My new project: Tact, a simple chat app.

How to import your iCloud contacts to Google / Android universe

July 28, 2012

I previously said that there is no web UI to manage your Android contacts, and there’s no sane way to import your iCloud contacts. Fortunately, this was not correct, and there are simple tools for both.

Contact editor

Just go to google.com/contacts where you can manage the contacts. There seems to be a link to this feature in Gmail, of all places. In top left of Gmail, there’s a dropdown kind of thing where you select Contacts and can then access this. Shouldn’t it also be in the top Google bar? It’s an important feature.

Importing contacts from Address Book/iCloud to the Android and Google universe

There’s a clean process. It won’t keep the contacts in sync, but you can do this over and over again.

  1. In Address Book, select all contacts (Cmd-A).
  2. Click File, Export, Export vCard. All your contacts are saved in vCard file.
  3. In Google Contacts, select More, Import.
  4. Select your vCard file and upload.
  5. In More, select Find and Merge Duplicates, which does exactly what it says, and is pretty intelligent.