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Syncing gmail contacts

Before I got my WinMo phone I had all my email accounts in outlook, along with my contacts and calendar. I consolidated all of my email accounts into my gmail account. Imported all of my contacts and calendar entries.
I downloaded my emails to my phone through an IMAP connection, I sync my calendar entries between the phone and gmail. Is there a way I can sync my contacts from my phone to gmail without going through outlook on my computer?
I want to eliminate the middle man (my computer) in all the syncing so all of my stuff is available through my phone or gmail so that way if i'm at a friends and don't have my phone or computer I can still access information if need be.
With the contacts, in case its not clear enough, I synced all my contacts from outlook to my phone when I got it. I then imported all of my contacts from outlook into gmail. Now I get a call on my phone and then add that number as a new contact. How do I sync that new number into gmail without going through outlook?

http://www.google.dk/search?source=...ontacts+pocketpc&btnG=Google-søgning&meta=lr=
tried looking here?

I was searching syncing gmail contacts windows mobile instead of pocketpc and gsync wasn't coming up on my search. Ill have to give it a try later. OGG Sync says it does contacts but the only thing I can find on it is calendar.
Thanks for the help

Gsync doesn't sync contacts from the phone to google. Somebody has to be doing this?

Try nuevasync.com

plexo.com + rememberthemilk.com + mesh.com = complete outlook replacement
Is paid service ($50/yr) but is by far the best I've ever used. Will sync your contacts and calendar with device/outlook/google/yahoo etc. I also use rememberthemilk to sync taks online, and Live Mesh for files and photos. Using Linux as a main OS forces you to find all the best-of-breed non-MS solutions, it's entirely possible to ditch outlook and still have 100% functionality replaced with online cloud services.

Outlook connector not syncing?

I downloaded the outlook connector and went through the entire tutorial and i believe i set up my contacts and calender correctly. All the contacts and calender entries from outlook are now in my windows live account, and are also on my HTC trophy.
The problem i'm running into is now that it doesn't actively sync and keep my live entries up to date. If i add a new contact in outlook, i dont see it in live or on my Trophy, and the same with new calender entries.
I feel like i'm missing something small, but i just cant seem to figure it out. I tried deleting the live calender in outlook and recopying it again, and that worked to show new entries, but it still does not actively sync with new entries.

Make sure you're adding to the right calendar and contacts, there is at least 2 of each, contacts will have something like contacts and then contacts from "live account username", calendar you'll need to tick the box for calendar from "live account username" and add your entries to that calendar to get them on your phone. As an aside do you only use outlook for your live account?

No i use outlook for business email, contacts and calendar.
I'm attempting to delete the entire Live account from outlook and also clear my contacts, and calendar from hotmail then add everything again. Hopefully it works this time.
So just so i'm correct in my way of thinking, once Outlook connector is configured correctly it should automatically sync your contact and email 3 ways between the WP7 Smartphone, Windows Live, and Outlook? and for most people is this working flawlessly?

Yes thats right, anything you add to Outlook against your Live bits will sync to Windows Live which in turn will sync to your phone and any combination of adding on one will update the other two, it's not instant but will all catch up eventually (think mainly down to how you have your sync intervals)

ah, now i see where the confusion comes into play.
Only the Live(hotmail) profile in outlook will sync with the rest. Not my original profile. SO that means if i create a new calendar item in my regular POP account, i have to copy it over to my Live account in order for it to sync with the cloud, and then my trophy.
Seems like the simpler thing to do would be to use gmail calender sync. At least that doesn't require redundant sync's.

at least we know that MS thought it through

[Q] How does google contact synching work?

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?
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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)
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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

Sync Exchange Contacts Include/Exclude by Category?

It seems with the stock email app synching contacts from an Exchange server is an all or nothing ordeal.
Currently I'm working with the nothing option by having previously synched all my exchange contacts in, backed up to gmail contacts, broke the Exchange contact sync and pruned gmail contacts and resynchronized to gmail contacts.
The problem is as I add contacts in Outlook I have to add them manually to my phone as well since there are a lot of contacts in Exchange I do not want on my phone.
My coworker's Motorola Droid allowed for synching only Exchange contacts by category. That is, categories are assigned on Outlook and the list of categories is loaded onto the phone and from the phone a category can be checked or unchecked to be included or excluded for synching.
This seems to be an appropriate solution for being selective about which Exchange contacts actually end up in my phone contacts. Unfortunately I'm not seeing such an option in the stock app. Is there such an option and if not is there an Exchange capable email app that does [provide this functionality without sacrificing the otherwise useful functionality of the stock app?

Thanks for the help!

crabapples said:
Thanks for the help!
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I'd love to see this too. It would make it so much easier with BT voice dialing.

Adding birthdays to contacts

Guys,
I'm setting up my wife's new phone.
I don't seem to be able to add birthday, anniversary dates, etc to a contact unless I link all the contacts to Google; something I don't want to do.
Any ideas how to get round this?
TIA

Hi, this may or may not help! My method. My wife and I share the same contacts/calendar list. So I created a dummy gmail account. On our phones, tablets we only allow that dummy email address to sync its contacts and calendar. Vice versa, on our real gmail and Outlook accounts the contact and calendar sync is disabled. This works quite well. If that's not you want try searching for CardDav. This is what my Blackberry is using, it works perfect. You should find a number of Android app's and corresponding CardDav servers. Hope this helps.
But you mention birthdays, anniversaries etc, wouldn't it be more advantageous to put these items in a calendar, setup to give timely reminders of upcoming events?
From Wikipedia quote" CardDAV*(short for*Card Distributed Authoring and Versioning) is an*address book*client/server protocol designed to allow users to access and share contact data on a server. "Unquote.

grahamgo said:
Hi, this may or may not help! My method. My wife and I share the same contacts/calendar list. So I created a dummy gmail account. On our phones, tablets we only allow that dummy email address to sync its contacts and calendar. Vice versa, on our real gmail and Outlook accounts the contact and calendar sync is disabled. This works quite well. <snip>
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Hi Graham,
Thanks for the reply, mate. I think just turning off the sync is probably the way to go, and that's what I've done.
I'm grateful for your input.
C.