If you’re wondering whether you can get your MS Outlook contacts onto your new Droid phone the answer is, “Yes, you can!” And it’s easier than you might think. Let me explain how simple it really is…

I’d seen the iPhone and even won one in a drawing at a technology tradeshow. I admit they are sleek and beautiful with a dreamy UI, definitely worth coveting. But the exclusive relationship that Apple and AT&T have over the iPhone is a DETERRENT to smart consumers like me who have spent years hopping around different wireless providers and are perfectly happy to stay with Verizon Wireless. I vowed to buy an iPhone as soon as they made them available on the Verizon network. I sold the iPhone I’d won, unopened, on eBay and waited. Then along came the Droid…

Beautiful, sleek, sexy – it just screams, “touch me”. It’s the answer to the iPhone for the rest of us. I was sold. I eagerly put in my order for a Droid mobile phone, tremulously anticipating its arrival. Holding the HTC Eris Droid phone for the first time did not disappoint. “Why”, I asked myself aloud, “am I so excited over a phone? I’m such a geek.” Missives aside, you don’t have to be a geek to appreciate the look and feel of this phone. I’ve found perfect strangers looking over my shoulder at the breathtaking screen. I actually had my first experience with “phone envy” But, I digress.

I’ve run into several friends and colleagues who also bought a Droid phone, but they lamented the one drawback with it was not being able to sync Outlook with the Droid. I was suprised they weren’t aware that you could, quite easily do just that. I’ll share this with you, in case you haven’t done it yet, or need a little (easy-to-read) guidance on how to do it…

Synchronizing Microsoft Outlook with Google Android

First, sign up for a free Gmail account, if you don’t already have one; mail.google.com/mail/signup.  If you don’t have a FREE Gmail account then you will not be able to proceed. Go ahead. I’ll wait.

The Droid is short for ‘Android’, which is the mobile web operating system developed by Google that comes with your phone (but you knew that when you bought the device, right?). So, naturally having a Gmail account with Google will allow you to take full advantage of the portability and customization features on your Droid phone.

Shameless plug: Gmail has been a lifesaver for me as a business owner who depends on reliable email communication. When my ISP is having issues with connecting to my mail servers, I can open up my browser and still access my email using Gmail. It’s the ultimate back-up plan. Gmail can be configured to fetch email from multiple accounts, as well as creating a @gmail.com email account that can always be used as an alternate email address. So when you’re ISP isn’t letting you retrieve emails, Gmail is.

Exporting from Outlook

Use the export function in MS Outlook to capture everything you want to port over to your phone. I recommend doing a thorough cleaning of your ‘Contacts’, removing duplicates and detritus. Add photos for your contacts, if you don’t have them, because these will really come in handy when creating contact shortcuts on your ‘home screen’ with the Droid.

Go to File > Import and Export… In the pop-up dialog box, select, ‘Export to a file”, click Next
In the ‘Export to a File’ box, select ‘Comma separated values (Windows)’, click Next
Select a folder to export from (here you can select ‘Contacts’, ‘Calendar’, ‘Tasks’, ‘Journal’, etc.), click Next
Choose where to save the exported file to on your computer – you can change the name of the file if you need to (eg., ‘contacts.csv’)

You can create separate .csv files for each of the folders that you export from to make it easier to manage the information.

Uploading to Gmail

Once you’ve save all of your Outlook data, then login to your Gmail account on the same computer. In the navigation on the left side of the page, click on ‘Contacts’. You’ll be taken to a screen where you can manage all of your contacts. In the upper right area of the screen look for ‘Import’ and click on it. You’ll be taken to an explorer box where you can Browse your computer and select the .csv file you created when exporting from Outlook. Click ‘Import’ and that’s it.

The Gmail contact manager also allows you to scan for duplicate entries, as well as offering suggestions for you to add based on frequently emailed contacts.

Syncing with the Droid

Now you can grab all that data in your Gmail account and download it to your phone. To do this from your phone, go to the Programs list and find ‘Settings’. Select ‘Data Synchronization’. Then select ‘Google’. From here you can enable the data dump to your phone by simply selecting ‘Calendar’ or ‘Contacts’ and all your data uploaded and saved to your Gmail account will automatically be downloaded to your phone. Close out of the Data synchronization control panel and settings and go to your “People” program – you’ll see all of your contacts listed there. You can create shortcut icons on your home screen to the contacts you communicate with most, even selecting the default contact method for each (eg., call phone, send text message, send email, etc.). There’s a Droid app for accessing your Gmail account in the Program list and you can put a shortcut to it anywhere on your home screen. The feature I really like is being able to add the Android calendar widget on my home screen that is not only easily viewable in whatever format I need (day, week, month), but is automatically updated from my Calender settings in Gmail.

I’m still getting acquainted with my Droid – downloading and experimenting with apps, customizing/personalizing my phone, using it to post Tweets and view and update my Facebook page. For someone who is as digitally connected (or is that dependent?) as I am this is more than a phone – it’s a mobile computer.