[SOLVED] How to Get All Google Contacts to Show in Outlook?

[Appletax]

Solution: contacts.google.com/other > Select a contact > Selection actions > All > More actions > Export

If you want to sync your saved Google Contacts:

Free - GO Contact Sync Mod

Paid - gSyncit


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Customer has Gmail and uses Outlook. His Outlook is not displaying all of his Google contacts, specifically "other contacts" (contacts that he did not add, but has contacted and Google automatically saves them).

When he uses gmail.com, he sees them all.

Can the "other contacts" be added to Outlook?

 

[Fred Claus]

From what I know you have to use a third party tool to sync your Google Contacts with Outlook. They don't play nice together so you can't do it natively. If they are a G-Suite/Workspace client this might help.

Download Google Workspace Sync for Microsoft® Outlook® - Google

Download and install the GWSMO tool by Google to use Microsoft® Outlook® effectively with Google Workspace.

tools.google.com

 

[Appletax]

I remember now that I used to do this myself using this program:

How to Automatically Sync Contacts Between Outlook and Gmail

Outlook and Gmail have separate address books.

www.howtogeek.com

 

[britechguy]

If he has any Google Contacts showing up in Outlook, particularly if he creates a new on in Gmail and it shows up, then he must already have some contact syncing utility in place. But he might also have done a Gmail export/Outlook import, in which case synchronization will not happen.

With regard to "Other Contacts," these will not ever sync by design. They are not a part of the user created Contacts, and it's only user-created contacts that sync. If you actually want those to sync, you need to create a new contacts category in Gmail, go into the "Other Contacts," select all, and then apply that new category to them.

 

[Fred Claus]

I was also recommended to use GsyncIt as well.

 

[britechguy]

Not criticizing the paid option in any way, but I can report that I have had great luck with GO Contact Sync Mod over the years.

It still doesn't sync anything other than user created contacts. When Google puts something in Other Contacts it's essentially a historical list of every e-mail address you've ever received an e-mail from or sent an e-mail to, whether those addresses are in your "real" contacts or not. Most people do not want these synced. Those that do need to create a category in Google Contacts into which they move the All Contacts contents if they actually want those to sync.

 

[timeshifter]

I struggled through this a while back with another client. Came to the conclusion that the two really don't go together. Either use Gmail in a browser or get an Outlook.com or hotmail.com or custom domain 365 email account if you must use Outlook.

 

[britechguy]

Came to the conclusion that the two really don't go together.

It's a bit more of a PITA, but I've never had difficulty getting Gmail and Outlook to play with each other. There's just a need for third party synchronization of Calendar and Contacts. I have no idea why Microsoft (and in this case it's clearly Microsoft) has decided "not to play well" with Gmail when it comes to anything other than the email part. It's mystifying, really.

 

[Appletax]

There's no program or way to get Google's Other Contacts into Outlook or any other email client.

From gSyncit support:

I reviewed the source code to confirm and “Other Contacts” will not sync with gSyncit at this time. The functionality exists inside of gSyncit but currently is not accessible. Google decided to move the “Other Contacts” list to another API scope from the normal Contacts API since “Other Contacts” is a read-only list of contacts. This added an element of complexity to the sync setup and given the rare use case that requires access to this list the feature is not exposed.

 

[mikeroq]

You can manually export the "other contacts" and import them into Outlook.

 

[Appletax]

You can manually export the "other contacts" and import them into Outlook.

Yes, but not "Other Contacts"

 

[mikeroq]

Select one, then go up and select all

Then export

 

[Appletax]

Select one, then go up and select all
View attachment 13406
Then export
View attachment 13407

Holy balls, that works. OMG. FFS LOL.

THANK YOU, THANK YOU.

 

[britechguy]

Select one, then go up and select all
View attachment 13406
Then export
View attachment 13407

Yup, and just did it (without completing the export) on one of my Google Accounts. I could have sworn they allowed you to apply a label to them at one time, too, but perhaps not.

If you do export all of the "Other contacts" to a CSV I would STRONGLY recommend reviewing the result in Excel, and pruning the many, many that you definitely do not want in your real Outlook address book, BEFORE importing them.

 

[mikeroq]

The gmail other contacts have been a thorn in my side with my android phones for years.

 

[Appletax]

Yup, and just did it (without completing the export) on one of my Google Accounts. I could have sworn they allowed you to apply a label to them at one time, too, but perhaps not.

If you do export all of the "Other contacts" to a CSV I would STRONGLY recommend reviewing the result in Excel, and pruning the many, many that you definitely do not want in your real Outlook address book, BEFORE importing them.

My client is very bad with technology. I'd have to do it for him lol. Probably does not care.

 

[britechguy]

My client is very bad with technology. I'd have to do it for him lol. Probably does not care.

He won't care until he has hundreds, possibly thousands, of "Contacts" in his address book that he neither recognizes nor will ever use.

That's the problem, people ask for all sorts of things that they have no idea about what the actual functional ramifications are. Google keeps "Other Contacts" isolated from user created contacts for a very, very good reason.

Outlook ends up creating what is essentially "Other contacts" on its own, too.

This is not a decision (importing all "Other Contacts") that should be undertaken without really heavy duty consideration. If you showed this client exactly what is in "Other Contacts" in Gmail web Contacts he may very well be shocked at what he actually sees.

This is important because doing what is being proposed could make the client quite unhappy, and not because you're not doing as he asked, but because he has no idea what the impact is on ease of use of Contacts from having done so. And then you're stuck trying to clean up both the contacts and the relationship.

If you show him what's actually in Other Contacts, and he's entirely clear that each and every one of these will be interspersed among his "real" contacts in Outlook and he still wants it, then go for it. But make sure he is very clearly making an informed decision.

 

[Appletax]

He won't care until he has hundreds, possibly thousands, of "Contacts" in his address book that he neither recognizes nor will ever use.

That's the problem, people ask for all sorts of things that they have no idea about what the actual functional ramifications are. Google keeps "Other Contacts" isolated from user created contacts for a very, very good reason.

Outlook ends up creating what is essentially "Other contacts" on its own, too.

This is not a decision (importing all "Other Contacts") that should be undertaken without really heavy duty consideration. If you showed this client exactly what is in "Other Contacts" in Gmail web Contacts he may very well be shocked at what he actually sees.

This is important because doing what is being proposed could make the client quite unhappy, and not because you're not doing as he asked, but because he has no idea what the impact is on ease of use of Contacts from having done so. And then you're stuck trying to clean up both the contacts and the relationship.

If you show him what's actually in Other Contacts, and he's entirely clear that each and every one of these will be interspersed among his "real" contacts in Outlook and he still wants it, then go for it. But make sure he is very clearly making an informed decision.

I will let him know. Didn't think about the fact that his saved contacts and other contacts will be merged together - no separation.

 

[britechguy]

Also, to give you two examples as far as scale, in my personal Gmail account I have 244 contacts I have actually created, and that's over a period of about 20 years, but in my Other Contacts there are 233 more in addition, it's almost a one-to-one count and I can assure you most of those Other Contacts are people or companies that have emailed me once at some point in the past and that I'll never wish to contact again.

In my business Gmail account I have 718 contacts (which need cleaning out, I might add, a lot are not "current") I've created and 924 "Other Contacts." Were these two to be merged in an e-mail client like Outlook I would have more "junk" contacts than real ones.

There are tricks that can be used to isolate these in Outlook, but that's never been discussed here, yet. I just don't think he'll miss those other contacts nearly so much as he might think he would. If he's like many, and doesn't clean up his inbox with any regularity, Outlook can find addresses there, too, if memory serves.

 

[timeshifter]

It's all a big cluster-bleep. Many users don't really have anything in the address book / contact lists. What they have is remembered / autofill contacts. And those go away when you re-do a system.