> Till :

    The whole point of my method is that there is no need to sync! Since the data is kept online, on the web, in a unique Microsoft Outlook Server database (I know, it sucks having to using Microsoft, but they really are the industry standard in this sector).

    AddressBook and entourage can access the server as clients. The most recent version of Entourage can read and write (except for Tasks) while I believe AddressBook can only read. The mobile phone will sync seamless and over the air if you use a BlackBerry, this offers the tightest and most bug-free data synchronisation of all I have tested (use the BES BlackBerry Enterprise Server solution). Most other systems require you to sync your phone over a cable connection, and are unreliable.

    So basically, the only viable solution is:

    Microsoft Outlook Server for storing data + BlackBerry mobile phone with integration via BES + your choice of Outllok via Parallels, Entourage or AddressBook (but the latter at your peril and only one way) for managing data on your Mac.
  • Till
    That's a good poinjt: How do you backup your contact data from the different mentioned apps? i.e. AddressBook and Entourage.
  • @ ===> Carolyn

    Nope. I tried Plaxo, it was one of the costliest online mistakes I ever made. It so badly wrecked my contcat data, which I hadn't backed up, that I had to manually clean up the damage which took several hours.

    As with all these synchronization tools, it claims to keep everything in sync but actually cannot deliver, and results in a huge number of duplicates being created. plaxo is actually worse than average because it corrupts data. Their forums are full of mesages from people experiencing such problems which never get answered by staff?
  • Plaxo at least will sync with Apple Address Book and have it available for you online. I haven't used it, but saw it in someone's signature on a listserv.

    http://www.plaxo.com/downloads/mac
  • This will never work. I have tested every possible software solution, whether free or paid, that claims to sync GMail contacts with Apple Address Book and/or a cell phone.

    The only reliable solution for Mac users is to store all contact info on a hosted Microsoft Outlook Server (typically, at a coset of about $10/month). This can then be synced over the air with a BlackBerry. Email can be accessed either using Entourage (which acts as a Outlook client) or Outlook itself via Parallels. Of course Gmail and/or Mail can still be used to access the Outlook server email.

    The advantage of this solution is that all data resides securely in one place (the Microsoft Outlook Server) and is never duplicated or out of sync.
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