Tips on How to Sync Android to Your PC

There's no iTunes for Google Android phones, but we've found ways to sync your media, contacts and calendar to any Android device.

Some Android phones have their own solutions, but vanilla Android doesn't offer much out of the box. For example, the Motorola Devour and HTC Hero offer some syncing options that the standard Android build doesn't. But even though they give you some syncing solutions, not everything is covered. Since Android is fragmented into several versions and models, we've devised tips and solutions that should work with most Android devices.

Getting Started

If you're just getting started with your Android phone, you'll be forced to set up a Google Gmail account. Use it; don't neglect it. It might seem a little unreasonable to have to use a new e-mail address just to use your phone, but trust us—it's easier than the other options. First up, open a Gmail account and sync everything you can with it. You'll want to sync your contacts, your calendar, and whatever else you can to your new account. Google's flurry of services—Maps, Buzz, YouTube, and more—all tie seamlessly with Android's interface, so using them all with a single account from your phone makes your Android experience much richer.

Media

For syncing music, videos, and pictures to your Android phone, doubleTwist is your best choice. doubleTwist imports iTunes playlists and automatically reformats almost any kind of non-DRMed media into the right format for your phone. The software itself is a little bland, but it makes it easy to put your media on your smartphone. Read the doubleTwist review for more information about syncing your media, but remember that iTunes-purchased videos won't sync to your phone (it's that pesky DRM.)

Of course, you can also drag and drop files onto a microSD card. But dragging and dropping files won't let you keep your playlists or help you convert video files. doubleTwist can help you with both of those.

E-mail

If you really want to embrace Android, you have to embrace Gmail. The Android Gmail client is simply more feature-rich than any other e-mail option. If you're not going to use Gmail as your personal e-mail, you'll have to manually set up your e-mail using POP3, IMAP, or Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync, which is supported by almost all Android phones. Select the general Email icon from the app selection screen and input your details there.

Contacts

After you've set up a Google account, you can import your contacts. Access your contacts by tapping Android's Contacts icon. To get your contacts into the Google account, you'll have to export them from your existing software as a CSV file. You can also import your contacts from Outlook, Outlook Express, Yahoo Mail, or Hotmail by exporting them to a CSV file. In Yahoo, for example, click Contacts, then Tools, then Export, and select the Yahoo CSV option. To import the CSV file, open Gmail on your PC (not your phone!), click the Contacts tab on the left-hand side, then click the import button. Select the CSV file in Google from wherever you stashed the CSV file on your PC.

Calendar

All Android phones support Google Calendar, Google's online calendar program. Many also support Microsoft Exchange calendars. If you use a different calendar program, you'll have to sync it over to a Google calendar to see it on your phone.

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