Question on synching with Outlook

[claustin]

First off, i'm going to say that I have no idea on the inner-workings of Outlook/Exchange servers, however everybody keeps talking about third party apps and whatnot and i don't get why. My Droid, like my iPhone, seems far superior to blackberry with built-in syncing of Outlook email. I could never get my Storm to sync because my (small) company didn't have BES. The best i could get was crappy OWA syncing that only did my inbox. No calendars, no subfolders. My iPhone and Droid both worked with it out of the box. I just set it up with my email address, username, password, and exchange server address, and BAM! Instant contact, email (including subfolders), and calendar sync. Perhaps you guys are talking about much more sophisticated systems, but for me it's been easy as pie (pre-made pie from a box even).

[MinConst]

It is easy to sync a non-exchange Outlook's calendar to the Droid. Just install Google Calendar Sync on your PC, and use it to keep Google Calendars sync'd with your Outlook (select the both directions option). You can set how often to have it do this, and it might take a while the first time. Then be sure your phone is set to sync with Google calendar.

Yes but this doesn't sync contacts and tasks.
I have been testing out Companion sync for the 14 day trail and it is working perfectly. Too bad it doesn't do mail. I will try the USB version next to make the decision which one to buy.

[FunN4Lo]

Google Calendar syncs my appointments effortlessly, but I am not syncing contacts. I thought I would abandon Outlook contacts altogether and go all Google, but the contacts that I enter on the Droid do not sync with Gmail contacts on line. How can something so simple be so difficult?

[takeshi]

This is an old thread but:

Unfortunately, some of the store employees don't really understand the difference between Exchange and Outlook.

Most people (including geeks) don't understand the difference, as demonstrated by this very thread.

Outlook != Exchange. Outlook is not always used with Exchange. Oulook is an email client and it supports many different mail servers (Exchange, POP, IMAP, etc). Exchange is a mail server. Outlook sync != Exchange sync and vice versa.

That means that Exchange solutions such as Touchdown are irrelevant to the OP, who is asking about syncing with Outlook (the client). There is no Exchange server for him to sync with.

Small businesses certainly can use Exchange if they choose to run their own server or if they decide to go with Exchange hosting. The assumption that corporate email means Exchange and small business excludes Exchange is also flawed reasoning. It really just depends on the specific setup involved.

I, for example have an Exchange account as my personal email account. Don't assume and read what the OP posts.

[prowler85]

This is an old thread but:

Unfortunately, some of the store employees don't really understand the difference between Exchange and Outlook.

Most people (including geeks) don't understand the difference, as demonstrated by this very thread.

Outlook != Exchange. Outlook is not always used with Exchange. Oulook is an email client and it supports many different mail servers (Exchange, POP, IMAP, etc). Exchange is a mail server. Outlook sync != Exchange sync and vice versa.

That means that Exchange solutions such as Touchdown are irrelevant to the OP, who is asking about syncing with Outlook (the client). There is no Exchange server for him to sync with.

Small businesses certainly can use Exchange if they choose to run their own server or if they decide to go with Exchange hosting. The assumption that corporate email means Exchange and small business excludes Exchange is also flawed reasoning. It really just depends on the specific setup involved.

I, for example have an Exchange account as my personal email account. Don't assume and read what the OP posts.

Takeshi, you nailed it on the head. This thread was confusing the he## out of me and you nailed why.

No one has clearly defined a good way to do this yet that I have read. I have Outlook on home PC (NO EXCHANGE SERVER!!!), and get emails on my droid. I delete the trash and keep the rest. But since I'm not deleting them off the server, it downloads them again, so my inbox is filled with stuff I've deleted and is a mess. If I download them from the server, then the ones I want to keep will only be on my phone and not my home PC. I am not at all concerned with contacts or calendar since this is for personal use, but keeping my email straight would be huge. Does anyone have a solution for this?

[MinConst]

Pick up you email from your desktop and set it to delete them from there.

[slinky]

This is an old thread but:

Unfortunately, some of the store employees don't really understand the difference between Exchange and Outlook.

Most people (including geeks) don't understand the difference, as demonstrated by this very thread.

Outlook != Exchange. Outlook is not always used with Exchange. Oulook is an email client and it supports many different mail servers (Exchange, POP, IMAP, etc). Exchange is a mail server. Outlook sync != Exchange sync and vice versa.

That means that Exchange solutions such as Touchdown are irrelevant to the OP, who is asking about syncing with Outlook (the client). There is no Exchange server for him to sync with.

Small businesses certainly can use Exchange if they choose to run their own server or if they decide to go with Exchange hosting. The assumption that corporate email means Exchange and small business excludes Exchange is also flawed reasoning. It really just depends on the specific setup involved.

I, for example have an Exchange account as my personal email account. Don't assume and read what the OP posts.

Takeshi, you nailed it on the head. This thread was confusing the he## out of me and you nailed why.

No one has clearly defined a good way to do this yet that I have read. I have Outlook on home PC (NO EXCHANGE SERVER!!!), and get emails on my droid. I delete the trash and keep the rest. But since I'm not deleting them off the server, it downloads them again, so my inbox is filled with stuff I've deleted and is a mess. If I download them from the server, then the ones I want to keep will only be on my phone and not my home PC. I am not at all concerned with contacts or calendar since this is for personal use, but keeping my email straight would be huge. Does anyone have a solution for this?

There is no good solution for this except to change Outlook at home to use IMAP instead of POP and use IMAP on the Droid.

With regard to contacts and calendar, which most would consider critical, there is no easy way to just sync them both. The CompanionLink people are really nice and some people claim to have it working but Contacts refused to sync and backup properly without duplicates or error messages using mybackup pro due to formatting of contacts issues.

IMHO, trying to sync the Moto Droid to Outlook is an impossible task at this stage. You're better off trying to install iPhone apps in it.

[pwrrhino]

I have a Charter email account. Will Touchdown App work with this or only a company email system?

[Booch_21]

I read up on this and tried googlesync. For some reason it isn't compatable with Windows 7.

I'm successfully using it for my Outlook calendar only and I'm running Windows 7.