Sure, Gmail makes adding people I email effortless, and adding contacts in the Mac OS X Mail Address Book is a snap. Still, couldn't these address books just — sync?
Of course they can. Setting up Mac OS X Address Book and Gmail contacts synchronization is a snap, too, and makes having up-to-date contacts everywhere just about effortless.
Sync Your Mac OS X Mail Address Book with Google Gmail Contacts
To set up synchronization of contacts between your Mac OS X Mail address book and your Gmail contacts:
- Open Contacts or Address Book.
- Create a backup copy of your existing contacts.
- Select Contacts | Preferences… or Address Book | Preferences… from the menu.
- In Mac OS X 10.6 and 10.7:
- Go to the Accounts tab.
- Make sure On My Mac is selected in the accounts' list.
- Go to the Account Information tab.
- In Mac OS X 10.5:
- Go to the General tab.
- Now make sure Synchronize with Google is checked.
- Click Agree.
- Enter your Gmail (or other Google account) email address under Google Account:.
- Now type your Gmail (or Google account) password under Password:.
- Click OK.
You can use the iSync menu bar icon to synchronize your address books at any time.
Note that, under Mac OS X 10.5, all Gmail contacts under All Contacts (which includes everybody you have emailed) will be pushed to your Mac OS X address book. Under Mac OS X 10.6, only contacts in My Contacts will be synchronized.
As an alternative to the synchronization described above, you can also set up Gmail Contacts as a separate account in OS X Contacts (automatically kept up to date in both directions as well).
