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Gmail to iCloud

spidertaker23

spidertaker23

macrumors regular
Original poster
Aug 5, 2009
152
41
I own a Windows 7 PC and a iPhone. I am currently using gmail.

I would like to migrate to iCloud from gmail. I really want all my old gmail emails in iCloud and my gmail contacts in iCloud. Is the only way to do this by syncing both with Outlook 2010 (which I have) and transfering them over using outlook 2010? No migrate option? Doesn't even look like iCloud mail supports importing csv files for address book import ...?

I would have thought Apple would have made this alot easier to migrate from gmail, hotmail, yahoo etc. When you sign up for gmail or yahoo mail they use some sort of email migration service to transfer your data over.

Any thoughts?
 
You may be able to export you Google contacts, then import them into your iPhone, and subsequently into iCloud.. But I am not aware of a way to do this for your e-mail archives.

Better question is - why would you want to do this? Google mail/calendar/contact services are infinitely better than what MobileMe/iCloud offers.
 
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hitekalex said:
Better question is - why would you want to do this? Google mail/calendar/contact services are infinitely better than what MobileMe/iCloud offers.
Click to expand...

I certainly agree. While it's too early for me to pass judgement on iCloud, based on all I've read I see no benefit in using it for my digital storage & sync purposes.

Especially since it's proprietary and will only work with my new Apple products if updated to the latest OS X and iOS. That leaves out my ThinkPads, Androids, and other gear.

Dropbox and Google are simply stellar and I've got few years of excellent use, so they have a great track record of reliability with me. The ease of setup and usage outweighs any thoughts of changing just for the sake of it.

In addition since I use my Macs for work, I cannot afford unexpected down time like I experienced when using MobileMe.
 
My reasoning for wanting to go to iCloud is twofold.

Gmail exchange/activesync/googlesync mail for iOS - when you delete a message it archives it instead of deleting it. You can't turn this off. It's been a known issue for 2 years on google's forums. Problem hasn't been resolved by google and was acknowledge over a year ago and no further posts by google since then. So I've had to use gmail IMAP via fetch since gmail doesn't support IMAP idle push mail.

The other issue is that I currently use exchange/activesync/googlesync for my gmail contacts and if I add a high res picture to a contact, as soon as it syncs to gmail it downscaled the picture to a very very small thumbnail size. Therefore when a phone call comes into my iPhone it shows the little thumbnail icon in the top left instead of filling the screen.

Gmail contact sync used to have a problem where it would sync contacts addresses wrong so all the address was in one field on the iPhone. This was a problem for a year and half and just like 6 months ago they fixed it.

I guess I'm just sick and tired of Google fixing widely reported problems related to Apple products on their own sweet time. I really wanted to just drop Google and go apple end to end to avoid bs problems like this.

Obviously, the first issue is the biggest reason for wanting to leave.

So far though - iCloud is a let down.

For the last 24 hours since launch the service has been barely working. It is finally stable now from what I can tell. For some damn reason there is absolutely no threaded messaging in iCloud mail on the web. Despite iOS and apple mail (which looks almost identical to iCloud mail) having threaded messaging. This by itself is a deal breaker. God gmail has had threaded messaging since it launched.

Apple has made no way to import any contacts directly to the iCloud web UI or any way to migrate your old mail. Which is completely retarded. Gmail does both of these things. >.<

Overall, I am seriously disappointed. I really hope Apple changes some stuff. But, I'm thinking they won't.

It seems like iCloud was made for people like my parents who go buy and iPad and have never had web based email before.

Also I want to note that you can use iCloud mail with non apple devices once you setup your iCloud @me address. http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4864
 
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Related question:

Is it possible to have all of my gmail emails forwarded to my me.com account? I'm thinking of making this my other "primary" account instead of gmail and am hoping there is a simple and seamless way to do this?
 
Far as I can tell gmail is super advanced, but has some seriously glaring flaws when it comes to interacting with iOS devices, but google doesn't f'n care because it's not android. Then there is iCloud is seriously limited in it's functionality in order to make it simple enough for people like my parents and stuff to use. Seriously frustrated, I was really hoping Apple would launch a product that would seriously deliver. The fact that you can't even make a @me account without a iOS device or a mac is bizarre. Why wouldn't they allow anyone that goes to icloud.com to make an account?
 
spidertaker23 said:
Far as I can tell gmail is super advanced, but has some seriously glaring flaws when it comes to interacting with iOS devices, but google doesn't f'n care because it's not android. Then there is iCloud is seriously limited in it's functionality in order to make it simple enough for people like my parents and stuff to use. Seriously frustrated, I was really hoping Apple would launch a product that would seriously deliver. The fact that you can't even make a @me account without a iOS device or a mac is bizarre. Why wouldn't they allow anyone that goes to icloud.com to make an account?
Click to expand...

iCloud is meant for people that have Apple devices. They don't want just anyone using the service.

It is meant for their customers and their customers alone.
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A334 Safari/7534.48.3)

I am forwarding my college email and my Gmail to my iCloud account, and it is working flawlessly now after a few server hiccups. I have no fix for bringing my Gmail Calendar over, so I'm just going to phase it out over time. I don't think iCloud is overly simplistic, and I definitely agree with whoever said Apple is going to be better to its iOS users than Google will.
 
_Matt said:
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A334 Safari/7534.48.3)

I am forwarding my college email and my Gmail to my iCloud account, and it is working flawlessly now after a few server hiccups. I have no fix for bringing my Gmail Calendar over, so I'm just going to phase it out over time. I don't think iCloud is overly simplistic, and I definitely agree with whoever said Apple is going to be better to its iOS users than Google will.
Click to expand...

Yea I suppose there isn't anything that bad about it. I'm just mad there is no easy way to import my gmail mail and contacts into it and the fact that there is no threaded messaging that turns me off too it.
 
spidertaker23 said:
Gmail exchange/activesync/googlesync mail for iOS - when you delete a message it archives it instead of deleting it. You can't turn this off.
Click to expand...

Yes, it's somewhat annoying, but I have been using a simple workaround. I created a custom tag in Gmail, called it "IOS Trash". Then, instead of hitting delete key, I simply move all unwanted email in that tag (folder) on iOS devices. Once in a while, I empty that tag when on desktop.

Doing this has become a second nature when using iOS Mail, so I don't even find it inconvenient. Certainly not worth giving up Google services over, for me. There would have a been a LOT more things that I'd miss by switching to Apple services.
 
spidertaker23 said:
Gmail exchange/activesync/googlesync mail for iOS - when you delete a message it archives it instead of deleting it. You can't turn this off. It's been a known issue for 2 years on google's forums. Problem hasn't been resolved by google and was acknowledge over a year ago and no further posts by google since then. So I've had to use gmail IMAP via fetch since gmail doesn't support IMAP idle push mail.
Click to expand...

If you delete it from "All Mail" it deletes it forever.
 
hitekalex said:
Yes, it's somewhat annoying, but I have been using a simple workaround. I created a custom tag in Gmail, called it "IOS Trash". Then, instead of hitting delete key, I simply move all unwanted email in that tag (folder) on iOS devices. Once in a while, I empty that tag when on desktop.

Doing this has become a second nature when using iOS Mail, so I don't even find it inconvenient. Certainly not worth giving up Google services over, for me. There would have a been a LOT more things that I'd miss by switching to Apple services.
Click to expand...

That's a pretty good idea. I never thought of that. Thanks for the suggestion.

I think for now I am going to stick with gmail until iCloud is more mature. I really wish gmail would fix those two issues and I would have no reason to switch to anything >.<.
 
hitekalex said:
Yes, it's somewhat annoying, but I have been using a simple workaround. I created a custom tag in Gmail, called it "IOS Trash". Then, instead of hitting delete key, I simply move all unwanted email in that tag (folder) on iOS devices. Once in a while, I empty that tag when on desktop.

Doing this has become a second nature when using iOS Mail, so I don't even find it inconvenient. Certainly not worth giving up Google services over, for me. There would have a been a LOT more things that I'd miss by switching to Apple services.
Click to expand...

That's a great work around. What I've been doing is keeping a safari page logged into google mail and delete from there. Google's active sync implementation along with their labels is the problem I wish they would fix. AND now that we have reminders it would be nice to see Google implement tasks sync.
 
you can delete gmail from ios device

You are able to delete gmail messages from any iOS device as long as the email account wasn't set up with exchange on the iOS device.

In the mail, contacts, calendar settings, click on the gmail account in question. It should bring up a screen that shows

Account "xxxxx@gmail.com"

mail ON/OFF
calendars ON/OFF
notes ON/OFF

Archive Messages ON/OFF


if you turn the archive messages to "off" it will delete all messages from your gmail account that you've deleted on that iOS device.


Again, this method only applies if you didn't set up the account using the Exchange method, but set it up using the "gmail" quick set up built into the add new account option on the iOS device.
 
I prefer having the delete button archive emails. In an ideal world we'd have a switch on m.google.com/sync to switch between the two, but if I had to pick I'd definitely have it the way it is now.

Part of the benefit of Gmail is the 7GB of storage space, meaning that most people will never have to delete an email.
 
Angry-Birds said:
I prefer having the delete button archive emails. In an ideal world we'd have a switch on m.google.com/sync to switch between the two, but if I had to pick I'd definitely have it the way it is now.

Part of the benefit of Gmail is the 7GB of storage space, meaning that most people will never have to delete an email.
Click to expand...

That feature is there now.
 
hitekalex said:
You may be able to export you Google contacts, then import them into your iPhone, and subsequently into iCloud.. But I am not aware of a way to do this for your e-mail archives.

Better question is - why would you want to do this? Google mail/calendar/contact services are infinitely better than what MobileMe/iCloud offers.
Click to expand...

TOTALLY agree!
 
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