Do I need to create two connections to sync both my iPhone contacts and Google Contacts with Command? (PieSync)

If you’re using both iCloud and Google Contacts to store the same contacts, you essentially don’t need to have two connections. Your iPhone or Mac is able to natively sync your Google Contacts to its address book. So you can make do with just one connection. 

What we recommend is consolidating your contacts in either Google Contacts or iCloud. This is better than having your contacts fragmented across different applications. Having just one connection will also ensure you can keep using PieSync for free. Because as of your second connection you will require a PieSync subscription.

When choosing between iCloud and Google Contacts, we recommend Google Contacts because it has better contact management features: you can revert your contacts back to any point in the past 30 days, you can easily clean up and merge duplicate contacts, and generally it offers a very intuitive UI.

First you have to export your iCloud contacts and import them in Google Contacts:

1. Go to iCloud Contacts and sign in
2. Select all your contacts 
3. Click the gear/settings icon in the bottom left and then click ‘Export as vCard’
4. Go to Google Contacts and sign in
5. Click on ‘Import’ in the left-hand side bar and select the vCard from step 3.
6. After the import has been completed, merge and fix any duplicates Google has encountered.

Now that all your iCloud contacts made their way into Google Contacts, all that is left is making sure that your devices are set up correctly. We want to make sure that they don’t display contacts from iCloud anymore, but solely from Google Contacts. Otherwise it might look as if there are duplicates on your device.

On your iPhone go to Settings > Contacts > Accounts. There you’ll have to make sure that your iCloud account is disabled and that your Google account is enabled. Also, don’t forget to set Google as the default account. This will make sure that any new contact you create on your phone will be added to Google Contacts.

Once you’ve set-up your iPhone or Mac device like this, you can go ahead and create a PieSync connection between Google Contacts and Command, knowing that all your contacts will be synced.

Should you have any questions about this, please reach out to the PieSync Support Team for more info.