Syncing all Google contacts with Mac Mail

[ph4t3]

I will try to be as clear as possible with this problem and I hope that at least someone can understand my dilemma here.

As a long time windows user, I've always pretty much used the web interface for gmail (composing emails, duh).

Now, as most of you probably know, if one received an email from "John Smith ([email protected])", then when composing a new email in the web interface of gmail, just typing "john" in the "To:" field would allow Google to magically know you were talking about "John Smith ([email protected])".

Obviously, Google is storing this somewhere in Google Contacts, most probably under the "Other Contacts" group.

What I would like to do, is somehow sync all these contacts and groups to mac mail. So that I can duplicate (or mimic as close as possible) this functionality in mac mail.

Has anyone achieved this or does anyone know how to?


TL;DR

I want mac mail to know of all people that emailed me so that i can email them back without me having to copy, paste or find their email address again.

 

[internetless]

Hi there,

You can get to all the Google contacts at https://www.google.com/contacts/.

To get them into your Mac, there are 2 options I know of, namely:

1. If this is a once-off exercise (you just want to import what is there now, and not keep on syncing), there's an Export option (under "More") on that web page. Export in vCard format, and then import into Contacts on your Mac.

2. If you want to keep syncing, go to System Preferences -> Internet Accounts, add your Google account, and check the "Contacts" option in the Sync settings.

Good luck!

 

[ph4t3]

Thanks for the help!

I have the second option enabled already. But this just syncs the contacts that I explicitly create (on my phone or pc) however it doesn't sync temporary email addresses (incoming mails etc). I was hoping there was some way to do this.

 

[bwana]

Thanks for the help!

I have the second option enabled already. But this just syncs the contacts that I explicitly create (on my phone or pc) however it doesn't sync temporary email addresses (incoming mails etc). I was hoping there was some way to do this.

OsX mail uses it's own list of previous email recipients - called Previous Recipients - once you've sent a person an email it gets added to that list.

 

[ph4t3]

OsX mail uses it's own list of previous email recipients - called Previous Recipients - once you've sent a person an email it gets added to that list.

Fantastic! This is what I was looking for. Thank you kindly!