System Preferences

The simplest method to setting up Google services on OS X 10.7 is via the System Preferences.  OS X Lion System Preferences has a new option called Mail, Contacts & Calendars under the Internet & Wireless section.  Select it.

Mail, Contacts & Calendar

This section reminds me a bit of the Mail preferences pane in iOS.  From here we can set up various email and calendaring services from Yahoo, AOL and others.  To setup a particular service, click the Add Account… button and select the icon for the service.  In this case, we are setting up Google services so select Gmail.  NOTE:  This is the same way to set up Google Domain services.

Once you select Gmail you will be prompted to add you Gmail (or Google Domain) username and password.  The username should be you complete email address.  After entering your credentials click Setup.

You may have to wait a few seconds while your Mac connects to Google’s service.

Once complete you will be presented with a screen to confirm which services you want enabled.  As you can see below, I’ve selected all of them including iChat.  Click Add Account when you are ready to go ahead.

The process for adding Google Domain accounts is similar.  You should now be able to use your Google Contacts via the Mac Address Book, your Gmail via Mail.app, and your Google Calendar via iCal.  Any changes to your Google Calendar or Contacts will be sync to your Mac and vice versa.

Final Notes

My wife and I each have Google calendars and quite often we have a need to view each others calendars. Google Calendar enables us to make all or part of our calendars shareable for ease of scheduling. I’m involved in a number of social clubs and I have subscribed to their published calendars. The process above will only sync the default Google calendar to OS X. To enable syncing for any subscribed or share calendars you’ll need to follow a few additional steps.

Launch iCal and select Preferences from the file menu. Select the Accounts tab, the select the Gmail account, and then the Delegation tab. After a few seconds a list of shared and subscribed calendars should appear. Select the checkboxes next to the ones you want to view in iCal then close the preferences window.

Google provides a method for accessing their Calendar service via the CalDAV protocol. CalDAV is a standard protocol that allows access to web based calendars from desktop clients like iCal. From iCal I can create calendar entries that appear in my Google web calendar and vice versa. The iPad also has support for CalDAV. Google provides no instruction on how to access the calendar service via the iPad but setup is fairly easy.

Setup Mail and Calendar

To first thing we need to do is launch the Settings app on the iPad and click the Mail, Contact, Calendar tab.  We will be presented with several options but we are going to select Gmail.

Enter your email address, password. The Description field is optional but go ahead an enter something to identify the account especially if you have multiple email account.  Then select Next.

You will get a message that your account is being verified.

If your user-name and password are correct, the iPad will login you in and return you to the Mail, Contact, Calendar tab. You will now see a list of your mail and calendar accounts. Select the Mail account you just created (this is why it’s important to enter something in the Description field). We are going to ensure that we are communicating securely with Google’s servers.  Select Advanced? Select the switch to ensure that SSL is enabled. SSL is a encryption technology that ensures that the communication between your iPad and Google’s servers stays secure. Select “Done” and your mail account will be setup.

Email setup is now complete. Now for calendar. Back at the Add Account screen, select Other. From this screen select Add CalDAV Account.

Enter www.google.com for the server and then add your Google Apps email address and password. If you have a Gmail account enter your email address.  Select None.  You don’t need to add anything under Advanced so just go ahead and select Done.  Once your account information is verified you will be returned to the main Mail, Contact, Calendar tab?

You should now be able to sync your calendar and email with Google’s services.

What about Contacts?

Neither Google nor Apple provide a way sync Google Contacts with the iPad directly as we have done above with Mail and Calendar.  However, all is not lost.  Apple provides a way via iTunes and setup is easy.

Plug in your iPad and then select it in iTunes.

Select the the Info tab.  Click the Sync Address Book Contact check-box.  Then select the All contacts radio button.  Next, select the Sync Google Contacts check-box and click the Configure button.

Enter you Google ID and password and click OK.  Then click the Sync button and iTunes will sync your current Google Contacts to your iPad.  Each time you sync your iPad, iTunes will sync your any changes to your Google Contacts to the iPad Contacts.  Changes to iPad Contacts are synced back to Google Contacts.

Conclusion

I love Google Apps and I am excited that I can check or update my mail, calendar or contacts from anywhere — a browser, my Mac, and now, my iPad.  I have also written articles on how to sync Google Apps with Mail, Calendar, and Contacts with your iMac.

Image via CrunchBase

Both Yahoo and Google provide a method for importing and exporting email addresses to and from OS X AddressBook but I wanted an easier way to keep things synchronized. Fortunately, if you are running OS X 10.5 (Leopard), the AddressBook application provides a straight forward way to do so.

Google is special

Like most people I use a web based email service like Yahoo! Mail or Gmail. And like most people I have been using one of these services for quite a long time and I have quite a large number of email addresses that I have saved in the contact list of each of those services, especially Gmail.

Setup

Setup is quick and easy. Go into the Preferences for AddressBook. On the General tab you will see three check boxes for each of the following services: MobileMe, Exchange, Yahoo and Google. You can select all (or none) of these check boxes to enable syncing with each of those services. Google is my preferred service for email so tha’s the service I setup. Once you select the checkbox, AddressBook will prompt you for your Gmail username and password. Enter that information and click OK to complete setup. If you have a large AddressBook it could take a while for the sync to complete.

Finish Up

You may already have some contacts in AddressBook that are also in Yahoo or Google and you may find duplicates in your AddressBook once the sync is complete. These are easy to remove. From the AddressBook menu select Card->Look for duplicates. AddressBook will find and merge duplicates entries into just one entry. Any changes or additions to your AddressBook contacts will update your online Google or Yahoo contacts and vice versa.