Using Google Gmail / Apps contacts with OSX Mountain Lion Contacts via the CardDAV Protocol

If you’re reading this, chances are you’ve been messing around with your Google Gmail / Apps contacts configuration in an attempt to get your iMessage and Mail (and others) apps to use them.

Like you, I thought simply clicking the “Synchronize with Google” under On My Mac would bring them over. You check the box, type in the applicable user & password and the Contacts app grinds for a bit, but alas none of your contacts appear. What I’d call a pisser.

I happen to operate pretty much totally from Google Apps for my messaging and office productivity. Because I have so many different devices, I prefer Google as the common denominator for contact management. As fun as maintaining duplicates of my contacts in iCloud would be, I played around and found a solid fix.

• Click the Apple icon on the top left of your screen
• Open “System Preferences”
• Open “Mail, Contacts & Calendars”
• Click on the + to add a new account
• Choose “Add another account”
• Choose “Add a CardDAV account”
• Enter your Gmail / Apps credentials and google.com as the Server Address

Re-open the Contacts app and after the initial synchronization…. success! You may now happily use your Google contacts with the native OSX productivity and messaging apps.

Till next time…