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Sync

Revision as of 23:01, 31 January 2010

This page will describe how to synchronize data on Maemo devices with other devices. Links to 'standard' behaviour would be nice and, of course, solutions to unsupported exchanges too.

N900

ActiveSync

The easiest way to sync an N900 with both an Exchange server and Gmail is using ActiveSync (called Mail for Exchange or MfE by Nokia): You can more or less follow the instructions for S60 on Google Sync with the N900. In the Settings dialog, open "Mail for Exchange", and follow the instructions on that webpage.

• MfE for Google Sync is not officially supported. It still works on some occasions but it is unreliable.

Synchronising with Google

Although synchronising contacts with Gmail is not officially supported (this discussion has more details), it is possible, and has been reported to work for many people.

The instructions for S60 sync on Google Sync work, and give the settings you need to use for MfE on the N900.

FIXME: Needs screenshots

In the Settings application, select "Mail for Exchange".

In the Credential screen of the wizard, enter your Gmail username as both your username and email address, your Google password, and leave the Domain empty.

In Server settings, set the server to m.google.com, and leave the defaults for secure connection and port.

In the following screen you can select contacts and calendar, and this will sync one of your Google calendars (the first) and your contacts, and you can set the frequency of synchronisation.

Note : If MfE synchronisation fails, try removing all items from your N900 calendar and sync again.

Note : according to the Google Calendar and Contacts Sync thread, the free NuevaSync service is apparently easy to set up and use for Google Contacts and Calendar Sync

SyncML

Bluetooth / USB (native support)

The N900 provides SyncML over Bluetooth and USB but not IP.

You can synchronize your contacts from

• Other devices (confirmed to work with most N- and E-series phones). When Contacts or Calendar application is started for the first time it automatically suggests data import.

• PC Suite

HTTP support (using syncevolution)

As you can read in this discussion on the maemo-developers Mailinglist there is a version of syncevolution for the N900 under development.

Installation of syncevolution:

You can install syncevolution from the extras-devel repository. Here you can find more details about the package: http://maemo.org/packages/view/syncevolution/

You can ask for available sync sources using the command:

syncevolution

You will be able to sync all types of data:

• Contacts
• Calendar entries / events
• Tasks
• Notes

Services syncevolution is tested with

Please feel free to add more working services in this section.

scheduleworld

To configure syncevolution for a scheduleworld account you have to enter the following (as user!):

syncevolution -c scheduleworld

After this the N900's addressbook and default calendar (including events, tasks and notes) are ready to synchronize. The default setting for these sources are "two-way-sync". If you wish to change this please read and edit the files:

/home/user/.config/syncevolution/scheduleworld/sources/addressbook/config.ini
/home/user/.config/syncevolution/scheduleworld/sources/calender/config.ini
/home/user/.config/syncevolution/scheduleworld/sources/todo/config.ini
/home/user/.config/syncevolution/scheduleworld/sources/memo/config.ini

You also could switch to other calendars available on you N900. For details also have a look into the config files. The needed sync sources you can search using the command syncevolution as described above.

funambol

To configure syncevolution for your own funambol server you have to enter the following (as user!):

syncevolution -c funambol

Then edit

/home/user/.config/funambol/scheduleworld/config.ini

and fill in your syncURL, username and password. After this the N900's addressbook and default calendar (including events, tasks and notes) should be ready to synchronize. The default setting for these sources are "two-way-sync". If you wish to change this please read and edit the files:

/home/user/.config/syncevolution/funambol/sources/addressbook/config.ini
/home/user/.config/syncevolution/funambol/sources/calender/config.ini
/home/user/.config/syncevolution/funambol/sources/todo/config.ini
/home/user/.config/syncevolution/funambol/sources/memo/config.ini

You also could switch to other calendars available on you N900. For details also have a look into the config files. The needed sync sources you can search using the command syncevolution as described above.

Add an other service here

...

Syncing with a Mac

Syncing contacts with a Mac is best done via Google Mail. In-depth instructions can be found here.

After obtaining a Gmail and Google Calendar account, you can synchronise your Mac contacts with Google by following these instructions.

Then to syynchronise calendar and contacts to your N900 from Google, follow the instructions in the Google sync section of this page

N8x0

GPE

GPE is a suite of applications that was ported to Maemo. Search for GPE in the downloads section for your version of Maemo. (You'll probably want GPE Calendar, GPE Contacts, gpesyncd to start with.) These are standalone applications, there's no integration with the Maemo address book. You'll not find data from GPE in the Mail client or Chat. It should be possible to sync GPE directly with a Funambol server using msynctool (now osynctool).

SyncML

SyncEvolution provides support for SyncML via http. This means you can sync against services like Scheduleworld or MyFunambol on the web (more services listed here), but you can not use it to sync directly via USB or bluetooth.

The advantage of SyncEvolution is that it syncs directly to the main system database on your device, which means: phone numbers are available from the internet call application, email addresses are visible in Modest etc. Unfortunately, the latest version 0.9 is not yet available for Maemo, so you have to be content with 0.8 which lacks a graphical user interface and Google integration.

When you use SyncEvolution, you'll want a more advanced contacts application to display information like postal address or birthday. This information is synced to your device but remains invisible in the Maemo Contacts-application. Pimlico Contacts, though no longer maintained, is a working application to let you view and edit all fields. (Be warned: Pimlico contacts isn't properly hildonized and lacks a few icons. It really looks a mess, but it works.)