Actually, thats very useful info. Knowing how matching is done is a big help. And as for those invisible characters - I think that explains some of the strangeness I experienced with gtalk after the first attempt at a synch.
How does this sound as an approach? 1) create a new user on my mac so I can work with a fresh addressbook 2) sync google contacts with this empty addressbook 3) use contacts cleaner to clean up the contacts in the addressbook - this, via sync, should clean up the google contacts. 4) I can then maybe do a vcard export of both mac addressbooks - and diff the results - and make sure names that I expect to match, do match. 5) blow away the new user 6) sync my mac addressbook with the google contacts. -N On Jun 3, 4:05 am, Larry Hendricks <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi Nick, > > In scenarios involving duplicates and incompatible naming conventions > there's no way for Spanning Sync to report what's going to happen > without actually syncing. On the Mac side, Spanning Sync goes through > Apple Sync Services which makes all the decisions about identity > matching, conflicts, etc, and Apple Sync Services doesn't have such a > mode. > > However, the behavior is fairly predictable by us humans. If a contact > exists on Google and the Mac and you're syncing for the first time, it > will maintain a one-to-one relationship with its counterpart if and > only if the names match. That is to say, if it's a person contact then > it needs to have exactly 2 names or 2+ names with well-known titles > and/or suffixes. Business contacts only have a single name so they > always match up. Otherwise, you'll get a duplicate. If you're thinking > to yourself how ridiculous it is to have to worry about such a thing, > you're absolutely right. We've gone to great lengths to deal with > Google's decision not to use formatted names. At one point we inserted > invisible characters in the name in order to track the name formatting > across sync but that invisible character would show up on some devices/ > browsers and turned out to be more trouble than it was worth. It's > just really unfortunate that Google has taken this road. > > I do have one other suggestion and that's Spanning Backup. You can > always back up your contacts or certain groups of contacts. If the > sync doesn't go well then it's trivial to restore the contacts using > Spanning Backup. It's currently in beta, but very stable. Check it > out:http://spanningbackup.com. > > Other than that, I'm out of ideas. > > Good luck! > -- > Larry Hendricks > [email protected]http://spanningsync.com > > On Jun 2, 2:44 pm, mooky <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > > Thanks for the suggestions so far. > > > Is there no way at all to get a report out of spanning sync of what it > > is going to do - without actually doing it? > > Nuking and setting up all my gtalk contacts again is not really > > something I want to do... > > > -Nick > > > On Jun 2, 5:01 am, Larry Hendricks <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > Sorry, yes, I should have mentioned that "replace data on Google" will > > > wipe out any Google groups and email-only contacts that you have in > > > Google. However, you can export entire Google contact groups before > > > doing the RDOG and then import them again afterward. > > > -- > > > Larry Hendricks > > > [email protected]http://spanningsync.com > > > > On Jun 1, 6:51 pm, mooky <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > > > * From the Advanced tab of the Spanning Sync pref pane, select > > > > > "Replace Data on Google" and replace the contacts on Google with the > > > > > contacts on your Mac. Now both sides are clean and should be > > > > > identical. > > > > > Will that not run the risk of removing gtalk contacts? In my first > > > > attempt, I lost a few googletalk contacts, I presumed due to me trying > > > > to clean up duplicates on my mac - and that deleting the wrong contact > > > > on google... > > > > > -Nick > > > > > On Jun 1, 5:22 am, Larry Hendricks <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > > > This might help: > > > > > > * Sync your contacts with Spanning Sync. Now all the potentially > > > > > missing details and contacts from Google are on your Mac, including > > > > > duplicates and naming errors (but that's OK). > > > > > * Turn Spanning Sync syncing off (or set the schedule to Manual). > > > > > * Run Contacts Cleaner from Spanning Tools for Mac and let it merge/ > > > > > fix all the problems that it finds. Now you have on your Mac a "clean" > > > > > set of data which includes all the details from Google and Address > > > > > Book. > > > > > * From the Advanced tab of the Spanning Sync pref pane, select > > > > > "Replace Data on Google" and replace the contacts on Google with the > > > > > contacts on your Mac. Now both sides are clean and should be > > > > > identical. > > > > > > -- > > > > > Larry Hendricks > > > > > [email protected]http://spanningsync.com > > > > > > On May 29, 1:47 pm, mooky <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > > > > Thanks. That helps me sort out my Mac contacts. > > > > > > > The problem I still have is that I dont know what is going to happen > > > > > > when I try sync with google. > > > > > > > Google will have many of the same contacts I have on my mac. > > > > > > Some google contacts will have details that are no longer correct. > > > > > > Some might have details I dont have on my mac > > > > > > Google will also have quite a few duplicates (even though I have > > > > > > used > > > > > > its duplicate detection) > > > > > > Im uncertain how all these will be merged/sync'd with my mac. > > > > > > > Last time I tried to run the spanning sync, I had all sorts of > > > > > > unexpected results - many dups and some gtalk contacts disappeared > > > > > > altogether... > > > > > > > Id really like to be able to run the spanning sync without making > > > > > > any > > > > > > changes - and get a report of what it thinks its going to do. Then I > > > > > > can go an manually fix the contacts that are going to result in > > > > > > messy > > > > > > results after the sync. > > > > > > > -Nick > > > > > > > On May 24, 3:56 pm, Larry Hendricks <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > > > > > Hi, > > > > > > > > "Messy" problems with contact syncing mostly occur due to Google's > > > > > > > inflexible naming conventions (contacts only have one name) > > > > > > > combined > > > > > > > with contacts that have unpredictable names. Spanning Tools for > > > > > > > Mac > > > > > > > can help with this. The free version will identify the problematic > > > > > > > contacts, the paid version will fix them. > > > > > > > >http://spanningtools.com/mac/ > > > > > > > > Hope that helps. > > > > > > > -- > > > > > > > Larry Hendricks > > > > > > > [email protected]http://spanningsync.com > > > > > > > > On May 23, 4:38 am, mooky <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > > > > > > Hi, > > > > > > > > > I have about 400 contacts in my address book - and about 800 in > > > > > > > > my > > > > > > > > google contacts (500 in MyContacts). > > > > > > > > > Last time I tried to run the sync for contacts (1 yr ago), I > > > > > > > > ended up > > > > > > > > making a bit of a mess - ended up with loads of duplicate > > > > > > > > contacts. > > > > > > > > > Are there some steps I can take to avoid duplicate contacts? > > > > > > > > Is there a way I can do a "dry run" - just get SpanningSync to > > > > > > > > generate me a report of what it plans to do? That way I could > > > > > > > > review > > > > > > > > all the actions & decide which things I dont want it to do - and > > > > > > > > manually fix the data so that it doesnt do it. > > > > > > > > > The difficulty is, that once a mess is made, undoing it is very > > > > > > > > difficult. For example if you resolve a duplicate in the > > > > > > > > Address book > > > > > > > > by deleting a redundant one - this can result in it being > > > > > > > > removed from > > > > > > > > my google contacts and from my gtalk contacts - which I really > > > > > > > > dont > > > > > > > > want. > > > > > > > > > Cheers, > > > > > > > > -Nick > > > > > > > > > -- > > > > > > > > You received this message because you are subscribed to the > > > > > > > > Google Groups "Spanning Sync" group. > > > > > > > > To post to this group, send email to > > > > > > > > [email protected]. > > > > > > > > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > > > > > > > > [email protected]. > > > > > > > > For more options, visit this group > > > > > > > > athttp://groups.google.com/group/spanningsync?hl=en. > > > > > > > > -- > > > > > > > You received this message because you are subscribed to the > > > > > > > Google Groups "Spanning Sync" group. > > > > > > > To post to this group, send email to > > > > > > > [email protected]. > > > > > > > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > > > > > > > [email protected]. > > > > > > > For more options, visit this group > > > > > > > athttp://groups.google.com/group/spanningsync?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Spanning Sync" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/spanningsync?hl=en.
