Tech Tip: Avoid duplicates when switching to CompanionLink USB for Android phones

Android does a great job of keeping your contacts in sync between Google and your phone, but many users find that CompanionLink USB offers a more complete sync solution. However, users switching to CompanionLink USB run the risk of duplicating contacts upon the initial sync. To ensure a seamless migration to direct USB sync, follow these steps:

1. On your Android phone, disable Google contacts sync: https://www.companionlink.com/support/howto/disable-google-contacts-sync.html

2. On your PC, configure CompanionLink USB to Purge and Reload (Options -> Purge and Reload All).

3. Sync your Android phone using CL USB Sync.

CompanionLink USB - Purge and Reload

This will clear your phone of all existing contacts, so make sure all your contacts are on your PC before performing the above steps. If you don’t have your contacts on your PC, you can first use CompanionLink USB to sync all your contacts on from your phone into Outlook. CompanionLink will then wipe the phone and do a fresh reload to ensure there are no duplicates. Once CompanionLink has synced contacts via USB, be careful about turning Google contacts sync back on unless you have also wiped all contacts from Google.

More info about CompanionLink sync solutions for Android, and a 14-day free trial, can be found at www.companionlink.com/android.

Google Apps Sync for Microsoft Outlook works with Premier and Education editions only

Google offers a free plug-in for Google Apps Premier and Google Apps Education users.  The former requires you to pay an annual fee for the Google service.  The latter is for schools, universities, and other educational institutions.

What do users with free Google or Gmail accounts use to sync their data with Outlook?

If you’re looking to sync just your default calendar, Google offers a free solution called Google Calendar Sync.  If you’re looking to sync calendar and contacts, CompanionLink has a solution called CompanionLink for Google.  It also supports multiple calendars, sync to separate Outlook categories, and the ability to exclude personal data from syncing with business data.

Here’s a video on how to configure CompanionLink for Google to sync Outlook with Google in less than 4 minutes.