Gmail Contacts?

[estaked]

for mac addy book to gmail get this.

http://bborofka.com/atog/

[refused9150]

I hear that works pretty well.

[Jorsher]

So the problem is the CSV files aren't the address format that google is looking for?

If anyone knows what the problem is, I wouldn't mind trying to write a quick and dirty c++ app to convert it to google-friendly cvs format.

[Jorsher]

How to sync contacts and calendar from Outlook to Google:

1. Go to http://www.daveswebsite.com/software/gsync/index.shtml and download gsyncit
2. Install gsyncit
3. If your contacts are not already in Outlook, use Activesync to sync them
4. Open Outlook and you'll see two new icons on the toolbar, click the new "Settings" icon
5. On Calendar feeds, you should have something listed, click edit. If nothing is listed, click new. Choose to use Google authentication and type in username and password. Outlook Calender folder should already be filled in. If not, click select and choose "Calendar" on the dialog. Go to "Sync Options" tab and choose your settings. I just used "Outlook to Google" because my Google calendar was blank and I didn't want any of it to be copied. Click OK to close the Calendar settings.
6. Click "Contact Feeds" on the left side. Repeat step 5 for the contact feeds settings, except choose "Contacts" for Outlook Contacts folder.
7. When you're done, close the settings and click sync!

I was having the same problem with the CVS files, and was happy to find this. It will only copy 20 contacts and 1 calendar with the trial edition, but if you're crafty you can get them all over.

It works GREAT and I hope it is useful for all you Windows Mobile users that are migrating to Android!

NOTE: I am not responsible for whatever problems that software may cause. I had no issues, but I only used it for 5 minutes. Follow the above steps at your own risk

[MrGibbage]

Hey guys, it's actually not that hard at all. First, I recommend that you export your current gmail contacts as a gmail csv file and open the file in excel. When I do this on my computer, most of the columns are kinds squished too narrow, so you can't really see what the titles are, so make sure you widen each column to the point that you can read them. Now, what you are looking at is one csv format that gmail definitely understands, right? This csv format works. You can see the names, address, email address, phone numbers, etc.

Now what we need to do is make our new Thunderbird/Outlook exported csv address book look just like this one. So, go into your address book and export it as a csv file and open it in excel. For thunderbird, you see first name, last name, and display name, where gmail only has "name". I just coppied the display names over. You could also just rewrite the column labels at the top. It doesn't matter. Do the same for all the other fields. When you are done, save it again as a csv file (Bill Gates will complain because you aren't saving it as an excel format and you will lose formating yada yada yada, but you know you want a csv file so just do it). Once you've saved the file, you should be able to import it into gmail. Good luck!

One other thing--I found out the hard way yesterday when I was doing this that you can only delete 500 contacts at a time in gmail. The first time I tried this I made a mistake and needed to delete everything in gmail to do it again. Well, I have something like 800 contacts, so I could either manually select the 500 I want to delete, or choose select all and then deselect ONE AT A TIME the 300 that I didn't want to delete. My advice to you is to start small and make sure that your file format is sound. If it works on a small scale, then go for the whole shebang.

I hope that helps.

[Jorsher]

Originally Posted by MrGibbage

Hey guys, it's actually not that hard at all. First, I recommend that you export your current gmail contacts as a gmail csv file and open the file in excel. When I do this on my computer, most of the columns are kinds squished too narrow, so you can't really see what the titles are, so make sure you widen each column to the point that you can read them. Now, what you are looking at is one csv format that gmail definitely understands, right? This csv format works. You can see the names, address, email address, phone numbers, etc.

Now what we need to do is make our new Thunderbird/Outlook exported csv address book look just like this one. So, go into your address book and export it as a csv file and open it in excel. For thunderbird, you see first name, last name, and display name, where gmail only has "name". I just coppied the display names over. You could also just rewrite the column labels at the top. It doesn't matter. Do the same for all the other fields. When you are done, save it again as a csv file (Bill Gates will complain because you aren't saving it as an excel format and you will lose formating yada yada yada, but you know you want a csv file so just do it). Once you've saved the file, you should be able to import it into gmail. Good luck!

One other thing--I found out the hard way yesterday when I was doing this that you can only delete 500 contacts at a time in gmail. The first time I tried this I made a mistake and needed to delete everything in gmail to do it again. Well, I have something like 800 contacts, so I could either manually select the 500 I want to delete, or choose select all and then deselect ONE AT A TIME the 300 that I didn't want to delete. My advice to you is to start small and make sure that your file format is sound. If it works on a small scale, then go for the whole shebang.

I hope that helps.

Well that definitely would work! Sometimes I spend more trouble looking for the easiest way instead of just getting it done, and overall this would have been quicker.

Good info for anyone else who is having trouble.

[MrGibbage]

Heh, I do the same thing.

Also, I posted this in another thread here, but it actually pertains here as well. If you plan to use t-bird or Outlook and want to keep your contacts synced up, then you might want to look at this program:
http://gcaldaemon.sourceforge.net/index.html

It's free, open source, and just works. It connects your address book to gmail's LDAP server with your address book there. Very cool indeed.

[McParty]

Finally got it to work

[MrGibbage]

Well? How did you do it?

[divestoclimb]

Export/import is not an ideal long-term solution since you will want to be able to synchronize, i.e. if you change a single entry on your PC and then change another entry on your phone (like adding a new number) one of those changes would have to be destroyed if your only way to synchronize is via exports and imports. I'm surprised Google doesn't have a sync app that does this since they have one for Outlook<->gCalendar.