[Q] How does google contact synching work? - Windows Phone 7 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

I currently use Gmail as my main email account but obviously needed a windows live account which I set up using my gmail address.
I havent really bothered sorting my contacts out before but not I have a decent phone I'm doing it so I deleted them all from Gmail and added them all to Windows live and synced to my phone no problem.
I realise I can export my windows live contacts to a CSV file and upload to Gmail which is fine.
What I really want is for all my stuff to be in Gmail on an ongoing basis.
If I therefore set google contacts to sync to my phone will they only update one way i.e. if I add someone on my phone that will sync to windows live and not gmail? If so that will be very irritating as I will need to remember to go into gmail and add all the info and duplication is what I want to avoid.
I guess this is also the same with google calendars?

Pravind said:
I currently use Gmail as my main email account but obviously needed a windows live account which I set up using my gmail address.
I havent really bothered sorting my contacts out before but not I have a decent phone I'm doing it so I deleted them all from Gmail and added them all to Windows live and synced to my phone no problem.
I realise I can export my windows live contacts to a CSV file and upload to Gmail which is fine.
What I really want is for all my stuff to be in Gmail on an ongoing basis.
If I therefore set google contacts to sync to my phone will they only update one way i.e. if I add someone on my phone that will sync to windows live and not gmail? If so that will be very irritating as I will need to remember to go into gmail and add all the info and duplication is what I want to avoid.
I guess this is also the same with google calendars?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, if it didn't sync both ways, it wouldn't be 'syncing' at all then now would it? XD
Syncing stuff with a Google account works the same way as it does with a Windows Live account. Any changes you make to the account will be sync'd both ways. I use Windows Live for my contacts, and Google Calendar for my calendar and it works fine.
Just, in regards to Google Contacts, you gotta watch out for those custom fields in a contact, as they don't seem to sync properly with the phone.

Ok thanks, well if I make them both match from the start (windows live and google contacts) and set the contacts to sync with google then in theory everything should match up and be the same in all 3 places regardless of if I add a new person on windows live, google contacts or the phone.
That what you mean yeah?
What are these custom fields you speak off? I've not spotted anything in there.
Sorry I'm not very clued up on all this technology business, I presume you mean fields in google contacts that arent within windows phone 7 or windows live meaning info will be missed when synced.
Are all the fields in windows live replicated in google contacts? (I know this is a lazy question)

Pravind said:
Ok thanks, well if I make them both match from the start (windows live and google contacts) and set the contacts to sync with google then in theory everything should match up and be the same in all 3 places regardless of if I add a new person on windows live, google contacts or the phone.
That what you mean yeah?
What are these custom fields you speak off? I've not spotted anything in there.
Sorry I'm not very clued up on all this technology business, I presume you mean fields in google contacts that arent within windows phone 7 or windows live meaning info will be missed when synced.
Are all the fields in windows live replicated in google contacts? (I know this is a lazy question)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The custom fields are fields you can define in Google contacts. For example, you can add a ton of numbers for your contacts and rename the label to whatever you want, Windows Phone only recognizes the first couple of numbers with common labels (work, home, mobile), and after that won't sync the rest. Stuff like that.
Also, while you can link an existing contact to more than one contact syncing service (for example, to both Gmail and Windows Live) on your phone, when you create a new contact on the phone, it only makes that contact in one of your services (so either Gmail or Windows Live, your choice). Because it only syncs to one service, you'll eventually have to remake the same contact on the other account in order to keep all 3 in sync if that's your plan.
Windows Live and Google Contacts share the same basic fields, its just that Google allows you to make custom fields as well and Windows Live does not.

Thank you.
From what I've seen it will always sync back to windows live if you create one on your phone as there is no way to change what you sync to windows live which means I'm always going to have to manually add things back to google which is a real pain.
It looks like the only way round this is to make them match from the start and then periodically export them and upload to google which I guess doesnt take too long but still annoying.
They should really fix that and look at upgrading windows live as its so slow and clunky to use, takes ages to browse around it when adding contacts and editing them etc

Related

WinMo to Android - Moving Outlook Contact

For those of you who have been looking for a way to transfer your contacts from your Windows Mobile phone to the Captivate, I found that Sprite has a way to do this.
I didn't want to post all my contacts on Google because they don't belong there since, in my case, they belong in Outlook. Outlook being the standard business client for the majority out there. I was looking for a way to get my contacts from the old phone (HTC Tilt2) to the new phone (Captivate) without posting it to Google.
I ran across this:
http://www.spritesoftware.com/Products/Migrate/Migrate-Your-Data-Now/How-To-Transfer
Make sure you have sync'ing turned off prior to loading the contacts to the phone for your primary account so you're semi-assured to not sync them to Google.
It worked well for me. I wish that Google would have had the thought to meet the needs of businesses as well as the personal side of using Android. I use my phone for both business and pleasure and am a little tweaked at the Android OS for not making an Outlook client that sync's with the standard contacts list. Yes, without having to load seperate software to store them in like I've seen being released.
Let me know what you guys and gals think about using Sprite....
I keep reading that phone contacts sync to Google. From what I can see, Google only syncs your contacts from Google to your phone and not your phone cantacts to Google. If there is a way to sync your phone contact to your Google account, I would like to know how to do it?
In other words when I got my Captivate AT&T transfered my contact from my old phone to the new phone. I then added my Google account to my phone and the Google contacts were added to my phone but the phone contacts did not go to my Google account. Phone has Google and phone contacts and Google has Google contact only.
LBCaptivate said:
I keep reading that phone contacts sync to Google. From what I can see, Google only syncs your contacts from Google to your phone and not your phone cantacts to Google. If there is a way to sync your phone contact to your Google account, I would like to know how to do it?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There is a Outlook plugin/app you need to install in order to sync contacts from Outlook to Google. Search and you will find it. I don't know the name of the plugin or app becaue I don't use it.
Microsoft also have Outlook Connector that you can install to sync contacts from Outlook to Windows Live accounts. Then you can setup your Android phone (or Windows Phone 7) to sync with your Windows Live account using Exchange ActiveSync. Or you can setup GMail to import contacts directly from your Live account.
I use Kies to keep them sync'd

[Q] WP7 Contacts

I finally got a Windows Phone 7.
However my first gripe was the fact that when you use your live ID, it automatically decides to import all your contacts from MSN etc which is kind of stupid. So I ended up fixing that by creating a new account just for my phone.
Microsoft really need to add an option there, Do not sync live contacts!
As I handle all this through my Exchange service. Only use my live account for MSN.
Anyway so I decided to link my facebook account to my phone. That went great right up until I saw it importing all my facebook contacts! So I finally found the setting to only sync with contacts in phone, so now it's linked my phone contacts to my facebook by only whats on my phone.
However this is where I have an issue. I go to type a text message or email and look for a contact and it's showing ALL my contacts from facebook, yet they don't show in the People Hub. I specifically have the setting "Only add facebook information to existing contacts" checked.
My next issue is the fact Birthdays from Exchange to the Phone are not syncing up correctly.
Some will sync up correctly and others will be out.
The information is there on the Exchange and correct, and same in my Outlook. But WP7 sometimes decides that a contacts birthday will be out by a day. So far one day ahead.
E.G
Contact 1 Birthday 16th July on exchange, shows up as 17th July
They are also not appearing in the calendar
I have checked and regional settings on phone and exchange are correct. It can't be the exchange as it was syncing fine with WM 6.1.
Help!!!!
actually the birthday issue has been there since wm6.5 for me and still a mystery to me hehe.
danbriant said:
I finally got a Windows Phone 7.
However my first gripe was the fact that when you use your live ID, it automatically decides to import all your contacts from MSN etc which is kind of stupid. So I ended up fixing that by creating a new account just for my phone.
Microsoft really need to add an option there, Do not sync live contacts!
As I handle all this through my Exchange service. Only use my live account for MSN.
Anyway so I decided to link my facebook account to my phone. That went great right up until I saw it importing all my facebook contacts! So I finally found the setting to only sync with contacts in phone, so now it's linked my phone contacts to my facebook by only whats on my phone.
However this is where I have an issue. I go to type a text message or email and look for a contact and it's showing ALL my contacts from facebook, yet they don't show in the People Hub. I specifically have the setting "Only add facebook information to existing contacts" checked.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It automatically decides to import it because that was the way the phone was designed. To stay in sync with your Windows Live Hotmail, Contacts, Calendar, Xbox, Zune, etc. Certain things can be disabled for the most part, but the phone was designed to take these things from the cloud and put em on your phone. The phone was built for those who primarily use Windows Live and it's services. Just like how Android phones are built for those who use Google services.
As for your Facebook contacts, they will continue to display in your messaging/mail auto-complete regardless of the setting you choose in the People hub. That setting simply hides them from view in the People hub, it does not remove them from your phone. You can still do a People search and find Facebook contacts (and other services if you have them sync'd), and when you compose a new sms/email, you can still use auto-complete to find a Facebook contact. Just because you don't have them as a specific contact in your address book does not mean you will not contact them ever, and so the phone surfaces that information in the case you ever need to. You simply have to ignore the other contacts, and continue on your normal contacts.
prjkthack said:
It automatically decides to import it because that was the way the phone was designed. To stay in sync with your Windows Live Hotmail, Contacts, Calendar, Xbox, Zune, etc. Certain things can be disabled for the most part, but the phone was designed to take these things from the cloud and put em on your phone. The phone was built for those who primarily use Windows Live and it's services. Just like how Android phones are built for those who use Google services.
As for your Facebook contacts, they will continue to display in your messaging/mail auto-complete regardless of the setting you choose in the People hub. That setting simply hides them from view in the People hub, it does not remove them from your phone. You can still do a People search and find Facebook contacts (and other services if you have them sync'd), and when you compose a new sms/email, you can still use auto-complete to find a Facebook contact. Just because you don't have them as a specific contact in your address book does not mean you will not contact them ever, and so the phone surfaces that information in the case you ever need to. You simply have to ignore the other contacts, and continue on your normal contacts.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That is really stupid. I choose to not show them for a reason as I don't want hundreds of contacts in my contacts list for messages and emails.
Does Mango solve this issue?
Also I'm guessing there's no way to choose what info gets imported for each contact, as some contacts on facebook input invalid phone numbers etc and well they are now clogging up my phone with useless info.
Kind of stupid to not have options to control what can and cant be linked and displayed!
prjkthack said:
It automatically decides to import it because that was the way the phone was designed. To stay in sync with your Windows Live Hotmail, Contacts, Calendar, Xbox, Zune, etc. Certain things can be disabled for the most part, but the phone was designed to take these things from the cloud and put em on your phone. The phone was built for those who primarily use Windows Live and it's services. Just like how Android phones are built for those who use Google services.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Android does at least give you the option to disable syncing contacts with google though.
danbriant said:
That is really stupid. I choose to not show them for a reason as I don't want hundreds of contacts in my contacts list for messages and emails.
Does Mango solve this issue?
Also I'm guessing there's no way to choose what info gets imported for each contact, as some contacts on facebook input invalid phone numbers etc and well they are now clogging up my phone with useless info.
Kind of stupid to not have options to control what can and cant be linked and displayed!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Guess that all depends on how you look at it. I filter my People list to ones only in my Hotmail contacts, sync Facebook info with those only in my People list, and enjoy it when the messaging app allows me the flexibility to still contact those who have contact information but are not displayed in my People list. Again Windows Phone 7 is a socially connected phone designed to help keep you in contact with your Windows Live and Facebook contacts in addition to your regular phone book contacts (and just wait till Twitter and LinkedIn are finally available). So if you don't like that, then the phone is probably not for you.
Mango does not solve the "issue" since its by design, and therefore not an issue at all. I don't expect to it change anytime soon either since Facebook Chat is also integrated and the phone won't simply just exclude the people in Facebook Chat who don't exist on your phone, as that destroys the convenience of chat.
Just gonna be something you need to deal with I suppose, until the feature to further filter your contacts can be added.

[Q] How to STOP wp7 mango synching contacts and calendar

I can see advantages and also disadvantages of synching my phone to the windows live cloud, but would definitely like my Live environment cleaned up and tidy instead of synched with all the mess i like to make in my phone contacts and phone calendar
Anyway, if in the calendar i decide to hide my Live id from the calendar, it doesn't allow me to make new 'phone-only' appointments. Every note i write immediately synchs with Live and even turns the Live id on for calendar when i write a new one. From a synchronization point of view that is wonderful, everything always in sync. I notice a lot of people who benefit of being online everyday and everywhere. But,
I would like to keep my phone calendar as phone-only. Is there a way to do so, and how?
please point me in the right directon if this is not the most appropriate place for this question
1) I really doubt on the Offline Calendar.
2) For the first live id you use on WP, becomes primary for everything including calendar. And the calendar does not have uncheck option to stop it from syncing.
3) Hiding only hides it from calendar doesn't let it stop syncing. If you want to stop syncing you need to go to Settings > Email and then choose individually for every account
Yes that was my conclusion as well. Strange how suddenly everything is online. I loved Nokia for its mobile phone solutions but since wp7 is their new OS I think Microsoft has taken over. I just hate default settings that you cannot change, and miss the manual sync with pc suite and so on. And even though the data is stored in the cloud, one can't send much over Bluetooth. Modern age, but features existing since the stone age are missing.
The Only solution which I see is Resetting the phone and do not use any Live Id with it. Instead use all other Gmail Account. Then you might get an option, I am guessing here though. I will confirm this when I next reset my phone once I back it up
Thanks in advance, let me know how that works. If you'd use your Gmail account, I guess that would lock you out on marketplace, correct?
Settings --> accounts --> Select account --> uncheck what you dont want synced

[Q] Contact synchronizing

Hi! I'm currently an android user and am looking to possibly move to the Windows phone side. I am currently waiting on my Lumia 800 to be delivered, but have a few questions about contact syncing
I currently have my contacts on gmail and android syncs to it as expected. What I miss is the ability to have a local copy in my desktop outlook (non-exchange), so I usually download from gmail once a month and overwrite my outlook contacts (since gmail is almost always up-to-date because of my phone)
Reading about this on microsoft's site, it looks like I can sync up my outlook to my live account (using hotmail connector which I already use).
Question 1 - is this a one time sync (between live acct and desktop outlook)? Or does it sync back and forth if there are changes in either location? (I assume/expect that the WP7 will make sure that the phone and live acct will always be in sync regardless of where I make changes).
In other words, will my phone, live acct and outlook contacts be in perfect sync?
Question 2 - If I have my gmail account set up in WP7 people hub, will it show me duplicate contacts (that I will have to manually link)? Or will it be able to synchronize my contacts between gmail and live as well?
Thanks!
if i remember well from 9 months ago when i did this
answer 1: it is one time sync
answer 2: it will link them together but not sync them
Thanks! Do you know of a free & reliable way to make it sync regularly between Live and desktop outlook (non-exchange)?
i do not but your live account contacts will show in outlook anyway so you can directly use them
I have a question sortof related to this...
My girlfriend got a Radar 4G for Xmas and will be switching over from Android in the next couple of days, is there any tutorials or instructions on how to do that available?
Is there a way to manually sync her contacts between gmail and the phone? If not, is there a way to back them up somehow?
I'm not really up on exchange or any of MS's services and could use some pointers...

How to "best" use Calendar(s) and Contacts

I have some questions regarding how to "best" use the calendar(s) and Contacts.
I want everything in one Calendar, so I've currently settled to showing only my Exchange (Outlook) calendar on my phone. I set up Google's Sync program on my work PC to update my Outlook calendar and Google Calendar, so I can read/edit it on my PC at home. After a number of missed meetings (and angry boss) I set this to a one-way push from Outlook to Google. No more missing entries. This means I cannot edit my calendar on my PC at home. How do I best view/use/edit a single calendar on my phone, Exchange, and my home PC?
Contacts are confusing to me. I don't fully understand how to think of them. I have ~500 contacts from Outlook, most of which were pushed to GMail. When I first started to use the phone and log in to Facebook, etc. I was prompted to "link" contact IDs. After linking a few hundred I though I was OK, but none of the newer contact pictures on my phone have been synced with Outlook. How do I sync this information? I PRESUME that linking really keeps multiple entries for a person with some fields from each source? What really happening when I "link" and how can I "merge" them instead? I'm most interested in "pushing" new/updated pictures to my outlook contacts.
Thanks in advance,
RWFarley said:
I have some questions regarding how to "best" use the calendar(s) and Contacts.
I want everything in one Calendar, so I've currently settled to showing only my Exchange (Outlook) calendar on my phone. I set up Google's Sync program on my work PC to update my Outlook calendar and Google Calendar, so I can read/edit it on my PC at home. After a number of missed meetings (and angry boss) I set this to a one-way push from Outlook to Google. No more missing entries. This means I cannot edit my calendar on my PC at home. How do I best view/use/edit a single calendar on my phone, Exchange, and my home PC?
Contacts are confusing to me. I don't fully understand how to think of them. I have ~500 contacts from Outlook, most of which were pushed to GMail. When I first started to use the phone and log in to Facebook, etc. I was prompted to "link" contact IDs. After linking a few hundred I though I was OK, but none of the newer contact pictures on my phone have been synced with Outlook. How do I sync this information? I PRESUME that linking really keeps multiple entries for a person with some fields from each source? What really happening when I "link" and how can I "merge" them instead? I'm most interested in "pushing" new/updated pictures to my outlook contacts.
Thanks in advance,
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
https://www.google.com/calendar/render?pli=1
Time zones
In outlook, as well as on the phone's calendar application, you have the option to specify the time zone for the calendar entry. Simple and straight forward.
RWFarley said:
I have some questions regarding how to "best" use the calendar(s) and Contacts.
I want everything in one Calendar, so I've currently settled to showing only my Exchange (Outlook) calendar on my phone. I set up Google's Sync program on my work PC to update my Outlook calendar and Google Calendar, so I can read/edit it on my PC at home. After a number of missed meetings (and angry boss) I set this to a one-way push from Outlook to Google. No more missing entries. This means I cannot edit my calendar on my PC at home. How do I best view/use/edit a single calendar on my phone, Exchange, and my home PC?
Contacts are confusing to me. I don't fully understand how to think of them. I have ~500 contacts from Outlook, most of which were pushed to GMail. When I first started to use the phone and log in to Facebook, etc. I was prompted to "link" contact IDs. After linking a few hundred I though I was OK, but none of the newer contact pictures on my phone have been synced with Outlook. How do I sync this information? I PRESUME that linking really keeps multiple entries for a person with some fields from each source? What really happening when I "link" and how can I "merge" them instead? I'm most interested in "pushing" new/updated pictures to my outlook contacts.
Thanks in advance,
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm confused. Why don't you just setup your exchange account on the phone and keep it separate from your gmail calendar? This way you don't have to sync outlook calendar with gmail calendar and you can still view/edit on phone. Yes you won't be able to view/edit from home pc but I'm not sure why would you want to do that?
The contacts are only linked, they are not merged (even though they show up as merged on the phone) so the pictures from Facebook for example won't be updated on your outlook. If you were to remove your Facebook account in your phone, you will lose all the pictures and other info that came from Facebook. It is built this way for privacy reasons so Google doesn't steal Facebook contact data and vice versa.
Sent from my myTouch_4G_Slide using xda premium
RWFarley said:
How do I sync this information? I PRESUME that linking really keeps multiple entries for a person with some fields from each source? What really happening when I "link" and how can I "merge" them instead? I'm most interested in "pushing" new/updated pictures to my outlook contacts.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This software (called Fonebook) should allow you to update Outlook contacts with corresponding pictures from Facebook.
https://skydrive.live.com/?cid=ae502052df6066a1&sc=documents&id=AE502052DF6066A1!165
chem.manish said:
you won't be able to view/edit from home pc
The contacts are only linked, they are not merged
Sent from my myTouch_4G_Slide using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
When I'm home I want to view my Calendar on the big screen of my PC. 14" is MUCH better than 3.7"
Sometimes I want to edit a Calendar entry when I'm home (e.g. add an entry with a long text note) which is a pain to do on the handset.
My N900 had an App to copy contact pictures from Facebook, etc. onto the handset's contacts, which were then sync'ed to Outlook. Is there an app with similar functionality for Android?
Thanks
Is there new software that will sync my Outlook calendar to Google Cal without me getting chewed out by my Boss for missing meetings?
Google Calendar Sync
RWFarley said:
Is there new software that will sync my Outlook calendar to Google Cal without me getting chewed out by my Boss for missing meetings?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
http://support.google.com/calendar/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=98563
TheManDroid said:
URL I can't quote
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
TheManDroid Has this been fixed? This software nearly got me fired when I missed a few meetings with my superiors.
TheManDroid said:
http://support.google.com/calendar/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=98563
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
TheManDroid said:
In outlook, as well as on the phone's calendar application, you have the option to specify the time zone for the calendar entry. Simple and straight forward.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, outlook changes all of the entries according to changing time zones.
I want to enter my 9:30 return flight (when I'm booking, before travel) as 9:30. Outlook assumes I'll enter it as 6:30 since I'm in PDT and the airport is in EDT. I'm trying to use entries that are all local time. If I have connecting flights I need to pre-compute different offsets. Too easy to mess up and miss a flight.
I been trying different scenarios to see why your appointments are getting shifted but everything is working for me the way it should as long as I specify the time zone for the appointment and not accept the default time zone that Outlook or Google calendar suggests (they default to current time zone). Do you do that on your end or do you just enter start/end time for the appointment without along with the rest of the appointment details without changing the time zone?

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