How to sync address book with gmail

Would you like to synchronize phone numbers, email addresses and all the other information you have saved in your Gmail address book on your smartphone? I assure you that it is a much simpler and more immediate operation than you imagine. Want to know how? I will explain it to you in detail in the following paragraphs.

If you want to know how to sync address book with gmail, in today’s guide I will show you solutions that will allow you to do this both on smartphones and tablets, and on PCs and Macs. Furthermore, I will explain how to synchronize on some famous software, such as Microsoft Outlook and Mozilla Thunderbird. I assure you that it is really child’s play.

The synchronization operation is bidirectional: all the contacts present in the phone or PC address book are saved on Gmail and vice versa, but in some cases it can also be set in a one-way way (only from Gmail to the computer/smartphone or only from the computer/ smartphone to Gmail). For more information, read on.

How to synchronize Gmail address book on smartphone and tablet

To know how to sync gmail contacts with all major smartphone and tablet models, all you have to do is follow the instructions that you will find in the next chapters.

android

If you have a smartphone or tablet androidyou can sync your address book with Gmail simply by activating the appropriate function from the settings of your Google account.

Then go to the Settings of Android, by pressing on the appropriate gear icon present on the home screen or in the drawer. At this point, select the item Google from the menu Users and Accounts and select yours email address. After that, move up ON the lever relating to the option Sync Contacts And that’s it.

If you have not yet added a Gmail address to your device (or if you want to add another by associating it with the one already configured on the device), go to the menu Settings > Users and Accounts of Android, press the button Add accountsselect the item Google from the screen that opens and fill in the form that is proposed to you.

Want to learn more about how to add a Gmail account to your Android device? Then you can consult my guide dedicated to the topic. If you don’t have a Google account yet, you can instead read this other guide of mine on how to create one.

iPhones/iPads

Now let’s move on to the procedure for sync Gmail address book with iPhone or iPad. The first steps you need to take are to go to the Settings of iOS/iPadOS, by pressing ongear icon present on the home screen, and select the item Passwords and accounts (on iOS 14 and later you have to go up Settings > Mail or Settings > Contacts) from the menu that appears.

In the screen that opens, tap on the item Add accountsselect the item Google and fill out the account setup form by typing your Gmail address first and then the password needed to access it.

Once you’ve filled out the form, go ahead, make sure your Contacts is set to ON and save the configuration by pressing the button Save located at the top right.

If you have previously entered the Gmail address on your iPhone/iPad, you can verify that synchronization is active by opening the panel of Settings of iOS/iPadOS and selecting the items Passwords and Accounts > [tuo indirizzo Gmail] (on iOS 14 and later you have to go up Settings > Mail or Settings > Contacts). Make sure, therefore, that the voice Contacts is set to ON.

Now, to set your Gmail address book as the default iOS address book and automatically sync all contacts, go back to the menu Settings > Contacts of your iPhone, select the address Gmail from the menu Default accounts And that’s it.

I want to clarify that the procedure in question does not apply if you want to copy the contacts you already had on the iPhone or iPad to Gmail. If you want to achieve this, you need to export iPhone contacts into a special file and then upload them to the Google Contacts web panel: More info here.

How to sync gmail address book to pc

Now let’s see how to sync address book with gmail on pc. Follow the instructions for your favorite email client and/or the operating system installed on your computer, which you will find in the next chapters.

Contacts (Windows 10/8.x)

In newer versions of Windows (Windows 10 And Windows 8.x) there is an application available, named Contactswhich allows you to easily synchronize your computer’s address book with that of many cloud services, including Gmail.

To set up a Gmail account in the application Contactsopen it by looking for it in the menu start (or in the Start Screen) and presses on the icon ⚙ located at the top left, to access the application settings panel.

In the section that opens, press the button Add an accountselect Google from the list of available cloud services and log in with your Gmail account details. So press the button Doneto complete the procedure.

Now make sure that synchronization is active: to do this, tap on yours Gmail address in the application settings panel Contactspress on the wording Options for syncing content and move up ON the lever next to the wording Contacts.

Now, to add new contacts to the Gmail address book via the application Contacts Windows, click on the icon + and choose Gmail from the drop down menu Save to. The synchronized contacts will be available in the application Mail of Windows but not in “external” clients, such as Microsoft Outlook.

Contacts (macOS)

If you use a Mac, you can synchronize the system address book with Gmail in a very simple way. All you have to do is open System Preferences (L’gear icon located in the Dock bar), select the icon Internet Accounts from the window that opens and press the button for Google.

At this point, press the button Open in Safarito log in to your Gmail account through your browser Safari. After logging in, make sure there is a check mark next to the item Contacts (as well as next to Email, Notes And Calendars if you want to sync these other items with Gmail as well) and that’s it.

To use Gmail as the default service for address book synchronization, open the application Contacts of macOS, select the entry Preferences from the menu Contacts which is located in the top menu bar and select Your Gmail account from the drop down menu Default accounts. The phonebook entries will be accessible in Mail and in all applications that support the import of system contacts.

Microsoft Outlook (Windows)

If you use the Microsoft Office package e Outlook is your default email client, you can sync your address book with Gmail using GO Contact Sync Mod. It is a small software for Windows, free and open source, which allows you to keep your Gmail and Outlook contacts synchronized in a two-way or one-way way. It is compatible with all the most recent versions of Office for Windows, starting from 2003. It requires the presence of the .Net Framework 4.0 and related updates.

To download GO Contact Sync Mod on your PC, connected to the SourceForge website (where the program is hosted) and click on the green button Downloads. After that launch the .MSI files just downloaded and click on the button Next. Then put the check mark next to the entry I accept the terms in the License Agreement and complete the setup by pressing in sequence on Next, Next, install, Yes And Finish.

After the installation is complete, launch GO Contact Sync Modwait for the program to detect the Outlook configuration folders (it should take a few seconds) and type your Gmail address in the text field E-mail. Then click on the button Sync located at the bottom right, log in to your Google account and wait for the synchronization of the address book to complete.

If you want Outlook contacts to be synchronized with Gmail (and vice versa) automatically, put the check mark next to the item Auto Sync and indicate the time interval for synchronization in the adjacent text field. If instead you want to make the synchronization unique (only from Gmail to Outlook or from Outlook to Gmail), check the option Outlook to Google only or on the option Google to Outlook only.

Mozilla Thunderbird (Windows/macOS/Linux)

Also Mozilla Thunderbird, the famous free mail client available for Windows, macOS and Linux, allows you to synchronize your address book with Gmail. To do this, however, you need to use an add-on called gContactSync.

To download gContactSync on your PC, you can proceed from the Mozilla Addons website or from the internal add-ons panel. In the latter case, click on the ☰ icon and select the items Add-ons > Add-ons. Now select the card Extensions in the sidebar and use the search engine above to type in your term “gcontactsync”.

Once this is done, click on the corresponding search result and press the button Add to Thunderbird. Finally, press the keys add And Restart to complete the process of integrating the add-on into Thunderbird.

When Thunderbird restarts, through the appropriate screen, choose whether to synchronize the address book with a Gmail account already configured in the program or with a new account, log in to the Gmail account you want to synchronize with the program and choose which address book to synchronize from the appropriate drop-down menu.

If you want, you can also choose what type of synchronization to perform (bidirectional, read-only or write-only) using the drop-down menu Select the sync direction. Finally, press on the button endto complete the procedure.

How to sync Gmail address book with Outlook.com

Would you like to export Gmail contacts to Outlook.com? It is not difficult. You can perform different procedures to achieve this, depending on the type of device you have and the operating system in use on it.

To find out how, read my guide on how to synchronize Outlook with Gmail, in which you will find how to synchronize messages, address book and calendar between the two services.