Android app to sync with Outlook
August 28th, 2012 GTD Times Team - Staff ContributorsCategories | Getting Things Done | GTD Toolbox | Implementation | Software
A recent comment on our Facebook page asked about the best app to sync Android with Outlook. Anyone on GTD Times have an opinion about that?
I read a post writen by Jeroen Sangers, blogger and productivity consultant in the following link http://canasto.es/2012/08/sincronizar-outlook-android/ sorry, it’s in spanish, but to summarize the recomended apps are: Gsyncit, Goats, Touchdown, Moxier Mail, CompanionLink for Outlook, RoadSync, Symtasks, VCOrganizer
I have been using CompanionLink for Outlook (which requires you to install a free app, DejaOffice, on your Android. Because we do not use a Microsoft Exchnge Server for our e-mail, this was really the only option that worked at all. We are considering changing our office e-mail set-up but even if I do not use CompanionLink, I love the DejaOffice Calendar and use it on my droid just to access my personal gmail calendar because the view options are much clearer and, I believe, more user friendly. DejaOffice also includes Contacts, Tasks and Notes just like Outlook. If you tend to color code your calendar items, this syncs from Outlook (or gmail) into the Deja Office calendar too.
I’ve used Touchdown for about 1 1/2 years, and it works well. It does email, notes and calendar as well as tasks and the task sync seems particularly good.
I have also used touchdown since I got the original Android device the G1. While the built in clients get better Touchdown is still the best and most complete client.
It’s a lot easier to sync Outlook with your google account and let google sync with your Android. Then you don’t need any app on your phone.
Google supplies a program free to business/education customers. Otherwise there are free programs that sync different parts of outlook, e.g., google calendar sync, GO contact sync.
TaskSync works great with tasks and flagged email via Exhange server
Very helpful! Thanks for posting your suggestions.
If you need to sync with Outlook on Mac – SyncMate is a nice solution as it syncs data for free, here is the post with the description of sync process http://androidforums.com/android-applications/608368-how-sync-android-contacts-calendars-outlook-mac.html
I always recommend my clients use Exchange to sync all their computers and gadgets. For Outlook users (both Mac and PC) I would recommend using Microsoft Office 365 which offers Exchange Online and makes Exchange available to even the smallest businesses.
Most of my clients are independent professionals and at £2.82 a month (sorry not sure about US pricing) its a great price for over the air syncing of email, calendar, contacts, tasks, notes from Outlook, 99.9% uptime guarantee, a huge inbox, all your data backed up and available in the cloud etc
I would try to avoid 3rd party apps to sync and anything that requires you to plug in your phone.
Hope this helps!
Touchdown. I’ve used it flawlessly in Microsoft exchange envirmonment for 3 years. Includes Tasks, which for me is critical as I use for all my GTD lists.
Outlook is not a great program for GTD. It is overly complicated and requires plugins (which can have issues of their own interacting with Outlook) to do GTD properly. If you insist on using Outlook for email/contact/calendar, I would highly recommend using a different program for your To-Dos such as Wunderlist.
Funny enough I had the same thought as Jensen. While I use Outlook daily, I highly advise using a separate application for your lists. It has the benefit of being less distracting and is often simpler to use. I have been actively using Wunderlist on all my PCs and Android phone for about a year. They have a Web browser client as well. Free, syncs in the cloud and is a beautiful looking app. Its very simple so you don’t waste time playing with its features. Manages lists very well.
This was something I really struggled with when I first got my Android phone. My solution isn’t pretty, but I’ve accepted that over the last two years.
I leave my emails on the server so I can receive them on both my phone and in Outlook. So I don’t use up my server space I move the emails older than a month to an Archive folder in Outlook and this removes them from the server and my phone.
To sync my calendar and contacts I use MyPhoneExplorer, unfortunately this is not automatic and doesn’t do tasks. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.fjsoft.myphoneexplorer.client&hl=en
I second letting google do most of the work. I use Google Calendar Sync, and CompanionLink Synchronize for Notes and Contacts, and GTASKS for tasks.
Google Calendar Sync is great and operates constantly, unattended. As I have grown with this system, I primarily work in Google Calendar and have it recorded in Outlook.
Similarly, I have come to use Gmail Contacts as my primary contact manager and have it stored to Outlook with Companionlink. This way the phone is updated auto-magically, and I use CompanionLink on demand to back them up to Outlook.
The MAIN reason that I use CompanionLink is for Outlook Notes. I use notes extensively, but whole categories contain account numbers, login information and other sensitive items that I NEVER want uploaded to the cloud in anyway. This is on-demand and sync’d via USB, phone-to-desktop just like a Palm Sync. I wish I could skip this step, or find an app that worked like Palm Desktop, but I can’t.
Tasks in Outlook are outrageous – don’t bother. GTASKS auto-magically syncs to Google Tasks and it is fantastic. Simple, effective and powerful. The best accident (read: “feature”) is that it stores its own set of credentials, so if you set up an account that is meant to be shared, two or more phones CAN share the same tasklist. That might not be for everyone, but it is really handy for shopping lists!
I am using the gSyncit add-in to sync Outlook with Toodledo and Google, and then from there to apps on my Android phone. gSyncit syncs contacts/calendar/tasks/notes with Google, and suncs tasks/notes with Toodledo. (It also works with Evernote and a few others, but I don’t use them)
It costs $20, but since I am trying to sync custom fields and control the behavior of the sync, it has been a great solution for me.
I am syncing Outlook contacts and calendar with my Android via Google. I am syncing Outlook tasks and notes with my Android apps using Toodledo.
I have been using the apps Ultimate To-Do List, Got To Do, and Pocket Informant all at the same time, seeing which will work best with Outlook.
I also tried out Ceptara, another Outlook add-in. It has many features, adding projects and contexts to outlook. It synced with Toodledo, which then synced with my Android apps. Some people may find Ceptara very useful, but I chose gSyncit for the flexible syncing options and simplicity.
I am able to turn email into tasks using Outlook, so I proccess my email there. I also do my Weekly Review in Outlook. After I have processed my Inbox, Outlook syncs with my phone. I can then use my phone to track my schedule and next actions throughout the week, and capture everything along the way into a system I trust.
I use Outlook 2010 and have not found a better system to utilize GTD. I sync Outlook to my Blackberry and it syncs beautifully, including task categories. When I switched to an Android phone last year, I couldn’t find a sync tool that would sync my task categories, which renders my lists worthless. Any suggestions?
I have used VCOrganizer for quite some time on my Droid Bionic and love it!
I used VCO also for just under two years with my Atrix. The app and support are generally okay, but there are serious reliability problems. First, sometimes it skips contacts and events. Secondly if you work with people or travel across time zones, you need to double check your appointment times carefully. For a long time, they had issues with adjusting for time zone offset with recurrent appointments that originate in a different time zone. They fixed that, but now I found out that if someone schedules any meeting in a different time zone using a conferencing service (such as GTM), they simply ignore the time zone offset altogether. Depending on what time zone your android happens to be when you sync, you may show up for the conference call a few hours earlier or late. Even though I like the company, I am seriously considering switching to another app.
I just want to follow up on my previous comment with some new findings. It turns out that the time zone issue with appointments from conferencing services is a known Microsoft Outlook defect. For ICS events, at least my version of Outlook does not correctly return the time zone in its programming interface. So it would not be fair to pin the problem on VCO. Any Outlook sync app would have the same issue. Guess I’d stay with VCO and hope MS fixes its bug soon.
I’m reading that people aren’t having problems syncing categories and tasks with touchdown for android.
I’m having a problem with a droid bionic and syncing via touchdown. the categories aren’t coming through?
thanks for the help
If you are running that most recent Android version Tasks are synced and available in the calendar option. It is a little buried but you don’t need a 3rd party app if you want your tasks on the Android–you just need to know where to look.
I have used TouchDown on my Kindle and like it but prefer to use the native apps when they are available.