Syncing multiple types of Outlook accounts across various devices/systems.

[HarryPape]

First I will apologize as I am sure this topic has been covered, but my lack of correct nomenclature is hindering my ability to find a solution.

I am a consultant and have a few email addresses and calendars from different sources and I access these accounts from three main devices. Here is an inventory:

Email Accounts:

Gmail - 2 accounts

Outlook.com - 1 account

Hotmail - 1 account

Go Daddy hosted - 2 accounts

MS Exchange (client owned) - 1 account (not sure of version)

Calendars:

MS Exchange

Gmail - 2 owned, 3 shared

Devices:

Laptop - Windows 7 - Outlook 2013 (Link to MS Exchange installed)

Desktop - Windows 8 - Outlook 2013 (MS Exchange not installed)

Samsung GS4

My most pressing problem is syncing calendars. My client sets meetings via the exchange server and I use/share many Google calendars that I need to see to set meetings for myself and others. I have been able to get everything working nicely on my laptop. But I cannot see the same view on my desktop or phone.

With email I am looking for a way to sync accounts across devices. I work from home on my desktop and use my laptop out in the field. As such my email accounts are not synced and I sometimes find that I need to review a sent email that I cannot access. I'm not to the stage of forgetting if I have responded to emails yet, but that could become a problem.

I researched putting my .pst and .ost files on OneDrive, but it appears that will not work. I tried to move everything to Gmail, but that does not work and I've been on Outlook ever since Windows 3.1.

I tried MS Exchange Online, but not very successfully, mostly due to my lack of expertise in MS Exchange. In concept I thought that a personal exchange server in the cloud would do the trick, but I do not have the level of IT skill necessary to make that work. I tried a few local IT "experts" without luck.

In summary, I would like to have the same view of my email accounts and calendars from any of my devices. I am having flashbacks of carrying a mobile phone and a Palm Pilot thinking how cool it would be if I could combine the devices.

Please point me in the right direction. After reading many posts here, I feel I am in the right place, but that maybe I am not asking the right questions.

 

[Diane Poremsky]

Putting the stuff on onedrive will not help. The accounts should be set up in Outlook the same way on all computers - Exchange as an exchange account, Hotmail/outlook.com as EAS, gmail as IMAP. GoDaddy as IMAP if the account supports IMAP, unless it's a godaddy Exchange account. The phone should use these same settings when you choose the account type. Everything should be identical between computers and the phone.




Syncing calendar and contacts between gmail and outlook is a problem since they don't talk the same language. You'll need ot use a utility to sync the calendars with Outlook's calendar - see http://www.slipstick.com/outlook/sync-outlook/synchronizing-outlook-google-accounts/#tools for utilities. Most have a free trial - you'll probably want one that will sync to selected folders, instead of to the default calendar. (I'd start with gsyncit or Sync2 - i think either can do this.)

 

[HarryPape]

Thank you, that is a great direction. I actually started to sync settings, with laptop next to desktop, and then I got distracted by Exchange Online and forgot to go back. I appreciate your help and recommendations.

 

[llangley]

I am having a similar issue regarding syncing multiple contacts to multiple devices. My problem though is in Outlook.com. When I try and author a new email, I select the contact I want to send to and see an error message that the email address is not formatted correctly. When I navigate to the actual contact under "people", I see the "Email" field displaying the email in this format: ("John Doe" <johndoe@domain.com>) Parentheses is there just to group everything, it is not displaying in email address . Obviously, it appears that somehow, outlook.com is taking the display name and putting it in there as the contact's email address. I will go in and manually change it, save the contact, and a day, week, month later, the contact is reverted back to the incorrect format. I think the issue is realted to the fact that my Samsung Note 3 has contacts synced with my gmail account, outlook.com, facebook, and LinkedIn. I remember that Google like to display email addresses in that same format and wonder if outlook.com is seeing this and changing the email address. None the less, I have since removed syncing contacts on my phone with everything but Outlook.com. Outlook.com is set up on my phone as EAS and I use the native email client on the Android OS. Sending emails from that client is fine, no issues, its just on outlook.com. I know that in the actual outlook client, I can simply export my contacts into a csv file, make global changes, then import the file and all is good. I tried to do the same with outlook.com and exported my contacts by going to People -- Manage -- Export, and saved the file as a CSV. I then opened up the file and noticed that less than 20 out of my 800+ contacts has an email address associated with it. Anyway, I am wondering if anyone has any input, or suggestions on how to resolve the issue. In the meantime, I am going to use Outlook 2013 to connect and see if the addresses are skewed and if so, try and export from there.