04-27-2011, 08:41 PM

Hi Everyone!

What is the best solution (a free alternative would obviously be great, but I'll pay) to sync multiple gMail accounts with Address Book???

What I want:

I want to sync 2 Google accounts to Address Book, and I need the contacts to sync with specific folders so I am able to open Address Book and have "My Contacts" with ONLY my Mac contacts, then 2 groups under, one for each Google account.

What I'm working with:

I am on a Mac running 10.6.6. The Google accounts have their own domains, but I am testing with my @gmail.com accounts.

What I have already done:

I have researched for hours and here's what I found:

syncem.com- seemed great until I realized that all of the contacts from all accounts go directly into "My Contacts" so I'm not able to differentiate which ones belong to which account

soocial- seems better for calendars, I'd need to buy it just to see what the multiple Google account functionality looks like

spanningsync- doesn't allow you to add multiple Google accounts, you are basically paying for a pretty interface to manage calendars (or so it appears)

Does anyone have any good recommendations?

~ Dina PY

06-13-2011, 07:30 PM

Originally Posted by Spektrum32

Hi Everyone!

What is the best solution (a free alternative would obviously be great, but I'll pay) to sync multiple gMail accounts with Address Book???

What I want:

I want to sync 2 Google accounts to Address Book, and I need the contacts to sync with specific folders so I am able to open Address Book and have "My Contacts" with ONLY my Mac contacts, then 2 groups under, one for each Google account.

What I'm working with:

I am on a Mac running 10.6.6. The Google accounts have their own domains, but I am testing with my @gmail.com accounts.

What I have already done:

I have researched for hours and here's what I found:

syncem.com- seemed great until I realized that all of the contacts from all accounts go directly into "My Contacts" so I'm not able to differentiate which ones belong to which account

soocial- seems better for calendars, I'd need to buy it just to see what the multiple Google account functionality looks like

spanningsync- doesn't allow you to add multiple Google accounts, you are basically paying for a pretty interface to manage calendars (or so it appears)

Does anyone have any good recommendations?

~ Dina PY

First, you can't have a Group with entries that are not also found in All Contacts. The only place to get an entry for a Group is from All Contacts. Adding an entry to a Group automatically adds it to All Contacts.

Second, what you want to do is possible only with separate Address Book Accounts. With the new Address Book Server available with Snow Leopard, you can set up individual MobileMe accounts for your separate Groups. With the advent of the upcoming iCloud, you won't have to do anything to synchronize your accounts across all devices - it will be automatic when you log in to your MobileMe account on any device.

Third, you can share your Address Book with other MobileMe users, and you can do this for each account in the Address Book. This way, you can keep your club contact list up to date for all users who also have a MobileMe account.

Fourth, since each Address Book account has its own All Contacts, there is no need to have a separate Group for those entries unless you wanted to have a Group for club Officers or Board of Directors or for club activities giving the contact for each activity.