Sync Contacts (etc.) between Desktop & Laptop???

[chazz lavely]

I have Outlook 365 installed on both my Windows desktop and Laptop.

Sale told me that with Office 365 all my data (emails, contacts, calendar, etc.) would be synced up on each system. Not happening.

I have a GoDaddy domain name with email pointed to Gmail. I've been using Google Apps with Office/Outlook 2017 for years with their Google Apps syncing for Outlook. Worked to keep smart phone up to date, but now I want laptop mirroring desktop.

I was told I must have an imap email account, so I changed the email setting to imap. Email syncs but not contacts or anything else.

Now support is saying I need and Exchange server account which I don't have. 

Is there any way to accomplish what I'm wanting? Bonus question: would it be possible to get Outlook.com On-line to sync with the same account, -contacts, etc.?

I've been talking to 365 & Google support for about 10 days and am no closer to a solution.

Any help would be AWESOME!

Chazz

[#2 · Accepted solution]

Not sure to understand exactly your problem...

First of all, do you have a customer subscription to Office 365 or a commercial subscription? The two are very different beasts...

In both cases, anyway, if you configure in Outlook on different computers the same Exchange account (which could be a Microsoft address, such as "user@outlook.com", for Office 365 customer subscriptions, or an address in a vanity domain, such as "user@domain.com", for Office 365 commercial subscriptions), you will indeed see on the different computers the same email data, including contacts.

If instead, as your case seems to be, you configure in Outlook on different computers the same Gmail account as IMAP, you will see the same email messages, but not the contacts.

Hope it helps...

[#3]

Thanks Salvatore. That's kind of what I figured. I have an Office 365 Home subscription, and as you described a Gmail address. So I sync emails but nothing else.

So, do I need to get an Exchange account to get everything to sync? How exactly does one get such a thing. I am not part of a big business that uses Exchange server.

[#4]

Office 365 Home native accounts (i.e. "user@outlook.com", etc.) are Exchange accounts, hence if you use one of them you will have also contacts "sync" (so to speak...).

In practice, you should:

1. Add an outlook.com (or similar) address to your current MS account.
2. Make that address the primary one.
3. Remove the Gmail address from the MSA.
4. Connect the Gmail mailbox to the MSA, in order to collect the Gmail email (or forward from there or leave it alone and configure it independently in Outlook client).
5. Import the Gmail contacts in the MSA Exchange mailbox.

But think twice: are you really sure that this is what you want? If not, why did you subscribe to Office 365 Home, in the first place?

Of course, with Office 365 and Microsoft software, everything is really smooth if you also use an email address from Microsoft...

[#5]

Thank you! At last someone knows how to do what Microsoft advertises as so easy for Outlook 365.

I subscribed to 365 so I could use Outlook on my desktop as well as my laptop when I'm on-the-go. I want to have access to everything on the laptop that I access on the desktop: contacts, calendar, tasks, etc.

So, thanks again for some good info. The only hurdle is I don't want to give up my current email address. I own the domain and want to keep the email address for business reasons. The domain is with GoDaddy. Co I somehow transfer the email address to Microsoft without changing the address? 

[#6]

Office 365 consumer subscriptions don't allow vanity domains.

This is instead common practice, fully supported, in Office 365 commercial subscriptions.

So if you need to configure a vanity domain in an Office 365 tenant, you must have an Office 365 commercial subscription (which, BTW is the correct thing to do if you use your vanity domain for business reasons).

Nevertheless, as at point 4 of my previous list of actions, you can keep anyway your business email in Gmail and either connect it to your MSA or forward from there or leave it alone and configure it independently in the Outlook client.

[#7]

Thanks so much Salvatore.

Not exactly the situation I thought I was getting into, but it's nice to finally have some accurate, clear information that lets me know just what my options are.

I will play with your work-around ideas.

Thanks!