Help with Syncing Contacts

[sparkomatic]

I'm helping a friend setup a new Mac and they're trying to sync contacts from their Windows laptop running Exchange/Outlook. They want to sync the contacts from there to the Mac's Address Book application. Just the contacts...nothing else.

They have an iPhone and a MobileMe account. It'd be preferable if the solution was some type of free one.

I tried setting up Exchange ActiveSync direct to the Mac Address Book but the Exchange server isn't 2007.

We tried setting up the iPhone with the Exchange ActiveSync and that did sync the contacts. However, there doesn't seem to be a way to bring those contacts from the iPhone to the Mac Address Book.

Does anyone have any suggestions? I was thinking of running some kind of plugin (Yahoo or Google?) on Outlook to sync the contacts and then setting up the sync in the Address Book. MobileMe is out as an option there as the MobileMe sync on a PC doesn't work if Outlook is with Exchange.

Thanks for any advice!

 

[alienapp]

The first thing that comes to mind for me is google contacts. You can sync your contacts from exchange to google contacts and than sync google contacts with your mac.

On the mac side what you need to do is to open address book>preferences>accounts. Tick synchronize with google and it should be fairly straight forward from that point on. As for the window side I can't help with that right now cause i don't have a window machine around.

P.S Remember to backup your contacts first

 

[sparkomatic]

Thanks! I was thinking Google would be the way to go.

Is the Google Contacts sync an application that I'll need to install on the PC?

 

[alienapp]

Thanks! I was thinking Google would be the way to go.

your welcomed

Is the Google Contacts sync an application that I'll need to install on the PC?

You can use Google App sync or exchange. Either one will work.

 

[-aggie-]

If the contacts are on the phone, just hook it up to the Mac after authorizing it and only sync the contacts. Otherwise, sync the phone to the PC with iTunes and sync the contacts from Outlook and the do what the first sentence said.

 

[sparkomatic]

Thanks for the suggestions so far.

The contacts are on the iPhone but only because we setup an Exchange account to pull them to the iPhone (not syncing anything else).

But, when you plug in the iPhone, there's no option to sync those contacts to the Address Book program. Only a checkbox to sync the Address Book contacts to the iPhone.

Or, am I mis-understanding that and by checking the "Sync Address Book Contacts", it will sync the Exchange contacts to the address book program?

 

[-aggie-]

Thanks for the suggestions so far.

The contacts are on the iPhone but only because we setup an Exchange account to pull them to the iPhone (not syncing anything else).

But, when you plug in the iPhone, there's no option to sync those contacts to the Address Book program. Only a checkbox to sync the Address Book contacts to the iPhone.

Or, am I mis-understanding that and by checking the "Sync Address Book Contacts", it will sync the Exchange contacts to the address book program?

It will sync them to the Address Book. Contact syncing is a two-way sync.