Tagged with:  

186 Responses to Sync iPhone Contacts, Calendars & Notes with Gmail – Syncing iPhone with Google Contacts

  1. Mark says:

    This information is good, but why does the OS4.1 not sync notes to gmail anymore? I didn’t even notice it not working until I needed it.

  2. iPhone Expert says:

    That’s correct.

    As Apple states it “Over-the-air Notes syncing is not supported on iPhone 3G or iPod touch (2nd generation)” mainly to improve speed”.

    If you synced your iPhone notes over the air, they are gone.

    But if you synced them using iTunes, you can recover your iPhone Notes as follows:

    – Connect your iPhone to your Computer ( iTunes should open up automatically. If not, launch it from Start->All Programs->iTunes->iTunes )
    – Click your iPhone in the “Devices” section on the left
    – Click the “Info” tab and in the “Other” section tick the Sync Notes option
    – In the Advanced section, leave the Notes option unchecked
    – Click the “Apply” button in iTunes lower-right corner and wait until iTunes syncs your iPhone

    • xem says:

      Hi, how do i see those notes from the iTunes after it is synced? Say if i am not going to use the iphone anymore but i have backed it up using iTunes?

      Thanks

      • iPhone Expert says:

        Hi xem,

        Actually, the solution provided here does not rely on iTunes

        Your backed up notes will show up in Gmail instead
        Which is actually far more convenient, as they will be safe from any computer crash or system reinstallation

    • pam says:

      hi, plz could u help me. i followed ur earlier directives and have successfully uploaded all my contacts from my iphone 4 to my computer but itz a problem importing them to my gmail account. i am being asked a csv file but i can’t locate where this file is in my account. I am stock and desperate as i have deleted all the contacts in my phone already.
      thanks

      • iPhone Expert says:

        Dear Pam,

        You can look for all .csv files on your computer as follows:

        Press the Windows logo key + F
        Type *.csv which will search for any .csv file on your computer

        Maybe you’ll find the one you are looking for

  3. Kevin says:

    I just got an iPhone 4 and have a Gmail account. When setting it up and currently, it gives me options to sync Mail, Calendars and Notes over the air. However, there is no option to sync Contacts at all. What is the solution? This is weird.

  4. sherry-lee says:

    Hi, want to sync my gmail contacts and I don’t have the option- I keep seeing this advice, “Use the exchange option”, but it won’t let me, because I don’t know what to enter in the “Server” field- It says “Unable to verify account info”. Could you please help?

    • iPhone Expert says:

      Dear Sherry,

      In the “Server” field, try to enter m.google.com

      If this does not solve the problem, check bullets points 3 and 4 in the “Notes & possible issues” above

  5. howard Gelman says:

    I’m still not clear on the concept. I have an iphone 4 running ios 4.2. Can I sync my iPhone Notes with my my gmail account, via air or wifi?
    If yes, how? If not, is there an app that provides a good alternative?
    Thanks very much,
    Howard

    • iPhone Expert says:

      Dear Howard,

      Unfortunately, Notes cannot be synced over the air or wirelessly anymore ( since late 2010 )

      Regarding alternatives, this is a review we found in Google for “iPhones Notes Apps”:
      TiPb

      Feel free to share your impressions if you give them a go

  6. Nathan says:

    Hey! I’m wanting to sync my gmail and exchange server with the same contacts. In other words I want to be able to be on my work computer in outlook and have my contacts, and then open gmail and have the SAME contacts… all of them in sync. Is that possible?

    Thanks!

  7. arief says:

    Hi, thanks for this info! 😀 Now I’m using Exchange instead of Gmail account in setting. I’ve 1 question:
    I try to delete all contact in Google and then I will upload all contacts from my iPhone to refresh the Google contacts. But I try to sync, and no contact uploaded on the server, it keeps 2 big groups on my iPhone: local data contact, and ‘in the server’ contact. Why? And how to copy contact from my iPhone to Google server without losing any field in contact? Thanks.. 🙂

  8. Alpacamarc says:

    My wife and I have a number of shared Google Calendars but they don’t all show up on my iPhone Calendar after setting it up the way you’ve explained. Am I missing something or does it have to be done another way? Thanks.

    • iPhone Expert says:

      Dear Marc,

      To sync shared Google calendars, proceed as follows:

      – With your iPhone’s Safari, go to http://m.google.com/sync
      – Sign in to your Google account
      – Select the calendars you want to sync with your iphone
      – Now, return to your iPhone’s Calendar and, Voilà! You have the calendars you chose to sync

  9. Taylor says:

    I now use my Gmail through Microsoft Exchange on my iPhone… but doesn’t Microsoft Exchange cost money? Is doing it this way free??? Thanks

    • iPhone Expert says:

      Dear Taylor,

      Exchange costs money to your ISP, but it won’t cost anything to you, don’t be worried about that

  10. Confused says:

    Ok, so I have my notes selected with Gmail.
    The options I have for default account are:

    iPhone or iTouch
    Gmail

    I have notes in my Gmail. How do I get them to my iTunes?

    • iPhone Expert says:

      Hi Sasha,

      Unfortunately, iTunes does not allow to see or edit notes
      All you can do is to sync them with Gmail or Outlook
      Hopefully, a future release with integrate iPhone notes management features

  11. Wayne says:

    Hi, I’m wondering how can I sync my local iPhone contacts to my Gmail account? I can only sync contacts from Gmail account to my iPhone.

    • iPhone Expert says:

      Dear Wayne,

      To sync iPhone contacts to Gmail, proceed as follows:

      – Connect your iPhone to your Computer
      – Open iTunes
      – Select your iPhone in the “Devices” section on the left and click the “Info” tab
      – Check the “Sync contacts with” option and select “Google Contacts”
      – Hit Configure and enter your Google username and password
      – Click Apply

      This will upload iPhone Contacts to Gmail

      • joanna says:

        but this method means that your contacts from the iphone overwrite the contacts in gmail. i tend to update my phone numbers on the iphone and email addresses on gmail. is there a way to have a two-way sync without using microsoft exchange which is not good enough as it does not contain all the contact fields. i hope so! thanks

        • iPhone Expert says:

          Dear Joanna,

          Try our Sync iPhone with Outlook two-way using Google Calendar Sync instructions and you should be just fine

          • Wily says:

            I can syn contacts from Google to iPhone but can not syn contacts created from iPhone to Google. My phone has two sets of contacts: 1)ALL from my PC (i.e. personal contact), 2) contact from exchange server that syn with with non-personal contact. I want to use iTune to syn only personal contact with Google. Pls help.

  12. Ian 2000 says:

    All I want to do is be out and update my Google Calendar from my iPhone 3GS. I’ve just set calDAV up and it works really well.
    It sends anything I input on Google Calendar to my iPhone.
    However, if I input anything on the calendar on my iPhone when I’m out, it doesn’t seem to sync to my Google Calendar.
    Maybe the 2-way sync costs?

  13. JJ says:

    Thanks for the post

    I am trying to do the same thing on my iPad but my iPad contacts are not being uploaded to my Gmail account. Is iPad instructions different than iPhone?

    • iPhone Expert says:

      Dear JJ,

      This shouldn’t be different, as, technically, an iPad is just a big iPhone

  14. Kenny says:

    Hi, when I finished the setting, all Gmail contacts will sync to iPhone4, but those contacts I add on iPhone4 cannot sync to Gmail contacts. Therefore the sync seems that one-way only (Gmail -> iPhone4). Is there anyway to solve the problem?
    Thanks!

    • iPhone Expert says:

      Dear Kenny,

      You may want to have a look at our Sync iPhone with Gmail two-way instructions

      • Kenny says:

        Dear Sir,

        Thanks for your reply.

        I saw the instruction and found that the sync seems only work with Outlook. Therefore I must connect iPhone to computer when I want to sync. Am I right?

        regards,

        Kenny

        • iPhone Expert says:

          Dear Kenny,

          With Google Sync you don’t need to connect your iPhone to your computer to synchronize it
          You can sync your iPhone with Gmail over-the-air

  15. Jelle says:

    Hi all,

    Thanks for a great tutorial! One question, though: is it possible to set up your contacts (either in your iPhone or in Gmail) so that your contacts-app only shows your contacts with a phone number? It now also shows contacts that I only have an e-mail address from, which I don’t need.

    Thanks!

    • iPhone Expert says:

      Dear Jelle,

      I searched on the Internet for such a solution
      Apparently, it does not seem possible to have the iPhone display only contacts with telephone number

      What you can do is to create a note containing contacts with only email addresses and remove them from your contacts list

      • Celbrett says:

        The way to do this is to setup a group in Gmail for just those contacts with email (or any other parameter (ie, contacts you don’t want to sync with your iPhone).

        Once you do that, check the checkbox next to the name of the contact you don’t want to sync. Then hit the “groups” button on the top or bottom of the Gmail screen. Uncheck the “contacts” box and hit “apply” from the same drop down menu and voila, it will sync only contacts you want to sync.

        Hope this helps, I couldn’t find this online.

        • Andy says:

          You don’t need to create another group at all
          The contact with just an email add. that you don’t want synced to the phone has to be removed from “My Contacts” in Gmail, so that it comes in “All Contacts” but not in “My Contacts”
          I had to do the same when I synced People in Picasa with “My Contacts” where there was no other info except the photo and the name

  16. LC says:

    Hi,

    I’m currently using the Exchange option to sync Mail, Contacts and Calendars in my iPhone 4 with m.google.com. Everything works fine except one thing

    I cannot create any local contacts in my iPhone (which are not to be synced with the Google Exchange m.google.com). I tried many many times, and I even compared my iPhone settings with a friend who is using Google Exchange in the same way as mine.

    When I create a new contact, it always gets synced to Google. But my friend’s iPhone allows an option to create a local contact inside the iPhone (not synced with Google). Do you know why? How can I resolve this? How can I create a local contact only inside my iPhone 4? Many thanks for your help!

    • iPhone Expert says:

      Dear LC,

      I searched on the Internet about this, but unfortunately couldn’t find any immediate solution

      Maybe you need to set up Google Sync in order that it keeps your contacts on your iPhone, which might allow you to prevent Google Exchange from syncing certain iPhone contacts

  17. ade says:

    You’re just the best. U just bail me out. Keep more coming. Thanks!

  18. EagleBrewing says:

    Hello, and thanks for all the info.
    My issue.
    I have rebuilt my laptop. Now my iPhone will not sync with iTunes.
    It wants to erase and sync to the new iTunes library.
    There is nothing on iTunes at the moment, and that is OK.
    I have all my music and books off on another drive and will take care of that later. I have music, books, playlists on the iPhone, and I don’t really care about them. I’ll reload it all later …
    I am just concerned with my contacts on my iPhone. I want a one-way transfer to Gmail. I just want to make sure I have a record of all my contacts in case they get wiped out or lost.
    I am paranoid, I know, but I have read about too many people losing all their contacts.
    Assume I have a new dummy Gmail account with only one contact.
    Will it really do put the contacts to Gmail?
    Will it wipe out my contacts on the iPhone?
    Will it put all the iPhone contacts on Gmail (and possibly the single Gmail contact onto my iPhone (along with all the others))?
    Sorry for the questions, but I am not making any headway with my issues.
    What I want to really do is the erase and sync that iTunes wants to do with my iPhone, and then restore the backup of the iPhone that I just did with iTunes.
    I just want to make sure that my contacts are somewhere where I can get them, in case I have to enter all contacts by hand! Hope not.
    Thanks in advance for any help
    Bob

    • iPhone Expert says:

      Dear Eagle,

      Using Google Sync should definitely allow you to sync your iPhone contacts with Gmail with no trouble
      Google products are definitely reliable and well conceived
      Still, we cannot provide you with any guarantee on that, as we are not Google and you never know what can happen with a computer mishandling

      If you want to be double careful, uninstall iTunes before syncing your iPhone contacts to avoid any unwanted synchronization from there

  19. Catherine K says:

    Hi there,

    I’ve been browsing your site and appreciate all the useful info you’ve put together.
    Great job!

    I have a question I’m hoping you might be able to answer…
    I have my gmail synching set up on my iPhone but I’ve been adding contacts directly into my iPhone when I’m away from home. These contacts don’t show up in my Gmail contacts. How do I get the new iPhone contacts to get copied over to my Gmail? I usually sync in iTunes but I currently have ‘Sync Address Book Contacts’ unchecked.
    If I check the box to make it sync will it download my Gmail contacts and delete my iPhone contacts?
    Is iTunes the best way to be synching with Google or should I be using an app like ‘Sync in a Blink’?

    Thanks in advance for any help you can offer!

    Catherine K
    (iPhone 3G user)

    • iPhone Expert says:

      Dear Catherine,

      Using Google Sync‘s two-way sync should allow you to have the contacts added to your iPhone on-the-go be synced to your Gmail contacts

  20. JDS says:

    Hello,
    I have been syncing my work email which is a Google Business Apps email account on my iPhone 4 with MS Exchange. Contacts, Calendar and Email has been working perfectly for 5 months, until today. I have deleted and restablished the Exchang account several times, Reboot the phone several times and connected the phone to iTunes to see if that would help. Nothing. When I re-established the account, it will verify the account but when trying to retrieve emails it will say “Cannot Get Mail – The connection to the server failed”. Thanks for any ideas or suggestions in advance.

  21. FELIPE says:

    Hi there,

    My problem:
    I want my Google contacts on my iPhone 4. I just made the Exchange account, but nothing happend
    I have been reading many Google forums, but there is no answer for my issue

    If i go to my Gmail account on the PC, all my contacts are there, but no one on my iPhone (With my Exchange account activated).
    please HELP!!

  22. Brent says:

    Hi,

    You’ve given really amazing advice in the past I can see, so I thought I’d give it a shot. My iPhone 4 sync’d fine all the time, but now all the sudden my music library on my iPhone is totally gone — not one song. However, all my contacts/calendar info is all still intact, and my PC is fine too. Is there a way to return my music to my iPod (quickly, easily, like it’s just missing a setting to sync really quick to uncover it all again I hope?) I hate restoring my iPhone to original factory settings with iTunes with a passion. Takes forever and a donkey year that way. Well, thanks for whatever you may suggest!

    • iPhone Expert says:

      Dear Brent,

      If your computer is fine as you seem to say and if your iTunes library is safe on your computer too, you just need to sync your iPhone with iTunes and your music library should be back on your iPhone

  23. mickey says:

    Hi,
    Is it possible to ‘view’ my notes in iTune backup file without the iphone connected with iTune? If yes, where can I locate the file?

    Thanks

  24. She says:

    I am trying to help my dad with his new iphone. He wants to be able to synch his “notes” with my mom’s iphone “notes”. Is there a way to do this? Thanks for your great answers.

    • iPhone Expert says:

      Dear She,

      In order to merge iPhone notes from two different iPhone, you can try to synchronize both groups of notes with the same Gmail account and then synchronize an iPhone with that Gmail account.

  25. Heather Roberts says:

    Google sync doesn’t give the options of contacts, only notes, calendar and e-mail, so I had to use the microsoft exchange setup.
    Now it won’t sync however as it says the exchange password is wrong. I’ve put in my correct password lots of times and don’t seem to be getting anywhere. I’ve logged onto my gmail through my computer and the account isn’t locked. Is this a common problem and is there a solution?
    Thank you

    • iPhone Expert says:

      Dear Heather,

      Even though you entered your password repeatedly, I wouldn’t be surprised that the problem comes from there.
      Make sure the caps lock key is not on.
      If this does not solve the problem, try to recover your Microsoft Exchange Server password as per these instructions

  26. sue spencer says:

    I followed the instructions for setting up exchange of contacts between my iphone and my computer but where do I find them then on my computer. I still have my original list of just email contacts that were on my googlecontacts under my gmail account as before but not the addresses that I have on my iphone? Thank you, Sue Spencer

  27. Meg Cambon says:

    HELP! I thought I followed the directions to send the contacts from my iphone to Google. It did not happen until I connected my iphone to my laptop. Then I got duplicate addresses and lots of information deleted. When I started, I had nothing in Google contacts. I think that all of my original info is there. Can I somehow get it back into my iphone and get it to override the info there??? I just want the original info. I have a 3GS iphone, 32 GB, version 4.3.3. I just installed the latest version of itunes. Any help you can offer would be greatly appreciated!!! Many Thanks!!

    • iPhone Expert says:

      Dear Meg,

      If all your correct contacts are in your Google Contacts, just delete all contacts on your iPhone and then synchronize your iPhone with your Google account

  28. Alex says:

    I have my google addresses being sync but the groups I created are not synchronizing, how should I fix this?

  29. Alex says:

    Imap or exchange? Which is best for contacts?
    I sync calendars, email and addresses and have loads of info…

    Imap keeps all info local and syncs regularly right?

    Should I continue to use mobile me just for my addresses?
    I still have a mobile me account and was trying to stop using it because didn’t want to renew but Apple is extending the subscription for an additional year… I’d like to stop but should I? I am asking because of my sync dilemma having to do with groups and a lack of customization of the entries such as adding additional phone numbers beyond googles limits…

  30. CJ says:

    Hi,

    I have set up the iPhone 4 to sync contacts which works fine and gone through the steps to sync my Google calender. When inputting new data into the phone it doesn’t sync back to the Google calender but when I input a new event/data straight into the calender via the computer it appears on the iPhone. I don’t use Outlook and don’t want to if I can avoid it.

    Is there any way that I can transfer new calender information to the computer by inputting it into the phone? As it is I can only get the info flowing the other way i.e. by putting dates/appointments etc into the computer and it does appear in the calender in my iPhone.

    Any help you can offer would be greatly appreciated.

  31. caroline says:

    Hi
    I have a new i phone 4 and need to sync my old contacts from my 3gs to gmail, I have followed all of the steps and it seems to have worked but I cant see the contacts and now how do I sync this to my new phone?
    thanks

  32. kp says:

    i must be missing something
    ! i dont see no place in my Gmail that says notes and there was nothing on the fone wen i set this up relating to NOTES. PAHLEEEZ someone enlighten me! ðŸ™

  33. Maria says:

    Hello, I am trying to sync my iphone 3gs calendar to google in order to sync to Itunes and my ipad2. I have created the exchange email, and added the calDAV. Everything has been successful with the exception of the calendar. When i go to info tab on my itunes I dont have any other options other than to sync calendars with outlook and the only option is titled calendar as a selection. I also have the birthday application and that is not an option either. On my iphone I have the following calendars, From my PC – callendar, Exchange – my gmail account, Google Calendar – my gmail account, and other – Birthdays. I am having a really hard time – I accidently deleted them and had to do a restore from my itunes. Hoping I have given enough information to diagnose the problem and help me out. Thanks~

  34. kathy says:

    how can i link my outlook 2007 to my iphone 4 using a different computer then my own. is it possible to do this? i need my emails & calendar to be sent to my iphone. its my job’s email so i dont want to mix my personal stuff with my work.

  35. Ophelia says:

    Hi there,

    Did everything in ur email and my gmail calendar syncs with my iPhone but not vice versa. Pls help! I followed all ur steps and repeated them twice but still no luck .

    Regards,
    Ophelia

  36. Clark says:

    hi guys. got some problems with syncing iphone4 contacts with my gmail. I want all my contacts on my iphone4 also be in my gmail contacts. Followed instruction on top with microsoft exchange and it was set-up no prob…however i am not seeing the contacts on my gmail…help..

  37. Allison says:

    I have a question. I had not cleaned up my google contacts before my iphone was synced. I have hundreds of email addresses I needed to delete. I now did so. Should I follow your instructions above and still keep contacts on iphone or should i delete the previous synced contacts??? HELP!!

    • iPhone Expert says:

      Dear Allison,

      If you sync your iPhone with your Gmail contacts, it will delete the unwanted contacts on your iPhone

  38. Dave, says:

    Great tutorial – does it all apply to iPod touch? Thanks

  39. morris says:

    I have an IPhone 4 and have setup an Exchange account as you specified and it works fine for both contacts and calendars. However, the contacts that don’t have standard Outlook phone number labels don’t get synced. i.e. John’s phone. Google has all these numbers just fine. What do I do?

  40. Larry says:

    I set up the sync through the exchange server. I have an iphone3g. The Iphone received the contacts via my gmail account but did not send the contacts to the gmail account. There was only a one-way exchange. Do you have a solution?

  41. Matt says:

    I am trying sync contacts from multiple GMail accounts. However, every time I try to enter the second GMail account, it keeps asking for the exchange password. Even though I put in the correct password, it doesn’t accept it. Am I only able to sync one Google account?

    • iPhone Expert says:

      Dear Matt,

      This problem is that you don’t see the captcha

      Follow this link to display the unlock captcha

  42. Luka says:

    Hi, I’ve followed all the steps various times but when it seems to be all fine on the phone appears a small window where it is asked for the account password and even though it is punched in correctly, it keeps asking for it saying that it is uncorrect.
    Any help on that?

  43. Jason says:

    I’m trying to sync the different “groups” in my gmail contacts so that I can select the different groups on my iPad & iPhone. any suggestions? I currently have over 300 contacts all in 1 main list…

    • iPhone Expert says:

      Dear Jason,

      Some users provided very interesting solutions to these groups issues on this page

      Perform a search ( CTRL+F or Command+F on Mac ) with the word “groups”

  44. Wily says:

    To: iPhone Expert,

    Referring to your answer to Joanna above, I have set up as you suggested. I can syn contacts from Google to iPhone but can not syn contacts created from iPhone to Google. My phone has two sets of contacts: 1)ALL from my PC (i.e. personal contact), 2) contact from exchange server that syn with with non-personal contact. I want to use iTune to syn only personal contact with Google. Pls help.

  45. Wily says:

    To: iPhone Expert,

    Referring to your answer to Joanna above, I have set up as you suggested. I can syn contacts from Google to iPhone but can not syn contacts created from iPhone to Google.

    My phone has two sets of contacts: 1)ALL from my PC (i.e. personal contact), 2) contact from exchange server that syn with with work contact. I want to use iTune to syn only personal contact with Google. Pls help.

  46. Bradley says:

    After i say Keep on my Iphone, a pop up says for me to put my password in for the exchange account and i do, but it keeps saying my password is wrong.. what password should i be using?

    • iPhone Expert says:

      Dear Brad,

      Please refer to the answer I provided to Matt on Aug 26th higher in this page

  47. Donald Lawton says:

    If you’re looking for a way to sync your Gmail contacts with your iPhone while maintaining your groups, you may want to try Contacts Sync With Groups For Gmail at the iPhone App Store. You can read about it at:

    http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/contacts-sync-with-groups/id454390333?ls=1&mt=8

  48. Hadley says:

    I tried this and everything seemed to go ok, but it’s asking me for an Exchange account password. I’ve tried typing in the Gmail password, but it doesn’t accept it. This keeps popping up every five seconds, so obviously it wants something else. Is this possibly a password associated with m.google? How can I fix this? Thanks for your help!

  49. ellen says:

    My work email is a Google-hosted account. The two-way sync with the contacts does not work well. I repeatedly “clean up” the contacts on my computer and something must be happening via syncing that makes them revert to the problematic version . . . I have it set up as Exchange, have read all these notes, etc.

    Is there a fix? I’m going a bit crazy?

    Or even a way to wipe clean and re-sync with the iphone contacts (which are NOT messed up) trumping what’s on my computer???

    Thanks much.

  50. dr.c.d.gabani says:

    i can not transfer my iphones contact to gmail account after setting in phone in microsoft exchange

  51. Emily says:

    This may be too early to ask this question but thought I would try anyway. I’ve presently using a Droid but switching to the iPhone 4S and I wanted to know if the text, pics, contacts, etc backup using this method as they do with my Droid. Everything backs up to google. I have it set so it automatically backs up all above, calendar etc without me doing anything. New to iPhone and learning as fast as I can. Thank you in advance. Excellent site as well.

  52. Michelle says:

    Went to AT&T store with questions about my IPHONE! BIG MISTAKE! The woman deleted my email off of my phone and added it back on. When she did that ALL OF MY PRECIOUS NOTES were deleted from my phone! She said not to worry they were on my gmail account and tried to WiFi them to my phone but it took forever and I had to leave. She said the 3G network would continue to send the notes to my phone. When I got home NO NOTES! I am desperate to get them back on my phone. Help please!

    • iPhone Expert says:

      Dear Michelle,

      Did you try to sync your iPhone with Gmail as per the current page instructions?

  53. Mike says:

    Wanted to confirm I am reading the comments above correctly. I am trying to sync my gmail contacts with my iphone is a two-way over the air sync. I setup my gmail account as an exchange account and selected mail, calendars and contacts to be sync. Mail and calendar works just fine both ways. I can add an invite in gmail and it appears on my iphone and can add an invite on my iphone and it appears in gmail. The issue I am having is around the contacts. I can add a contact to gmail and it appears on my iphone, but if I try and delete or add a new contact on my iphone it never syncs to gmail. With this two way sync of contacts only work if I plug my iphone into itunes each day and let it sync?

    Thanks,

    Mike

  54. ksw says:

    Please advise how to merge contacts between iphone and outlook 2007
    (have input over 1000 contacts in iphone and kept some old contacts in outlook 2007)

  55. Jay says:

    I’m hoping someone can help me with this…

    I’m trying to be able to set calendar alerts both online using google calendar and on the iphone 4s (not sure which calendar program to use on the iphone) and have the two sync, while also being able to display (and sync) multiple gmail calendars on the iphone.

    I’ve tried doing it using the Google iphone app, but that doesn’t allow me to set alerts on the iphone.

    I’ve also tried using the calendar app that comes on the iphone, but that won’t display multiple gmail calendars.

    Any thoughts, suggestions or solutions?
    Thanks,
    Jay

  56. archie says:

    May you please help me sort out my problem. I owned an iphone 3G and recently I bought an iphone 4…I want to transfer my contacts, messages, notes to my iphone 4 however syncing it from my pc using itunes did not work. only music transferred. in lieu of this, would you please help me on this, what would i need to do? Your help will be highly appreciated. Thank you so much.

  57. Warren says:

    I have an iPhone 4S. I had Companion Link for my Droid and am using it for the iPhone. Every items works on syncing except on deleting a contact from the iphone it is placing the contact under other contacts from my contacts. When I sync in companion link on my pc, cl does not delete the contact on the pc since it is in other contacts (per companion link tech support).

  58. Tera says:

    Hello, once I follow the instructions to setup the sync, how do I retrieve my contacts or calendar? Can I do it through my gmail account? Thanks for the clarifications.

    • iPhone Expert says:

      Dear Tera,

      Your contacts and calendar will be on both your iPhone and in your Gmail account, you don’t need to retrieve them more than that probably

  59. mel says:

    I have tried doing what you said to do to sync my calendar, contacts, and notes with google. The contacts synced. However, on the “info” section of iTunes where I selected “sync with google” instead of “sync with Outlook” for the contacts, when I click on the dropdown for notes and calendars, the drop down that says “Outlook” has no other choices – so I can’t tell it to sync to google for those two – which is probably why the notes and calendar are not syncing. Help!!!

    • iPhone Expert says:

      Dear Mel,

      For your Calendars and Notes, your best bet is to use Google Sync, not iTunes

  60. David Birtwistle says:

    I been trying to sync my Contacts from my Gmail Account to my iPhone 4S and when adding a exchange account to sync, it keeps asking me to ‘Enter the password for the Exchange account “Exchange”‘ why is this and what is it? I have been using my password from my gmail account but it won’t work.

    can anyone help me please

    • iPhone Expert says:

      Dear David,

      This question has been answered to another visitor called Matt earlier in these comments

      Type CTRL+F and enter Matt

  61. lynn banks says:

    Hi, our office has just acquired iphone4 phones, we sync’d all contacts just fine…..now they want to delete the gmail accounts and just have our office email accounts on them….if I delete the gmail (exchange) email will that also delete the contacts?
    Thanks

  62. Stefanija says:

    Hello!

    I just followed all of the directions previously stated above. It says that I will be able to see my notes when I log onto gmail.. under the “notes” tab. I am logged onto Gmail.. Where is the notes tab? Can I access my notes on gmail, isn’t that what this tutorial was about? I am so confused. Please let me know how I can view my notes on gmail! I really need to back them up.

    Thank you so much for your time

    Stefanija

  63. nadia says:

    hi! really hoping you can help! i am using the new iphone 4s and am unable to see my ‘accounts’ in notes even though i have turned notes ‘on’ in my email settings for the gmail accounts i want to sync. accounts button does not even appear in the notes app. please help!

    • Dominic says:

      Nadia,

      I just had a similar problem, but with the iPhone 4. I’m curious if you ever found a resolution. The accounts button is complete gone in both the settings and the notes app.

      In the past, I’ve use IMAP to sync my notes w/ Gmail. Today I noticed that my recent notes were not in Gmail. The last one shown was November 20th. I turned off the Gmail notes sync and then turned it back on. All the notes I made since November 20th were instantly deleted. As a warning to anyone else who notices their newer notes not syncing with Gmail, email them all to yourself before you do anything else.

      As far as I understand, there is no easy way to get these notes back if you haven’t done a recent backup on iTunes.

      I was under the impression that the iPhone simply pushes the notes to Gmail as a back up rather than the other way around.

      As a test, I made a new note today after turning sync back on. The note appeared in Gmail. When I then turned off notes syncing, all of my notes were removed from my iPhone.

      This seems broken to me as Google Sync is often mentioned as a preferred way to backup notes. I would think that third party applications / protocols should be able to remove something created on the iPhone using a native app without as least asking especially considering the data on the device was newer.

      Any advice?

      Thanks!

  64. Tom Turner says:

    Thanks for posting these instructions! They worked perfectly for my Google apps account.

  65. jesus says:

    I Have An Iphone 4 i set everything up to try to get my gmail through the microsoft exchange thing but it says enter exchange password but i dont know what the passwors is because it isnt my email password

    • iPhone Expert says:

      Dear Jesus,

      Look for the answer I provided to Matt higher in these comments

  66. Patrick Dorsey says:

    I screwed up, deleted my Exchange account because I didn’t know what it was and now my Gmail account won’t show any of my emails. I’ve added the exchange account again and I’ve tried removing it and re-adding it, but it doesn’t work.

  67. Brittany says:

    I got a replacement iphone 4 bc i lost mine, i was wondering every since i update the phone it will not alloy me to add and other iphone 4 ppl to my contacts and it has a +1 in front of all their numbers?

    • iPhone Expert says:

      Dear Brittany,

      It’s hard to say

      Try to sync your new iPhone with Gmail, it should import these information

  68. Brittany says:

    I just purchased an iphone 4s and am having trouble syncing my contacts & calendar from my iphone 4 to the 4s. I plugged in my 4 to sync everything in itunes then plugged in the new 4s to the same itunes account thinking that everything would just transfer over but it didn’t. I was able to get my apps but nothing else. Now I can’t even turn on my old iphone4 to get my contacts because I was going to just re-enter them all by hand into my new phone….what should I do? Is there a certain button or something more I need to do to ensure everything was backed up? When I plug the 4 into my computer it wants to restore it but if I do this and didn’t back it up properly won’t I lose all my data? PLEASE HELP!

  69. grover says:

    i’ve followed all the instructions etc etc
    when i add something to my gmail calendar it shows on my phone
    but
    when i add something to my iphone calendar it doesn’t show on my google calendar
    help … what am i doing wrong?
    i’ve synced synced and synced again!!!???

  70. Mauro says:

    Nice job here, for all I’ve read. Congrats on your work.
    I could not find, however (and did not try it, afraid of losing data) mentions about syncing solely my Google calendar into IPhone4. Is it possible, without mixing Contacts and Mail, which I would like to keep independent?
    Thanks for any help on this.

    • iPhone Expert says:

      Dear Mauro,

      Sure

      When you create the Exchange account, simply switch off Mail and Contacts and they won’t sync

  71. Frank says:

    Still can’t get my iphone contacts to get to my gmail …. I can only go from gmail to iphone.

  72. B Ray says:

    I figured this would be simple, but it’s not working. I can’t sync my wife’s contacts with her gmail account… she has iphone 4. I don’t want the same contacts as her b/c she has friends i’ll never call, she has business contacts that I’ll never call. Same goes for me. So now I have already sync’d my contacts with my gmail account… I have 3GS. We both use the same computer to update, sync, store music and all that. That shouldn’t make a difference, should it? When I tried syncing hers, I got the notice “Syncing with “Google Contacts” will change more than 15% of your Contacts on this computer.” I pressed “Allow” figuring the reason it popped up was b/c she has contacts listed multiple times b/c of silly reasons. Then I got a message about resolving several issues and here is where it got real confusing. I had to resolve the issues by selecting either the contact from “my iphone” or from “her iphone” b/c either the numbers were listed under different categories “other” vs “work” or something like that. So why did it even bring my iphone into the situation when both phones are linked to different gmail accounts? I tried to sync hers but I don’t see anything on her gmail account. I checked my account and they’re not on there as well, my contacts are but not hers.

  73. daniel Simoes says:

    omg i was trying to sync contacts foe 4 days and this link helped me so muchh thank u like forreal . now i actualli have all mii 422 contacts in less then 1 min…god bless you ..smart people… im jus another retard from perth amboy Simoes in da house yeeeeerrr..krush them bluuueeezzzz alll day a lll niiiteee…

  74. Andrew S says:

    I am trying to do something maddeningly simple but it’s taking forever:

    -I have had the iPhone 3G (not 3GS) for ~3 years and have been syncing it with my old PC
    -I just got the new iPhone 4S
    -I have a new iMac and want to manage everything from there
    -Ideally, I want to transfer everything from my 3G to 4S, including apps, texts, notes, pictures I took using the 3G, and, most importantly, contacts
    -But I will settle for copying the contacts only!

    I’ve tried syncing address book contents using iTunes (and using the merge function), but no contacts end up in my address book.

    Is there any way at all to circumvent iTunes to get all the contacts on my 4S? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

    Thanks,

    Andrew

  75. Lynn T says:

    I have set up both ways to test. Using Gmail as an Exchange account for mail, calendar and contacts and setting up using Gmail account for mail and calendar and Exchange for contacts. In both ways, if I add a contact to my iOS device, the contact does not show up in Google contacts. If I add a contact to Google contacts on my computer, the contact shows up in iOS device. I have both an iPad running iOS5.1 and an iPod Touch which runs iOS 4.2.1

  76. Anne says:

    I have followed the instructions twice, but i keep getting a message that says my password for “Exchange” is incorrect. This is my correct Google password. What is wrong?
    Thanks.

  77. DZ says:

    Hi,

    I have iCloud on my Iphone 4S and on my old 3GS, everything synched perfectly fine without me having to connect to my computer. However, I have a gmail account and I am trying to sync the calendars, but it only goes one way. When I put something on my calendar on my computer, it syncs to my phone but not vice versa. Can you please help me have them sync together. Thank you.

  78. KAL says:

    I have my gmail calendar synched to my iphone 4s calendar. How do I prevent entries in my iphone calendar from showing in gmail calendar? I only want the gmail calendar to show on my iphone, but not vice versa.

  79. Oscar says:

    My gmail contacts on my Verizon iPhone4s was synced just fine but now I’m noticing some of my contacts are being shuffled – some info for some contacts are from other contacts. Why is that? What is the fix?

  80. manav says:

    hi i m using new Iphone 4S, i have created the exchange account wit gmail and it is showing in my settings and contact list also. but the last option
    Tap “Keep on my iPhone”, so that your existing iPhone Contacts and Calendars are preserved.. did not featured on my phone.. i cannot see any of my iphone contacts in exchange list. please help me…

  81. Akshay says:

    Hi. Thanks for your advice.
    When trying to sync the contacts – it keeps saying that my password for exchange is incorrect – I have tried a number of times, but it says that same thing. Any other way or work around? Thanks

  82. Carol T says:

    #1: I just got a new Iphone 4S and synced my contacts to the new phone from my old 3GS. When the phone numbers populated there were no () or -, therefore when someone calls me, it just comes up a number even though they are in my contact list. How can I correct this.

    #2: On the same sync, all my calendar events did not transfer over. Please help !!!

    Thank you

    • iPhone Expert says:

      Dear Carol,

      This is apparently a bug with iOS 5
      Try to downgrade to iOS 4 if you can, which should fix the problem
      Otherwise, wait for a fix of iOS 5

  83. tom says:

    I followed the instructions to sync contacts from iPhone TO Gmail – it is set up and there are no errors BUT I do not see any of my iPhone contacts in my Gmail account?? HELP …..

  84. NEVIN says:

    How do I sync existing Notes in my iPhone 4 with my new Gmail account.

  85. Gennaro says:

    Hi,

    I’ve set up Gmail synching and it’s working swimmingly. One thing though: how can I synch all my previous, i.e.: “On My iPhone”, notes to Gmail?

    Thanks in advance for any help given,

    Gennaro

  86. Philippe says:

    Hi,
    I am impressed by your steady patience in helping others ! 🙂
    I went through the whole page, but could not find the answer to this question :
    – Is there a way to keep contacts into groups (sor far just a big list) ?
    It seems that the only information that are synchronized are the ones that appear in the basic form of Gmail contacts (names, phones, emails, addresses, notes… and pictures which is already great !).
    Thanks
    Philippe

    • iPhone Expert says:

      Dear Philippe,

      Unfortunately, Gmail Groups are not available on iPhone as of today

  87. atikur patel says:

    Hello There,
    I have recently purchased a samsung galaxy s2, i want to transfer my contacts and notes from my current iphone4 to the new phone, i tried settting up a gmail account etc, in the manner you explained above, however, my contacts and notes are not appearing in my gmail at all
    Many Thanks

  88. atikur patel says:

    Hello Again
    I managed to work out
    What i was doing wrong, I had to sync itunes with google rather than windows contacts, Just one more problem, although some people have raised the issue and you have explained i am still a bit confused, how do i get my notes from the iphone4 onto my gmail in order to transfer them onto my new phone,
    Thanks

  89. atikur patel says:

    hello again
    just one more thing, is it possible in any way to transfer my sms messages to my new phone
    Thanks

  90. Megs says:

    Hi

    I want to use my gmail account through microsoft exchange server. I tried to follow the steps above, but i keep getting prompts that i have an incorrect password and therefore wouldnt set me up.

    I have two gmail accounts. One worked and the other didnt?

    please can someone advise?

  91. Kate says:

    Hi,

    I am a brand new iPhone user. I set up my Gmail account on my iPhone 4s when prompted as one of the initial steps in the beginning. This of course did not transfer my contacts, only the emails. I found the info on your forum very helpful and used Microsoft Exchange to successfully transfer my contacts to my phone. My question is when I view my Mailboxes on the phone it lists Gmail and Exchange as two separate accounts even though they are essentially the same thing. I understand why they are listed separately but my hope is that one can be deleted. As it is now it I am getting double emails coming through to the phone. It’s just annoying and unnecessary. Can I use Exchange only for Contacts so that Exchange doesn’t show up as a mailbox? I hope I have made some sense. I’m very confused and any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks so much!!

    • iPhone Expert says:

      Dear Kate,

      Just delete one of the two accounts from Settings -> Mail, Contacts, Calendars and you should be all set

  92. Vivek says:

    When in Itunes, I try to sync my GMAIL contacts available on the iPhone4, its keeps on asking for my Google id again and again. Cant proceed to the next step.
    What wrong is happening here?? pls advise

    • iPhone Expert says:

      Dear Vivek,

      Just refer to the point about Captcha in the Notes section and you will find the answer to your question

  93. Traci says:

    I am relatively new to iPhone. I am brand new to the Google Calendar. I have sync’d the calendar with my phone and most of it is there. I am missing 1 calendar out of the 5 I have set up online. I have already deleted the account and started over once, but it didn’t help.

  94. Jerry says:

    I sync with Outlook and naively assumed that notes in Outlook would sync with notes on my iphone. Of course it’s more complicated than that. Notes don’t just sit in Outlook or iphones, they sit in email accounts (huh?! why?). Anyway, after trying to find notes I’d written on my iphone in my Outlook folder after syncing, I discovered that my iphone defaulted notes to my gmail account (I never told it to do that – Google did). I have now changed it to default notes to ‘On my iPhone’ (why on earth wasn’t this the default setting all along?!). But all notes I’ve written are now sitting in my gmail account, not, therefore, in Outlook… but then when I add my gmail account to Outlook (I don’t really want to do this since it crashes Outlook thanks to the millions of duplicated emails in Gmail – and I only want the bloody notes), the gmail account doesn’t appear in Outlook notes after all that.

    The easiest ‘fix’ would have been to move notes on my iphone from the gmail account to ‘On my iPhone’ (which is where they should have been in the first place – and of course logically still are). But I can only Print or Email each note (and not as an attachment, but as a concatenated load of unreadable rubbish in each email).

    Why oh why do developers make everything so damn complicated? I’m now in tears and contemplating burning my iphone, my PC, my wifi hub and every other baffling complexity in my once simple, peaceful pen and paper world.

  95. George says:

    I have Microsoft Exchange set up and running for email and calendars, but all my contacts are only on my iPhone 4S in “All on My iPhone” group. Nothing in Exchange Contacts since nothing is on Gmail. How can I do a transfer of contacts from iPhone to Gmail? My computer runs OSX 10.4.11 and iTunes does not recognize the iPhone as a device.

    Thanks for any help.

  96. ash says:

    Hi,

    I’m been perusing the questions above and havent seen the following question answered..only the reverse of it.
    I currently want to sync the calendar on my iphone with Google Calendar, so that I can use Google Calendar as a back up option, instead of iCloud.
    So right now my Google Calendar is blank because I haven’t added anything to it. My iphone calendar is chock full of events and I want to transfer them over to Google Calendar.
    I’ve followed the instructions from Google for setting up Google Sync on my iphone and yet my Google Calendar is still blank when I refresh the page. Shouldn’t it update the calendar with all the events on my Iphone calendar?

    Thanks so much for your help! This site is an amazing resource.

    • iPhone Expert says:

      Dear Ash,

      I’ve just added a solution to Transfer iPhone Calendar to Google Calendar in the Notes section

  97. Paul says:

    Hi there,
    I am trying to sync all my iphone contacts to gmail so I can then transfer my contacts to my new android phone.

    I have set up the gmail exchange account and tried to sync via iTunes (selecting sync with google contacts). However, no contacts with phone numbers have appeared in my gmail account. What am I doing wrong?

    I am using an iphone 3GS, itunes 10.6 and a PC running Windows Vista.

  98. Andrea says:

    Help please. A little over a week ago, my iPhone 4 started not syncing with my gmail (had synced email and calendar just fine since over a year ago) and I got the error message stating that my password was incorrect. I have tried everything. I deleted the account, added it back, deleted again, changed my password, reset, everything . . . I keep reading about the Captcha on different sites, but every time I go to the link – it brings me to a screen that says “Additional verification step” but the only thing there is a continue button (this happens whether I am already logged into my gmail account or not). If I hit “continue”, I am taken to a screen that says “This verification will expire in 10 minutes, so return to your device or application to resume your sign-in” – yet, nothing changes when I try to sign in. Can anyone help?

    • iPhone Expert says:

      Dear Andrea,

      Make sure to go through the verification process on a computer, not from your mobile

  99. scott says:

    Thank you for your easy assistance!! I have been trying to get the contacts to sync for a while. Very easy steps!

    Another question: is there a way to either have google group addresses (like “family” and there are 9 family addresses to send out email; or “work” and the 14 people at work I email with) to transfer from google contacts to iPhone 4? Or do you know does iphone4 support that, and if so, how?

    Thanks

    • iPhone Expert says:

      Dear Scott,

      The ability to sync iphone with groups of google contacts is unfortunately not supported natively
      You may find applications that allow this, though

  100. sydnee says:

    I think that I missed “contacts” when setting up my gmail account on my iphone. Now, contacts that I add to gmail via the computer do not sync to my iphone. I tried to set up the account, but of course, it is already set up. Is there a way to edit my existing gmail account to sync contacts, or do I need to delete and start over?

    Many thanks!

    • iPhone Expert says:

      Dear Sydnee,

      You should be able to sync your Gmail contacts to your iPhone by simply turning them on in your Gmail account settings on your iPhone
      If the problem remains, just delete the account from your iPhone and set it up again

  101. chris says:

    So, I am moving my wife to an iphone 4, she had a google android phone hated it couldnt run it, biggest issue was when did the sync for her gmail all 1700 contacts came in and jumbled with her phone contacts. does the iphone keep the email vs phone seperate? i dont want to waste my time and change phones with her and have her get the same issue, any help would be appreciated prior to me switching this

    • iPhone Expert says:

      Dear Chris,

      On the iPhone it is not possible to separate the phone numbers from email or other contacts.
      What you can do though, is to create a group for email only and another for phone contacts, then add the relevant contacts into each group

  102. Inc says:

    I have one problem with my IPAD 1, 3.2.2

    I want to sync my notes with my gmail, but i could not make it. I tried to create the account with microsoft exchange, but i receive just CALENDAR, CONTACTS, EMAIL-that’s all.

    If you could solve it. please help me.

  103. hong says:

    i use my yahoo account for google calender, and try to sync google calendar with iphone using CalDAV, but doesn’t seem to work. Can somebody give me an advice?
    Thanks

  104. Daniele Mancinelli says:

    Hello,
    I have followed the procedure to synch my iPhone with Gmail using the Mic Exchanger and it somehow worked in the past.
    I was trying again yesterday to help a friend that got a new iPhone5 with iOS6 but she constantly gets error saying something about either her wrong password or impossible to connect to server.
    I then tried to add a second gmail account to my mobile and i experienced the same problem.
    Could someone tell me what I have done wrong or what could be the cause of such problem?

    My best regards Daniele

  105. nicole says:

    Hi, I have been searching for help with my gmail calendar syncing. I have an iPhone5 and have all my calendar appts/info on my iPhone calendar (the standard factory calendar) and want to sync it with my gmail calendar. The fear that I’m having is that I have NO INFO ON MY GMAIL CALENDAR and am hesitant to sync thinking that the gmail calendar will overwrite my iPhone calendar through the sync and I will lose all the info and end up with a blank calendar.
    All I basically want is to be able to import all the info I have in my iPhone calendar into my gmail calendar and to continue being able to enter appts into the iPhone that will auto sync into the gmail calendar. my major concern comes when the notice pops up asking me if I want to “keep local calendar data on my iPhone”

    I already have my gmail account setup for email syncing, but do not have the calendar, contacts, or notes options selected.

  106. Sam says:

    Hi. I’ve just deleted my google account on my iphone 4s which was set up with ‘gmail’ not ‘exchange’ and followed your instructions here to sync iphone contacts with google contacts. The account created ok, but the contacts haven’t synced and when I open up the account in the mail app the account doesn’t have any mail, and says it can’t contact the server. I’ve rechecked over everything I wrote for spelling mistakes and checked other internet apps for connectivity. Not sure if this a problem at the google server end or mine. Any advice would be great Thanks

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *