How to set up 3-way sync between iPhone, Outlook, and iCloud?

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How to set up 3-way sync between iPhone, Outlook, and iCloud?

Hello. I am trying to set my iPhone up so that it 1) syncs my Contacts with MS Outlook on an ongoing basis, but 2) periodically backs everything up to iCloud.

I can't seem to find a way to do this.. in iTunes, the phone can only be set to EITHER sync with Outlook, or with iCloud.

One thing I tried was setting iTunes to sync the phone with Outlook. All good. Now, I wanted to back up my Contacts to iCloud, so in iTunes, I changed the sync target from Outlook to iCloud. Unfortunately, what this did was to wipe out the latest Outlook contacts data from my phone -- EVEN THOUGH the phone data is newer than the iCloud data -- and replace it with an ancient backup that was sitting on iCloud. So I had to now again change iTunes to sync with Outlook, and then reload all of the Outlook data and wipe out the outdated iCloud data that had been placed on my phone...

Isn't there a way to do a one-way data dump to iCloud, without it syncing to my phone and wiping out fresh data with an old backup?

Thanks for any help, this is driving me bonkers :-(

iPhone 6, iOS 12

Posted on Mar 20, 2019 4:51 PM

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Answer 1

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stormyjoker Author

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Mar 25, 2019 2:12 PM in response to Lawrence Finch

Well, I finally figured out how to do a 3-way sync between iPhone, iCloud and a local instance of Outlook. Since I am relatively new to iCloud, it wasn't easy!

Basically, you have to download / install the iCloud app for Windows. Its overall / primary purpose is to act as a sort of Dropbox for your iCloud content - i.e., it does a sync between iphone, icloud and computer of your photos (which is what I am guessing most people use it for). But one of its apparently little-known benefits is that it can also maintain a real-time sync between your local MS Outlook (non-cloud) calendar Contacts and Calendar.

At the opening screen of the iCloud app, check the box next to the Contacts and Calendars box [making sure you have quit Outlook before that]. the app will then handshake with Outlook, and "read" and upload all of the selected content from the Outlook PST / OST file (calendars / contacts) to iCloud, which will then sync with the iphone. The iCloud app will also reconfigure your local calendar and contacts in Outlook to now be "iCloud" assets. And the beauty of this is that as long as you remain signed into the iCloud for windows app, the syncing will continue real-time. Any changes you make on either the phone, your desktop Outlook, or iCloud directly, will all be synced in real time to each other.

it looks like this was not possible until last year, when the iCloud for Win app was released.

Only took me half a day to figure this out :(

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Answer 2

Mar 20, 2019 4:57 PM in response to stormyjoker

You can sync contacts with only one source. Outlook or iCloud (or Google or Yahoo...). You can also sync some contacts to Outlook and others to iCloud, and they will all appear in your Contacts app. You can have all of your contacts in iCloud and access them from Outlook. You should keep in mind that a backup to iCloud is not the same as syncing to iCloud. Restoring a backup does overwrite everything on the phone, however, if you sync contacts to iCloud (Settings/<your name>/icloud - Contacts =ON) they will be saved in iCloud in real time, and also synced to any other device that uses the same iCloud account.

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Answer 3

Mar 21, 2019 7:48 AM in response to stormyjoker

When you sync, it isn't a matter of overwriting anything. Nothing will be lost.

But let's go back to Step 1. Instead of syncing contacts via iTunes sync the Outlook contacts right on the phone. Go to Settings/Passwords & Accounts, Add Account, and just add your Outlook account to the phone. This will sync your Outlook email and contacts with the phone. Both the Outlook and iCloud contacts will appear in the Contacts app. You don't need any further backups, other than the routine backups of your PC or Mac.

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Answer 4

Mar 21, 2019 4:18 PM in response to stormyjoker

I can't see any good solution given your constraints. How about importing all of your contacts into Gmail? I'm pretty sure these will be accessible in Outlook and Windows Address Book, and they certainly are accessible on your iPhone. I haven't had direct experience doing this, however.

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Answer 5

Mar 21, 2019 1:35 PM in response to stormyjoker

OK, let's try to put everything together.

What kind of laptop? Why Outlook specifically, an app that is intended to be used with Microsoft email products (not just Exchange). If they are gmail accounts, why don't you import the contacts into gmail, which you can then sync with your phone? And they will also be accessible in Outlook.

Neither Outlook nor iOS devices are designed to work the way you want to use them, so there is no good solution.

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Answer 6

stormyjoker Author

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Mar 21, 2019 7:35 AM in response to stormyjoker

Hi Lawrence, sorry, in trying to do this step by step, I am running into a bit of confusion.

Step 1 - sync contacts between iPhone and Outlook. OK got this, I do this via iTunes and select "sync with Outlook" (rather than iCloud) and everything works fine.

Step 2 - now I want to enable periodic backup of contacts to iCloud. I do this via my phone (IOS 12.1) Settings > Name > iCloud > Apps using iCloud > Contacts [set to "on"]

However when I do Step 2 it seems to want to overwrite my existing contacts with iCloud's data. I only want it to back up (dump) my iPhone contacts to iCloud... not do a 2-way sync.

So question is, how do I enable a sync with Outlook, BUT only a ONE-WAY periodic backup to iCloud?

thanks!

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Answer 7

stormyjoker Author

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Mar 21, 2019 9:30 AM in response to Lawrence Finch

Thanks... I am running "consumer-grade" Outlook on my laptop; it is not on an Exchange server, nor is it an outlook.com account... I'm basically using Outlook as an IMAP front-end to access a couple of Gmail accounts. My Outlook Contacts is basically a "local" file that I imported from a PST. In other words I don't have an "xxx@outlook.com" account with my contacts centrally stored on some Outlook server. that is why I'm syncing via iTunes.

Given all of this, would your above approach still work?

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Answer 8

stormyjoker Author

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Mar 21, 2019 2:55 PM in response to Lawrence Finch

Laptop: HP Spectre x360 running Win10

Why outlook - well, basically, I wanted an email client because I don't like using web front-ends, and I especially hate gmail's user interface. So, for an email client, it's either Outlook or things like Thunderbird and eM client. Since I am very familiar with Outlook, and have used it for years at work, I figured this was easier. Another reason is that when I switched jobs I was bringing over a huge amount of contacts info from Outlook on my work machine, and it was easy just to merge this as a PST into my home machine. I've simply stuck with this setup over the years...

So my setup is now basically Outlook as an IMAP client for gmail, and a local address book that has grown over the years...

Thanks for any additional thoughts!

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Answer 9

stormyjoker Author

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Mar 20, 2019 5:42 PM in response to Lawrence Finch

thanks Lawrence, this is very helpful - appreciate it!

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How to set up 3-way sync between iPhone, Outlook, and iCloud?

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