Flexible email contacts lists...

[Dogg Thang]

Not really sure this is a technical question so this might not be the best place for it as people who know might not see it but seemed like the closest fit. Over the years, I have used Outlook Express, Outlook, gmail and more and I have never ever bothered about contacts lists or address book stuff.

And now, it's time I did.

I'm wondering, given I'm likely to migrate email again in the future, what's the best, easiest and most transferable way of me making a contacts list? I don't mind having to build it up from those other things, like Outlook, by hand but I'd rather only have to do that once. How do you guys organise your contacts?

I imagine there must be fairly standard formats as my iPad and other devices seem to be able to sync contacts but I've never used it or made a proper list so I'm totally out of the loop.

TIA!

[charlesr]

There are two main ways of managing contacts (if you want to sync them with various devices).
Local (PC) or cloud (googlesync / plaxo etc)

Up to now I have used Outlook as the local master copy and then synced via bluetooth to my dect phone and mobile phone.
This is good because it doesn't update automatically (unless you want it to), so if you delete contacts by accident out of outlook or the devices you can always tap them in again before syncing destroys all traces.

However, now that I have 3G in my house, I'm looking at other options like googlesync. Unsure what the best options are. I guess it's a lot easier if you just use gmail for email, but I don't.

So I'm also interested in how people manged this.

[Brad]

I can't even remember how I do it. I have work contacts on Outlook/Exchange but that also seems to have personal contact details, as does google, as does Address Book on my Macs. No idea if any of them are in sync with each other. It's too complicated for me to even think about so if someone posts a nice solution here I'd probably try and sort it out!

[charlesr]

Look around the web suggests it's a nightmare for everyone.
Perhaps the easiest is to have outlook exchange and winphone....
Or to use gmail for everything. I need my own email address though.

Meanwhile, I'm sticking to outlook with nokia pc suite to sync locally.

[egparadigm]

I did this earlier in the year. I basically synced everything to Google. I looked at ways of doing without using Google (I have an Android phone) for privacy concerns, but they were stupidly complicated.

Now I can enter contacts in Address Book on my mac or into my phone and when the phone or computer connect to the internet they are synced with Google and vice versa.

[Brad]

I'm seriously thinking of running a tiny low powered linux box at home with everything I need in my digital connect life on it (email server, CalDAV, Address books, FOSSIL, FTP, My website etc.). I just don't trust anybody!

[Dogg Thang]

So... Google then? To be honest, I use gmail more than anything else anyway because it actually seems the most reliable (at least now, Google seems to be getting worse every time they change something).

[charlesr]

http://www.fieldstonsoftware.com/software/gsyncit3/ << This syncs outlook contacts (and calendar etc if you should so wish) to google. You have to pay for it.
Then you can sync your phone contacts with google too: http://www.google.com/mobile/sync/

If gsyncit actually works (I have my doubts) then this would sort it all I guess.

[charlesr]

Stuff all this stuff actually. There's just too much chance of deleting contacts from the phone by accident and them disappearing from everywhere else, knowing me. Currently I know that nokia pc suite only mirrors outlook TO the phones. So outlook will never be overwritten by anything. And I have a weekly backup of outlook in case of fatalities.