FJ Software

After much consideration of the many (not very good) options to sync Outlook to an Android phone, I decided to try MyPhoneExplorer. I am reasonably happy with google's calendar sync for reasons I won't go into here, but contacts are a mess and I wanted a way to share "notes" between my phone and my PC.

I made some mis-steps in what I was doing today and my results aren't completely clean, but they will do. I was surprised since I specified I wanted to go Outlook to Android that MyPhoneExplorer was initially empty. So I clicked on "Sync with Outlook" hoping to populate MyPhoneExplorer.

I aborted that sync after I saw what was happening. I had not emptied my phone of contacts before that and what I got and I've not gotten rid of yet is google "groups" that google made up when I sent my Outlook contacts to google and then to the phone some months ago (and never synced again with google). This group is not in Outlook (as a category) so I am very surprised that it's now in my phone even though I asked for an Outlook to Android "force Outlook to phone".

It would be nice if someone who knows more than I do would write up how to get started with a clean Outlook to Android copy as a good clean basis for later syncing between the two. I managed to get rid of the junk entries google had made up, but I do have a junk "group" that, after a quick search, it looks like it might be difficult or impossible to get rid of. I can't delete the entries, just the "group" that google decided to put them in when I first populated my phone the only way I knew -- using google.

Maybe the thing to do is to try to empty MyPhoneExplorer and empty the phone again and start again? Do I just highlight and delete from MPE?

Otherwise, I'm hoping things will go well after this and I'm looking forward to exploring the other features of MyPhoneExplorer.

Judy

What I would do ..... You need to ensure that you have a 'master copy' of your contacts. As you use Outlook I'll assume that that is what you use - it's what I use. On top of that, to make it easier to return to a 'good' master copy you can create sub-folders of the 'Contacts' folder in Outlook. That way you can 'copy' your entire Contacts folder to this sub-folder to insure against any 'finger problems you may have .... I use sub-folders because I sync two phones with Outlook, mine and my wife's. She doesn't want contacts such as the local garage or motorcycle dealers 'cluttering' up her phone .. So I have a main contacts folder that we share and one additional one that gets added to my phone. MPE allows you to choose which folders/sub-folders you wish to sync and, in my case, I have a user set up per phone and this is set accordingly.

Right. The next thing is for you to manually, probably, set up your master database so that all the contacts within Outlook are correct. This can be a pain first time around but makes life much easier later as I'm sure you'll agree. Then BACKUP this copy. At least copy it to a sub-folder that isn't touched by the sync process. I have set up Outlook so that the pst file (database file in Outlook settings speak) is in a 'My Documents' folder. I then use Microsoft's Synctoy ( ... http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download ... x?id=15155 ... ) to backup my PC to an external drive - not the best or safest backup method in the world but better than 99% of people do I'll wager ...

Master database set up. On your phone go into the Settings > Apps > All and 'clear data' for the contacts storage. That should delete all contacts on your phone. If the 'account' where you place your contacts is your Google account on your phone (and mine is) then make sure you don't have Google sync turned on but ensure that you setup MPE on your phone to 'add' contacts to the correct account MPE > Settings > [Contact-accounts to sync/Add new contacts to].

On the MPE client on your PC: File > Settings > Sync > (Contacts) Advanced - choose your folders to sync and 'Force Outlook to phone' (change this to 'Sync both' later). Also ensure 'Show confirmation window ....' is ticked!!!!!. Then 'OK' out of the various windows.

Hit the sync button on the contacts menu and you should get a message something like 'No entries in phone. Download?' Say yes and you should end up with all your Outlook contacts on your phone...... famous last words ....

You can then change your MPE settings to sync both and carry on from there. Oh, and ensure the time/timezone etc is correct on phone and PC or you could get some funny problems.

HTH ....

Google does add some groups automatically (f.e. "My Contacts"). If possible you should decide to use a contact account outside of Google. Which phone model do you have ?

Sorry, Droid 4 with ICS. Outlook 2003.

I know google adds stuff, which is why I don't want to let it touch contacts any more. It not only adds groups, it adds pictures it finds and other information as well as entire contacts. Lots of junk. Thank you google! But I started from a clean Outlook that had never been synced with anything (I loaded google and the phone from an export before) and asked that it do Outlook to phone only.

I've now cleaned up the "groups" (categories) in Outlook and am ready to clean out the phone and google and try again.