In this post let’s see how you can configure your iPhone to make use of Google Sync for iPhone to keep your iPhone Mail, Contacts and Calendar in-sync with your Google Account.

If you use Gmail, Google Contacts or Google Calendar from your iPhone you must have realized the pain of keeping things in sync. Until now you have to manually do the sync and take care of the rest. Not anymore!

Google introduced Sync capabilities for your iPhone with which you can keep your iPhone’s Mail, Contacts and Calendar applications in-sync with your Google version of Gmail, Contacts and Calendar.

Google Sync uses Microsoft® Exchange’s ActiveSync® protocol to keep things in-sync and what that means is that you have to make use of your iPhone’s Microsoft Exchange capabilities. Keep in mind that only one account can be set with the Exchange version on your iPhone and so you have to be careful on which of your mail accounts get preference if you make use of the Exchange capability already on your iPhone.

With the nature of the ActiveSync protocol it would be possible that your existing contacts and calendar information might be wiped out before syncing. So it would be a good idea to backup your iPhone contacts and calendar information before you move further with the configuration.

Well, pre-requisites and intro aside, let’s see how you can configure your iPhone to use Google Sync.

Tap into the “Settings” app.

Tap into the “Mail, Contacts, Calendars” option.

Tap on the “Add Account…” option to add a new account which would be used to sync with your Google account.

Tap on the “Microsoft Exchange” option.

You’ll be presented with a page where you have to enter your full email address on both the “Email” and “Username” entries and you have to enter your Google account password. It’s important that you enter your email address in full including the portion after the @ symbol. Once done tap on the “Next” button.

You’ll be prompted with a warning dialog where it would say “Unable to Verify Certificate“. Tap on the “Accept” button to move forward.

You’ll then be presented with the “Exchange account verified” page where you’d have to enter the “Server” information along with the information that you’ve already entered. On the “Server” box enter “m.google.com“.

That completes the major portion of the configuration. Now, on the “Configured sync for Exchange” page turn on/off what you want to be in-sync, Mail, Contacts or Calendar.

When you turn on the “Calendar” option you’ll be prompted with the screen where it would ask you what to do with the existing local calendars on your iPhone. Tap on the “Keep on my iPhone” button to preserve those calendar information that you already have.

As you must have guessed, you’ll be presented with another dialog warning you of the possible duplicate entries. Tap on the “Keep on My iPhone” button to preserve those information.

Once everything is done, you should be able to see 2 new entries for the mail and calendar added to the “Mail, Contacts, Calendars” account list.

You are almost done. Finally, you have to launch the in-built Mail app to start the sync process. Sit back and wait for the sync to finish.

Once your iPhone finish syncing you’ll have the capability to keep your Mail, Contacts and Calendars in-sync with your Google Account without you doing any manual work.

I liked the convenience that Google Sync brings-in and I’m sure you’d like it too. As I said before it would be a good idea to back up your Contacts and Calendar information before you start this process. If you have any questions regarding Google Sync for your iPhone please let us know in comments.

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