Google Sync Over Exchange: My Thoughts

Posted by Sam Hobson on Oct 16, 2009

closeThis post was published 3 months 26 days ago which may make its actuality or expire date not be valid anymore. This site is not responsible for any misunderstanding.

GoogleSync[1]A while back Google introduced Sync for iPhone and Windows Mobile.  It worked by using the MS  Exchange protocol, so you could sync your contacts and calendar without any extra software.

Recently they updated it, now to include email support.  So I decided to give it a try.  I never tried the original, so this is my first time using it.  My thoughts after the break…

I tried this on my iPhone since myFunambol sync couldn’t do scheduled syncs on the iPhone.  I figured the only thing better than scheduled was push, so I tried it.

Of course I had to set it up, which was rather easy.  All I had to do was enter my Google credentials and m.google.com as the server and viola, I was ready to go.  I chose what to sync, and initially I did all 3 services (email, contacts, and calendar).It's in Spanish, in case you were wondering.

So to start, I’ll talk about calendar support.  It worked fine, actually. All the dates in my calendar went to my iPhone in a matter of seconds, and I was able to read my events (birthdays, holidays).  Very simple indeed.  If there was one thing I would want Google (or Apple for that matter) to do it would be to add support for custom repeating events.  What I mean is you can only choose yearly, weekly, daily, etc.  By custom I mean repeating patterns like “the third Monday of every June” and stuff like that.

Next up is contacts.  Now I actually had to go and manually add contacts to my Google account.  I did and they showed up almost instantly on my iPhone.  I went in on the iPhone and added contact pictures, and they synced back to Google in a matter of seconds!  The picture below shows it: left is the iPhone and right is my Gmail.IMG_0063

Last was email.  This is where it started to get screwy.  Now it sees all of my folders and such, but I cannot seem to access all of my mail.  It shows the folders, but when I open it to view the messages, it will download for a moment and then say no messages.  It doesn’t even bother downloading some of the folders, even though I have them set to sync.  It was a mess.  My inbox was fine, but I like to file my mail and want to be able to pull any message up from my phone, and I simply could not do this with Exchange.  Maybe it’s the iPhone, or maybe it’s Google.  I’m not sure.  If you happened to try this in Windows Mobile, please post your experiences with it in the comments.

For email, I’ll stick to IMAP.  I like IMAP.  It’s easy, it’s fast, and it’s push.  It’s Exchange without the pain-in-the-ass.

This isn’t really a review, more of an opinion, but if I had to score it, it would be 4 out of 5 stars.  The contacts and calendar sync are very well seasoned.  The email capability, however, needs some work.  Mainly on folder/label support.

Sam Hobson (54 Posts) - Website | Twitter | Facebook


Sam Hobson is an Afro-Latino computer nerd. He enjoys all kinds of technology and innovations, and is an excellent programmer (though he never knows what to write). Currently, he's a junior in High School, and when he's not doing something computer nerdy, you'll find him at the basketball courts or the poker tables.

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  • doog
    I tried it on my WM phone and - when it worked - it was fine. However, there were many times when there were errors, etc., that I could not depend on it to have my latest calendar updates or email on the device at any given time.

    I've gone back to NuevaSync and that has been perfect, both before trying Google Sync and since switching back. At least on WM, I can subscribe to folders (the equivalent of labels in gmail) and move messages to those folders from my phone (though I rarely do that - I use my phone basically as a window into what has been mailed to me, and a way to read and send important emails on the go, which happens pretty infrequently.)
  • Boogsta161
    I used nuevasync.com also.
  • Steve Gavrilles
    IMAP is not push. It's close, but if you further investigate the actual methods in which push and imap communicate, you'll see why push is superior. They are NOT the same.
  • The way I see it, if it shows up in my iPhone as soon as it does on the server (which it does), I'm fine.
  • Sam I tried to do the same thing on both the HTC Pure (no go) and my Android MyTouch 3G.

    I had much better luck on the MyTouch which seemed to download mail -- though I did not test the folders as you did.

    The HTC Pure was a mess on the email and I hardly was able to access anything. Unfortunately during the limited time that I had the Pure Google was also undergoing a significant Google Sync outage so I can't tell whether both were related.

    So far the only place Google Sync seems to work very well (as opposed to just sorta working) is on my iPhone - -and even then it has patches of flakiness where it won't show any email. I'd say it's working about 85% of the time I try it on the iPhone and it does push the mail nearly instantly.
  • jimt12345
    Why not Sam Hobson racist? I've never written Me, Caucasian, white dude.........
  • Maybe you should.
  • jimt12345
    Funny, I was thinking, maybe you shouldn't.
  • Same thing for me too. The calendar works smoothly and that was the mail goal of my sync. But the mail is a bit bizarre th push does not seem to work and folders cannot be accessed. I did not try
    to sync contacts however as one there are too many contacts on gmail of which most of them do not have name or anything and secondly it would duplicate many contacts. Is there a way to do it neatly? Getting the conractd i want and merging them with those of my phone?
  • Mike
    You can access folders. You have to select the folders you want to sync under settings-mail-select your exchange gmail-and towards the bottom. That helped my push problem too.
  • Even when I set mine for sync, I still had problems. I may give it another try, however...
  • Mike
    Problems with what Sam? The push or the folders?
  • The folders
  • Thanks Mike! It is working now. I also played with the push for some time and it is working fine also. It is really cool! It works even on edge, so I'll be getting my mails everywhere now.
  • Mike
    No problem-I'm glad it's working for you. I use about 20 folders for work and was so happy to get push and folders supported. I haven't noticed any other push delays since the first couple days I had it. I'd suggest anyone who is having problems give it a couple days!
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