Outlook Syncing -- or, The Sound of the Dead Horse Being Beaten

Coming from Windows Mobile OS, I completely understand what you are looking for as I am in the same boat. I'll tell you what I am doing and what I've found.

I went the CompanionLink route. The program has come a long way since its first release and I expect some good things to come in the future. Its not a complete duplication of the sync that we are used to, but it will do. I use CL and a USB sync for the contact information only. I am allowing Google to handle the calendar as there isn't much there that I would be of much value to anyone. The one thing that I have not seen a good solution for is the Outlook Inbox being duplicated to the Droid Inbox when doing the USB sync. I have my e-mail accounts set up as IMAP and get live mail messages off of the servers, but I'm missing the stuff that is already in my Outlook. I should also clarify that I do not use Exchange. It is strictly a standalone system.

I have come to accept that this is a shortcoming of the Droid and the OS and really like the phone enough that I will accept the workaround in the form that it is. Yes, we may wish to be doing things in an old fashioned manner, but there is hope that CL will eventually come pretty close to what we need. I doubt I've helped except to offer my own experiences to you.

 

I switched over to Thunderbird because of this.

 

I use two 3 plugins to completely sync contacts and calendar wirelessly (through the cloud). Lightning, Google Provider, and Zindus. If you need help setting up, feel free to email or PM me.

 

Putting it mildly, I was shocked to find out that the Droid remains one of the only Smartphones on the planet without a reasonable option to sync Outlook PST data to the phone. Motorola totally dropped the ball.

Option 1: Get an HTC device like the Nexus One. If you don't care for the hardware keyboard (I do) then I've heard HTC has done a decent job with Outlook sync.

Option 2: Try Companion Link software. Downsides are that it is $40-50 and it didn't work for me. I had issues with duplicates, Facebook and more. Others have reported success so I can't tell you.

Option 3: Given above. Remove outlook (which Google would like) and I couldn't think of doing. I rely on Outlook for so many things and it just works well.

There are many of us who feel your pain. I will be avoiding Motorola products next time and doing a lot of research before I care to try again.

 

Why? I never have to plug my phone into my computer to sync contacts/calendar/emails. It all automatically updates wirelessly via Google's servers.

 

I feel your pain. I was blown away how Motorola and Google (not sure of their role) didn't support Outlook sync out of the box. I couldn't understand the thinking. Try the demo of Companion Link. If that works, good for you. There is another product (missing sync" or the like) that also promises Droid to Outlook sync.

 

Google's calendar sync program does a pretty good job of keeping my outlook and google calenders synced (bi-directional and automatic).

Is there anything that will reliably and automatically sync (bi-directional) my outlook contacts with gmail contacts?