Guide for using Google as online sync service for Nokia E6

As one of online sync service providers, Google support many sync protocols and couple of them also supported by Nokia E6, but for this guide we’ll use ActiveSync protocol since it provide a fluent way (push) to sync your data. Granted not all feature supported in Symbian^3 devices, but Google does a great service for those features that supported.

The outcome for this guide is to have a synchronized contact, email and calendar between Google and Nokia E6, which mean any changes on your contact, email and calendar on Nokia E6, will reflect on Google and vice versa. Please note that only main calendar will be synced with Nokia E6 also group contact is not supported.

Before we start, make sure to backup contact and calendar data both on Nokia E6 and Gmail. Also since the initial sync involved moving large data between Google and Nokia E6, I’m suggesting that you use WIFI connection for faster transfer, or unlimited data plan.

First step we do is preparing data on Gmail and Nokia E6 for sync process:

• Login to Gmail then select contact, you’ll see a “My Contacts” and “Other Contacts” label. All contacts in “My Contacts” will be synced with Nokia E6. To avoid many sync conflict we’ll move all contacts in this label to “Other Contacts”. To do this,  select all contacts in “My Contacts”, click “Groups” button and uncheck “My Contacts”.
• Go to contacts on Nokia E6, mark all your contacts then select “Option”, “Copy Business card to”, choose drive “E:” or “F:”.
• Make sure the calendar time zone in Gmail and Nokia E6 are the same.
• If the calendar that intended to use is Nokia E6 calendar then you’ll need to sync with Outlook or Outlook Express with Ovi Suite (Windows) or iSync (OSX) first, then export as ics from Outlook or iCal, otherwise skip to the next step.

Second step is configuring Mail for Exchange in Nokia E6:

• Open email client on Nokia E6, choose “Mail for Exchange”, and enter your Gmail user name and password also your email address, leave “domain” input empty.
• Choose “Next” then enter m.google.com as “Mail for Exchange server”
• Choose “Next” then accept and store certificate permanently when prompted.
• Choose “OK” on warning prompt then select “Contact” and “Calendar” as data to sync, choose “Next”, “Remove from Nokia E6” and initial sync will begin.

After initial sync, the third step is managing synced data:

• Go to contacts on Nokia E6, it should  be empty by now, populate it with backup by choosing “Option” then “Copy Business card from” and select drive which the backup are.
• On contact, select “My Card” and enter your personal information. Make sure you enter Gmail address in “Email” field to link this contact as your profile in Gmail.
• Force sync on Nokia E6, go to “Mail”, “Mail for Exchange”, “Option” then “Send and receive”, this will take a while to complete depend on number of contacts and your connection speed.
• Gmail provided a convenient way to managing your contact, we’ll take advantage of that. Select “My Contacts” you’ll see your Nokia E6 contacts are there including contact’s picture if any, now move Gmail contacts that in “Other Contacts” by select all contacts in “Other Contacts”,  click “Groups” and check “My Contacts” then go to “My Contacts” and click “More”, “Find & merge duplicates” to merge your Nokia E6 contacts and Gmail contacts.
• If you make backup of calendar in ics file earlier you’ll need to restore it to Gmail since we’ll be using “Mail for Exchange” calendar instead “Personal” calendar in Nokia E6. To do this, go to “Calendar” in Gmail, click pull down menu on “Other calendars” and choose “Import calendar”. Choose ics file that you’ve created earlier and import it to main calendar.
• Force sync again.

By now you should had your contacts, calendar and email on Nokia E6 sync fluently (push) with your Gmail account. You might want to adjust setting of Mail for Exchange to your liking, go to Nokia site for further info

Hope this useful,