Do you recommend anything before starting the sync (clean up contacts)?

There are several things that you can do to guarantee a successful syncing experience.

In general, it is highly recommended that you get to know your contacts. Where are they located? In which apps and on which account(s)? What do they look like: are there any duplicates? Is the data messy? Do they have email addresses? And so on. 

Also, be sure that you know what you want to achieve before you activate PieSync. Do you want to sync all your contacts or only just a subset? Do you want a two-way sync or only a one-way sync? 

Tip 1: Make sure that your contact data is not scattered across too many different apps and accounts. The less your data is dispersed into silos, the better. 

For instance, it’s often unnecessary to have contacts in both Google Contacts and in an iCloud account at the same time. Any iPhone or Mac has a native and free method to sync your Google Contacts into their address book, making it often redundant to even have any contacts in both iCloud or Google Contacts. If you want to learn more about that, click here.

Tip 2: Clean up your contacts before you activate PieSync. Delete and/or merge duplicate contacts in the apps you want to connect. Make sure that there aren’t any data issues: are the phone numbers, names, and email addresses all valid? This is better done before the sync, than after it. 

For instance, if you sync a messy contact database into Command, then you’ll very likely have twice the mess to clean up afterward. Prevent that by doing clean-up prior to the sync. 

Tip 3: Make a back-up of your contact data before activating PieSync. PieSync has no undo button. Everything it does is permanent. So stay cautious and make a backup of your contact data in the off-chance that things go wrong. 

In case you have any doubts or are unsure on how to proceed, don’t hesitate to reach out to PieSync’s Support Team at support@piesync.com. They would be more than happy to take a look at your connections.