Synchronizing with Yahoo! Address Book

[esaleris]

I was attempting to get this to work, but I just keep putting in my credentials @yahoo.com and nothing happens. Then I looked it up in Help and got a very confusing description:

The article is titled: "Synchronizing with Yahoo! Address Book"
You can synchronize your address book on your Mac with your Yahoo! address book. You use Address Book to specify that you want to synchronize with Yahoo! and then use .Mac to specify when and what to synchronize.

So you have to be a .Mac member to use synchronization with Yahoo! That really does not make sense... Any help?

 

[esaleris]

Well, after some experimenting and the creation of a trial .Mac account, I can confirm that one of the ways to get Yahoo! Address Book synchronization is via .Mac and setting the options in there. I say one of the ways because I'm hoping that having a .Mac account isn't a prerequisite for this feature.

I mean, why would I be using Yahoo! Mail if I had a nifty .mac.com address?

 

[nomad01]

Same here.

It validates my yahoo id and password but then does nothing. Doesn't update Address Book or my Yahoo contacts.

Is this feature just not working or is there something we need to do to fix it??

 

[diegoarbole]

I'm gonna be soooo mad...

If a dot Mac account is a requisite for syncing with Yahoo I'm going to be so pissed.

As esaleris said - if we're using Yahoo it probably means we don't want/need a dot Mac account.

I don't understand why something as simple as syncing with Yahoo is not available to Mac users.

 

[esaleris]

I don't understand the nitty-gritty, but Apple's implementation of Yahoo! Contacts sync could require the use of a 3rd-party service (.mac). This is evident for those of us who have tried Spanning Sync. As I understand it, it has to pass authorization through a 3rd-party server to Google to reach the API.

 

[nomad01]

I don't understand the nitty-gritty, but Apple's implementation of Yahoo! Contacts sync could require the use of a 3rd-party service (.mac). This is evident for those of us who have tried Spanning Sync. As I understand it, it has to pass authorization through a 3rd-party server to Google to reach the API.

Well if it does require .Mac, it's a useless feature for me and pretty awful for Apple to be advertising it as a feature with no mention of the .Mac requirement.

It's also pretty awful that there's no explanation of the feature in Address Book or the help files.

:-(

 

[nomad01]

Well if it does require .Mac, it's a useless feature for me and pretty awful for Apple to be advertising it as a feature with no mention of the .Mac requirement.

It's also pretty awful that there's no explanation of the feature in Address Book or the help files.

:-(

Someone in Apple's forums is saying you can either go to the .Mac sync pages or use iSync to do this... neither works for me though.

Any other suggestions?

 

[nomad01]

Got this working last night... not a very elegant solution but it seems to work.

Add a device to your iSynch (bluetooth mobile phone is good).
Switch off bluetooth on either the phone or the Mac.
Hit the Sync button in iSync.

This should give you an error about not being able to sync the device you added but it *should* sync with yahoo anyway.

Working for me.

Steve

 

[SilentCrs]

I was able to sync and I don't have a .mac account. However, I enabled Yahoo syncing in the iPhone settings of iTunes, not in the regular address book. I don't know if that makes a difference.

 

[esaleris]

Okay, you do not need .mac to do this. Here's the highly unintuitive way to do it:

1. Go to Preferences in Address Book and add your Yahoo! name and password.
2. Open the iSync application, and go into the preferences and activate "Show status in menu bar."
3. Hit the "Sync Now" option in the new menu bar item.

 

[nomad01]

Okay, you do not need .mac to do this. Here's the highly unintuitive way to do it:

1. Go to Preferences in Address Book and add your Yahoo! name and password.
2. Open the iSync application, and go into the preferences and activate "Show status in menu bar."
3. Hit the "Sync Now" option in the new menu bar item.

But Sync Now seems to do exactly the same thing as hitting the Sync Devices button. Doesn't it??

It works but only if I add a device first... like I said previously.

 

[Redbeard25]

Okay, you do not need .mac to do this. Here's the highly unintuitive way to do it:

1. Go to Preferences in Address Book and add your Yahoo! name and password.
2. Open the iSync application, and go into the preferences and activate "Show status in menu bar."
3. Hit the "Sync Now" option in the new menu bar item.

This works... thanks!

But Sync Now seems to do exactly the same thing as hitting the Sync Devices button. Doesn't it??

Evidently "Sync Devices" doesn't attempt the online portion.

 

[nomad01]

This works... thanks!



Evidently "Sync Devices" doesn't attempt the online portion.

Weird because Sync Device does sync with Yahoo for me... just have to add a device first but even if the device is unavailable, it still syncs with Yahoo.

Now if only it would sync iCal with the Yahoo calendar too. sigh

Anyone know of a cheap/free way of publishing your ical on the web without forking out for dotMac?