How do I sync Google contacts?

Question

I have flashed a phone with Ubuntu for Phones and would like to get my contacts from Google onto the device. How do I do that?

Answer 1

You can now simply flip a switch in System Settings -> Accounts for any of your google accounts and it will take care of syncing your contacts (and calendar) for you.

Answer 2

Because of bug https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/syncevolution/+bug/1290559, you now need to force keyring=no when calling syncevolution.

This is how I imported my google contacts with image 229:

syncevolution --configure --keyring=no --template SyncEvolution backend=carddav syncURL=https://www.googleapis.com/.well-known/carddav username=<your google email> password=<your gmail password> consumerReady=0 target-config@google addressbook
syncevolution --configure --template "SyncEvolution Client" syncURL=local://@google consumerReady=1 username= password= google-contacts addressbook
syncevolution --sync slow google-contacts

You can also call syncevolution --sync two-way google-contacts for periodical sync.

Answer 3

It's worth mentioning that if you ahve 2 Factor Auth setup then you'll need to create an application-specific password:

https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/185833

You may also need to add the option --keyring=no to the above command, here's the new command that I needed to run:

syncevolution --configure --sync-property "username=<email>@gmail.com" --keyring=no --sync-property "password=<app specific password>" Google_Contacts

Answer 4

Command line was yesterday: I did a clean install of Ubuntu Touch 14.10 (r106) from the devel-channel and I was asked to sync with my google account after starting the contacts app.

A quick test revealed that it is actually a two-way sync.