Syncing Apple & Gmail Contacts

[Eagle 20]

So there are a couple things I'm trying to accomplish at the moment. First, the only email provider I've ever really used is gmail, but it's become an organizational nightmare. So I want to try using Apple Mail on my Mac to see if I can stay on top of things better. This brings to me to the second thing, and that is my contacts.

At the moment I use Apple Contacts for only those I call or visit, and Gmail Contacts for only those I email. So, what I'm trying to figure out is how I can two-way sync my Apple and Gmail Contacts but still keep them separate. I'm thinking the best way to do this is for me to create Groups, which I've already started, but I'm unsure if this will actually work with Gmail and don't want to waste a lot of time if it won't.

So far I created two Apple Contacts Groups. The first is iPhone Contacts so only those I call/visit appear on my iPhone, and the second is Mail Contacts so only those I email appear on my Mac. I already moved the 200+ contacts I call/visit to my iPhone Contacts Group, but don't know the best way to go about dealing with the 500+ contacts I email.

That said, what's the easiest, quickest way to two-way sync my Apple Contacts/Groups and my Gmail Contacts without getting duplicates?

Also, I have an IFTTT Pro account if it can help with this somehow, and if anyone knows how I can use it to backup my contacts that would be helpful too!

Thank you in advance to anyone who replies!!

 

[velocityg4]

Are the Apple contacts synced with iCloud? If so there is no need to do anything just setup your Google account on your Mac/iPhone/&c. Your Google stuff will sync with Google and iCloud stuff with iCloud. You can view them together or separately. But will not cross sync and merge.

 

[MacGizmo]

1. Export all your Gmail contacts.
2. Create a Group in Apple Contacts
3. Import all your Gmail contacts.
4. Go to the Card menu and choose Card>Look for Duplicates
5. When it finds any, click Merge (if that's what you want to do, or simply delete the dupe)
6. Repeat until no more dupes are found

 

[ApfelKuchen]

Everyone has their own logic in life, but is it really possible that you never email the contacts you call/visit, and never call/visit the contacts you email? It seems an artificial distinction - do you have contacts in both accounts for those who you both call and email?

I've found that having all contacts, regardless of purpose, in a single account works best for me. One contact card per person, with all the necessary info.

There's not a way to automatically sync contacts that are maintained in separate accounts. You can periodically export contacts from one account, add them to the other, and then manage duplicates, but that's a whole lot of work.

After merging contact info (as described in MacGizmo's post) you can then create a Group that's intended for use on Mac and another for use on iPhone/iPad if you wish.

Personally, I've given up on any kind of Groups organization - rather than spend time categorizing or scrolling through a list of names, I just use search.