Synchronising Gmail contacts with the iPad

One issue I’ve experienced from the start is the lack of built-in capability to synchronise your Gmail contacts with the iPad. This can be a pain if, like me you have come from Android and migrated to iOS, or if you’ve got your main contacts listed within Google servers.  There are apps that allow for synchronisation between the two devices but they’re not free and neither have been a straightforward affair.

There is a simple way which I have just discovered, thanks to the beautifully crafted Appstart which I mentioned in an earlier post, produced by appadvice.com and linked to by the iPads for education’s website, maintained by a consorium of Australian schools that trialled the use of ipads in secondary education. That involves setting up your Gmail account as a Microsoft Exchange server, instead of selecting “Gmail” in the list of email providers in the Mail app. If you have set up an Exchange account on the iPad to access your Leeds emails and calendar, this won’t be of much use as we are only allowed 1 connection to an Exchange server, in which case jump to the next section of this blog.

1. How to set GMail as an Exchange server

• In Mail / Accounts select “Ad Account”, then “Microsoft Exchange” – instead of the built-in GMail account.
• Enter your Google username and password, then hit “Next”
• No comes the important part: on the next page you will be asked to enter a “Server” and “Domain”. For your email server, enter “m.google.com” and leave the domain field empty. Hit “Next”
• On the next page you will be asked which Google services you want to sync with your device.  You can bring your Google Calendars and contacts directly on the device
• Unless you want to delete all your existing Contacts and Calendars on your iPad, select the “Keep on my iPad” option when prompted
• Once you’re finished, hit “Done” and you’ve managed to configure push notifications for your Google Mail account and get your GMail contacts synchronised across the devices.

Has anybody managed to get it to work?

2. Alternatively

Contacts sync for Gmail is the app I have used so far to import my GMail contacts onto my iPad but it requires manual synchronisation with the risk of resulting in duplicates an/or deletions of existing contacts on either device.