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spidertaker23

macrumors regular
Original poster
Aug 5, 2009
152
41
Does anyone know of a way to transfer my contacts and email from gmail to iCloud?

Obviously I have my email in gmail organized into labels. But, obviously since iCloud does folders I wouldn't expect iCloud to follow the labels as folders because I have some emails marked as multiple labels.

I think I could handle if I could just migrate all my gmail to the iCloud archive for archive searching.

Also a way to migrate my contacts to iCloud.

I can't believe iCloud can't even import a csv ... wth.
 
Migrate it to Address Book. It will be automatically pushed up to iCloud.

Are you referring to a Mac? I have Windows 7 64-bit Enterprise :).

I suppose I could load Outlook 2010 just for that purpose, but really? just for contacts upload?

Also, any ideas on how to migrate mail?
 
I have to ask - what benefit would you get migrating or even copying your gmail mail to iCloud? Gmail itself is already a cloud service that you can pull up with the iPhone's Mail app. What would you have to gain by creating another copy in iCloud?
 
I have to ask - what benefit would you get migrating or even copying your gmail mail to iCloud? Gmail itself is already a cloud service that you can pull up with the iPhone's Mail app. What would you have to gain by creating another copy in iCloud?

The goal is to drop gmail all together in favor of iCloud. Down with google :). :cool:
 
The goal is to drop gmail all together in favor of iCloud. Down with google :). :cool:

Yeah, I definitely would advise against that. Gmail is used and trusted by millions. The only thing we can base iCloud from is MobileMe which honestly didn't do so well. Heck, I paid for my MM membership.

Also, Gmail will allow you to go cross platforms pretty easily and I'm not even sure if the Mail.app / iCloud can be accessed by non-Apple devices.

Also, currently the only way to share and see multiple calendars owned by different people is through Google Calendar. I would never give that up for iCal's version.
 
Yeah, I definitely would advise against that. Gmail is used and trusted by millions. The only thing we can base iCloud from is MobileMe which honestly didn't do so well. Heck, I paid for my MM membership.

Also, Gmail will allow you to go cross platforms pretty easily and I'm not even sure if the Mail.app / iCloud can be accessed by non-Apple devices.

Also, currently the only way to share and see multiple calendars owned by different people is through Google Calendar. I would never give that up for iCal's version.

Um,... you can share calendars with iCloud and have been able to with MobileMe for quite some time.

iCloud.com is accessible from any web browser. I don't see what's wrong with the OP's intended goal. I'm thinking of ditching gmail also... I just wish I could merge my gmail Apple ID, my mac.com Apple ID and my me.com Apple ID.
 
Um,... you can share calendars with iCloud and have been able to with MobileMe for quite some time.

iCloud.com is accessible from any web browser. I don't see what's wrong with the OP's intended goal. I'm thinking of ditching gmail also... I just wish I could merge my gmail Apple ID, my mac.com Apple ID and my me.com Apple ID.

Yes I think so. Gmail is the best for now but I'd like to migrate everything to iCloud. I trust Apple's philosophy more, I feel Google becoming not as "pure" as before now, and I personnaly don't feel so comfortable that ALL my words in ALL my mails has been DEEPLY analysed by Google, that's just crazy. The first to told me that was my mom, newbie in computers and she said "strange, I was looking at piano lessons yesterday and today I see ads of piano lessons on my PRIVATE mail" :eek:

Anyway, I'll migrate everything to iCloud anyway and hope someone has a brillant idea on how to do it (if not dragging all the mail into the Archive folder in Mail.app)
 
I want to thank the last two people that posted not sitting here and arguing why I want to do what I want to do. Everyone, has a different opinion of what is better iCloud or Gmail. I have been a gmail user since 2007 when I got my original iPhone generation 1.

The two reasons I am trying to ditch gmail is because after 2 years google has not allowed google sync on iPhone to put the message in the trash instead of archiving it when deleting on the iPhone (so I've had to use gmail fetch IMAP - because google doesn't support idle IMAP with push like it does on android!). The other issue is when you put a high res picture on your contact and google sync syncs it up to gmail it downscales the pictures res to thumbnail size everytime it syncs. Which is really really lame. Both of these issues have been issues for 2 years with huge long posts on their forums. But, they haven't fixed them yet.

I can't believe that apple didn't make some simple easy way to migrate mail and contacts from another provider. God even when you join yahoo mail or gmail they give you a simple way to suck all your contacts and mail over to the new service! God I don't even see a way to export or import mail from iCloud's web UI using csvs! Christ sake that's standard thing!

Anyone have any ideas.

Also - on a side note. I thought iCloud email was supposed to have threaded email like gmail and the iPhone does ... is that not the case?
 
I just went into GMail contacts and Calendar and exported them using the appropriate format...i.e one's that will import into iCal and Contacts on my mac. Then just click file >Import. Worked like a charm with the sync to iCloud.



I want to thank the last two people that posted not sitting here and arguing why I want to do what I want to do. Everyone, has a different opinion of what is better iCloud or Gmail. I have been a gmail user since 2007 when I got my original iPhone generation 1.

The two reasons I am trying to ditch gmail is because after 2 years google has not allowed google sync on iPhone to put the message in the trash instead of archiving it when deleting on the iPhone (so I've had to use gmail fetch IMAP - because google doesn't support idle IMAP with push like it does on android!). The other issue is when you put a high res picture on your contact and google sync syncs it up to gmail it downscales the pictures res to thumbnail size everytime it syncs. Which is really really lame. Both of these issues have been issues for 2 years with huge long posts on their forums. But, they haven't fixed them yet.

I can't believe that apple didn't make some simple easy way to migrate mail and contacts from another provider. God even when you join yahoo mail or gmail they give you a simple way to suck all your contacts and mail over to the new service! God I don't even see a way to export or import mail from iCloud's web UI using csvs! Christ sake that's standard thing!

Anyone have any ideas.

Also - on a side note. I thought iCloud email was supposed to have threaded email like gmail and the iPhone does ... is that not the case?
 
Um,... you can share calendars with iCloud and have been able to with MobileMe for quite some time.

iCloud.com is accessible from any web browser. I don't see what's wrong with the OP's intended goal. I'm thinking of ditching gmail also... I just wish I could merge my gmail Apple ID, my mac.com Apple ID and my me.com Apple ID.
Yeah but only with people who have iCal. I like google cloud services and I can give my mom or girlfriend a link and they can edit my calendar.
 
I'm looking to do the same thing you did (except for contacts—I don't really use them). All I did was open Mail on my Mac, click my "All Mail" folder in the Gmail section, select all the messages, and drag them into my iCloud archive. Well, it's taking a rather long time, but it's a simple solution and I don't foresee any problems with it.
 
Is iCloud working properly yet? I still cant get my phone to sync with it. I have everything set properly on my phone (triple checked all settings, logged out and back in, etc.) and my iCloud.com is still blank!?!

I use gmail for email, but my calendars, contacts, bookmarks, etc. are just on my mac and not working with icloud. It even says when my last backup was.

Anyone have any ideas?
 
I want to thank the last two people that posted not sitting here and arguing why I want to do what I want to do. Everyone, has a different opinion of what is better iCloud or Gmail. I have been a gmail user since 2007 when I got my original iPhone generation 1.

The two reasons I am trying to ditch gmail is because after 2 years google has not allowed google sync on iPhone to put the message in the trash instead of archiving it when deleting on the iPhone (so I've had to use gmail fetch IMAP - because google doesn't support idle IMAP with push like it does on android!). The other issue is when you put a high res picture on your contact and google sync syncs it up to gmail it downscales the pictures res to thumbnail size everytime it syncs. Which is really really lame. Both of these issues have been issues for 2 years with huge long posts on their forums. But, they haven't fixed them yet.

I can't believe that apple didn't make some simple easy way to migrate mail and contacts from another provider. God even when you join yahoo mail or gmail they give you a simple way to suck all your contacts and mail over to the new service! God I don't even see a way to export or import mail from iCloud's web UI using csvs! Christ sake that's standard thing!

Anyone have any ideas.

Also - on a side note. I thought iCloud email was supposed to have threaded email like gmail and the iPhone does ... is that not the case?

You should fix that.. it is because apple doesn't support IMAP IDLE in iOS, google/gmail definitely supports IMAP IDLE (for push).

Google has a lot of methods for moving contacts in and out. Maybe get your contacts into Outlook, and from there do a sync to iCloud or your iPhone. Haven't really looked at the iCloud control panel for windows.. maybe has contact sync there for outlook?

And regarding google vs iCloud, there's no way I'd move my stuff out of google.. I'd hate to be restricted to one platform to get access to contacts/calendar/email. It's too easy to pick up another device if needed one day (android or wp7), plug in your google account and get full push/sync of it all. Too many advantages with calendar sharing and options too.
 
I want to thank the last two people that posted not sitting here and arguing why I want to do what I want to do. Everyone, has a different opinion of what is better iCloud or Gmail. I have been a gmail user since 2007 when I got my original iPhone generation 1.

The two reasons I am trying to ditch gmail is because after 2 years google has not allowed google sync on iPhone to put the message in the trash instead of archiving it when deleting on the iPhone (so I've had to use gmail fetch IMAP - because google doesn't support idle IMAP with push like it does on android!). The other issue is when you put a high res picture on your contact and google sync syncs it up to gmail it downscales the pictures res to thumbnail size everytime it syncs. Which is really really lame. Both of these issues have been issues for 2 years with huge long posts on their forums. But, they haven't fixed them yet.

I can't believe that apple didn't make some simple easy way to migrate mail and contacts from another provider. God even when you join yahoo mail or gmail they give you a simple way to suck all your contacts and mail over to the new service! God I don't even see a way to export or import mail from iCloud's web UI using csvs! Christ sake that's standard thing!

Anyone have any ideas.

Also - on a side note. I thought iCloud email was supposed to have threaded email like gmail and the iPhone does ... is that not the case?

Go to Settings --> Mail --> Gmail account --> Turn Archive Messege to OFF.
Now you can delete all the emails you want.
 
Go to Settings --> Mail --> Gmail account --> Turn Archive Messege to OFF.
Now you can delete all the emails you want.

That's possible when adding an account using "Gmail" as the settings (but you don't get push or contacts with it). He was referring to adding a Gmail account using Activesync where by default deleting an email will archive it and you can't change that behaviour.
 
The two reasons I am trying to ditch gmail is because after 2 years google has not allowed google sync on iPhone to put the message in the trash instead of archiving it when deleting on the iPhone

I delete all the time from the iPhone and it goes into the trash. You have it setup wrong.

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That's possible when adding an account using "Gmail" as the settings (but you don't get push or contacts with it). He was referring to adding a Gmail account using Activesync where by default deleting an email will archive it and you can't change that behaviour.

I have gmail setup through activesync on the with push and it deletes when I put in the trash.
 
I delete all the time from the iPhone and it goes into the trash. You have it setup wrong.

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I have gmail setup through activesync on the with push and it deletes when I put in the trash.

I have gmail set up like that as well. It doesn't actually put it in the trash, it actually causes it to remove all labels (thus "archiving" it).. I guess this goes back to the way the gmail web interface worked when deleting an email.

Are you sure though, through activesync, when you delete an email on the phone, it ends up in the Trash on the gmail web interface?
 
Export your Gmail contacts to Address Book (same with PC, I think) then iCloud with automatically import them to your account.
 
I have gmail set up like that as well. It doesn't actually put it in the trash, it actually causes it to remove all labels (thus "archiving" it).. I guess this goes back to the way the gmail web interface worked when deleting an email.

Are you sure though, through activesync, when you delete an email on the phone, it ends up in the Trash on the gmail web interface?

May I be ignorant and ask what activesync is?

I have my Google Apps account linked as an exchange and my personal account as a standard gmail on my iPad2.

When I click the trash can on the iPad2, it removes the label and the email stays in the All Mail folder. If I do want it fully deleted, I can go into the All Mail folder and delete it. This moves it to the gmail trash can, out of the all mail folder.

Guess it takes two steps to delete..
 
May I be ignorant and ask what activesync is?

I have my Google Apps account linked as an exchange and my personal account as a standard gmail on my iPad2.

When I click the trash can on the iPad2, it removes the label and the email stays in the All Mail folder. If I do want it fully deleted, I can go into the All Mail folder and delete it. This moves it to the gmail trash can, out of the all mail folder.

Guess it takes two steps to delete..

Exchange Activesync, same thing :)

Yup.. that's how it seems to work. It basically needs the "Trash" label applied to it for it to be deleted properly.
 
That's possible when adding an account using "Gmail" as the settings (but you don't get push or contacts with it). He was referring to adding a Gmail account using Activesync where by default deleting an email will archive it and you can't change that behaviour.

I have gmail set up like that as well. It doesn't actually put it in the trash, it actually causes it to remove all labels (thus "archiving" it).. I guess this goes back to the way the gmail web interface worked when deleting an email.

Are you sure though, through activesync, when you delete an email on the phone, it ends up in the Trash on the gmail web interface?

Yes it does go into the trash on the web interface. Go into the gmail settings in your web browser and select "Forwarding and POP/IMAP" Go down to IMAP Access and make sure that the following option is enabled.



When a message is marked as deleted and expunged from the last visible IMAP folder:
Archive the message (default)
*Move the message to the Trash
Immediately delete the message forever
 
Exchange Activesync, same thing :)

Yup.. that's how it seems to work. It basically needs the "Trash" label applied to it for it to be deleted properly.

Gotcha. Yeah, I would like to keep it that way for my Google Apps account, since it is for work.

But I would prefer my personal Gmail to go to the trash can on one click, if others have been able to do that.

Edit: ^^ Just read above post. Thanks!!
 
May I be ignorant and ask what activesync is?

I have my Google Apps account linked as an exchange and my personal account as a standard gmail on my iPad2.

When I click the trash can on the iPad2, it removes the label and the email stays in the All Mail folder. If I do want it fully deleted, I can go into the All Mail folder and delete it. This moves it to the gmail trash can, out of the all mail folder.

Guess it takes two steps to delete..

FYI activesync is exchange/google sync.

Exactly it takes two steps to delete. Who the hell is going to delete something twice every single time you delete something that's retarded. I get way too much email to do that.

There are massive forums posts complaining about these two problems in google's forum.

I think I need to install outlook to sync with iCloud on windows. I don't think iCloud supports windows address book.

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Yes it does go into the trash on the web interface. Go into the gmail settings in your web browser and select "Forwarding and POP/IMAP" Go down to IMAP Access and make sure that the following option is enabled.



When a message is marked as deleted and expunged from the last visible IMAP folder:
Archive the message (default)
*Move the message to the Trash
Immediately delete the message forever

This function is for IMAP ... NOT activesync/googlesync/exchange!
 
FYI activesync is exchange/google sync.

Exactly it takes two steps to delete. Who the hell is going to delete something twice every single time you delete something that's retarded. I get way too much email to do that.

There are massive forums posts complaining about these two problems in google's forum.

I think I need to install outlook to sync with iCloud on windows. I don't think iCloud supports windows address book.

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This function is for IMAP ... NOT activesync/googlesync/exchange!

You are correct.. and I just tried on a regular IMAP Gmail account.. still doesn't move it to the trash - just the all mail folder.
 
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