I have contacts in my Outlook for work and eventually, I got tired of syncing my contacts by connecting my iPhone and iPad to my work PC so iTunes can sync my Outlook Contacts. Everything should be done wireless way now, since we are in the age of the wired free. Second reason for me to do this is because I’m migrating to OSX, and I would like to backup my contacts to the cloud and at the same time sync my other devices such as BlackBerry, Android, Windows Mobile 7, etc. However, if your company is already in Exchange, you don’t need this method since this method is essentially replacing your regular IMAP or POP mail to Google Mail in Exchange method.
Download Google Sync for Windows and Mac
If you have Outlook 2003, 2007 and 2010, then all you need is to Download Google Sync software. After you install it, enter in your Gmail credentials, it then should sit on your Tray. Just right click on Google Sync and click on Sync. That’s it.
If you get the error “Installation failed. Component Google Apps Migration for Microsoft Outlook failed to install. Detailed message: No supported version of Microsoft Outlook Found. Supported versions are Microsoft Outlook 2003 SP3 (version 11.0.8169 or greater) and Microsoft Outlook 2007 SP1 (version 12.0.6335 or greater).
Be sure to close Outlook. If the error is persistent after you close Outlook, then you need to manually export CSV.
1. Go to Contacts in your Outlook and click on File > Import and Export
2. Then click on Export to File
3. Then click on Comma Separated Values (Windows)
4. Next Button and be sure to select Contacts and Click on Next
5. Save the file where you would remember for importing to Google Contacts later and click on Finish
That’s it for exporting, now the importing. By the way, Comma Separated Values on step 3 is short for CSV.
The steps to import to Google Mail is to go to your Gmail account and login.
1. Click on Contacts, in between Mail and Task.
2. Click on the Pull down menu for More Actions button and select Import
3. Browse to the CSV File
4. Select the Group you want to import to, or leave it as is, or you can create a New Group
5. Click on Import and that’s it!
Sync Contacts to Google Mail is easier now, all you have to do is follow this step to setup GMail Exchange so you can import your Contacts to your iPad or iPhone. It will take about 2 minutes for 500 contacts to sync to your iPhone after you setup GMail for Exchange.