Sync Google Contacts easily from Mac OS X 10.5.3

10.22.08 | 5 Comments | by: Dave Jeyes

The newly released T-Mobile G1 running Google’s Android mobile operating system is giving owners everywhere a headache when trying to sync contacts. There are a number of techniques out there, but no centralized sync tool to make life easy.

Here are your current options:

  • Sync using Funambol’s third-party plugin
  • Manually adjust your contact CSV file after our template of Google’s format
  • Sync directly with an Exchange server (has anyone tested this?)
  • Sync from Mac OS X 10.5.3 natively to Google Contacts

The Google Mac Blog originally mentioned this technique yesterday in conjunction with the phones arriving in the hands of the early-adopters. The technology was initially developed to help iPhone owners sync to their Google contacts, but it should work wonders for your G1 contacts.

This won’t resolve the issue of GMail adding every single contact that you’ve ever emailed into your contact list. However, you can just log into GMail and delete them all before syncing your G1 to avoid a huge mess in your contact list.

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5 Comments

  • On 10.30.08 Simple Outlook to Android G1 Sync Solution | all that's mobile and social said:

    [...] users have a simple sync tool. built into the latest OS X release, but don’t be fooled. It will mangle your contacts and it [...]

  • On 11.21.08 Jacob Sam-La Rose said:

    Just a note– I’ve managed to sync my contacts using this method, but annoyingly, anything that was listed in my address book app as a “company” loses its name in the address book on the G1 and is simply listed by telephone number. Curiously, my online Google contacts list all entries as they should be. I’m presuming that the address book on the G1 lacks a company name field? The syncing of contacts is one of two major things I have problems with on the G1 so far (the other being battery life…)

  • On 11.24.08 Rick said:

    I’ve Leopard 10.5.5 and the funtion Sync with google it’s desappeared, please someone can help me to fix this problem ? I’ve also already changed the value in 10001 in the iPod library text editor but no changes….

  • On 12.03.08 Aisha said:

    i have the same problem as rick – there is not ‘sync to google’ option

  • On 12.04.08 Yank in Ulster said:

    @Rick & @Aisha: The “Synchronize with Google” option hasn’t disappeared; it only appears if you use an iPhone. No explanation why Google didn’t enable this for all Mac users, like their new CalDAV sync for Apple iCal and Google Calendars.

    http://www.google.com/support/calendar/bin/answer.py?answer=99358#ical