Outlook – Google Sync update

So I’ve been using Google’s Outlook Sync utility for a few weeks, and I have a little bit more to add.

First, as Isaac Garcia pointed out, Google’s Outlook Sync plugin breaks Outlook Desktop Search. I’ve never been a Desktop Search user. I found it to be a little sluggish. Google Desktop still works flawlessly, so does the basic Inbox search bundled with Outlook. Google’s trying to work with Microsoft to get this cleared up. Since it’s not something that effects me, personally, I haven’t really found it to be a deal breaker.

The plugin has seamlessly created a three-way sync between GCal, Outlook and Central Desktop’s calendar. That I love. I also now have continually sync’d contacts (made even better by Google’s expanded contact fields.)

On the other hand, I’m not at all happy with a few bugs created by the plugin:

First, one of my favorite Labs features was Canned Responses. I had several different signatures set  up, many replies templated. This feature saved me a ton of time, and the Google Sync plugin broke it. I think the Canned Responses feature was tricking the web version into storing these text snippets as “Drafts” but not counting them in the Drafts label. Once I sync’d with Outlook, those responses became labled as drafts in both Outlook and the gmail on the web. I can, of course, use Outlook’s great “Insert Quick Parts” feature along with the signature support inherent in Outlook. But I don’t work out of Outlook, exclusively. So I miss those canned responses when I’m working out of gmail.

Second, Outlook just doesn’t get tags. It tries to interpret each tag as a separate email. So anything in my Inbox in gmail, which also has a tag (or two or three) gets sync’d to Outlook as 2+ emails. Since I prefer gmail’s filtering over Outlook’s, I end up with tons of duplicate emails. This is annyoing, to say the least, as it rapidly expands my .pst file, but it also is a huge hinderance when it comes to starred items being recognized as tasks.

I like to use gmail’s stars to create a task list. Double that up with the Multiple Inboxes Labs feature, and you’ve got a great task list right in your gmail inbox. I was very excited to have that sync’d with my CD account. But this became a problem when Outlook started interpreting each label as a separate email. Outlook also interprets each email in a conversation which has been starred as “flagged.” Outlook, in turn, considers that email to be a task, which gets sync’d to CD.

So if we look at one gmail “conversation” in which I receive an email regarding the Jones Account. I tag it “Jones Account” and also “Updates to Accounts.” I also star it, to keep it in my todo list. I send out a request for some clarification, and get a response back. That’s three emails. Gmail considers it to be one conversation, with one star, or one task in my todo list. Outlook would sync, and interpret it as 9 tasks, one for each of the tags”Inbox,” “Jones Account” and “Updates to Accounts,” multiplied by each of the three emails. That gets really messy, really fast.

So, after a few weeks, I have to say that, overall, I like the Outlook Sync Plugin from Google. Using it in collaboration with the Central Desktop Outlook Plugin, I have seen a pretty big increase in efficiency of importing emails into CD. I also absolutely love having three-way calendar syncing.

And after changing some of my processes, I’ve eliminated most of the troubles I listed above.

I have to highly recommend the plugin to anyone thinking about migrating to Google Apps for their email provider.