So you sync an Android phone with your Mac - Macworld

With iCloud syncing an iPhone with a Mac is a piece of cake. But Mac users who prefer not to go by for example using an Android smartphone for an Apple-only approach gadgets will find that syncing an Android phone with OS X is not as easy. Fortunately, it is not terribly difficult, thanks to Google’s own cloud services.

Contacts

First, make sure you sync your phone with your Google account. Go to Settings > Accounts > Google , and press your e-mail address (top of the screen, under the heading Accounts ). Make sure the box next Contacts is checked.

Then open the Address Book app on your Mac, go to Address Book > Preferences > Accounts , and choose On My Mac . You’ll get to see two boxes: one with Synchronize to Yahoo and one with Synchronize to Google . Check that last box, press Accept , and enter your Gmail address and password. Now there would be a small sync icon should appear. In the menu bar of your Mac Click on it, and select Sync Now.

Calendar

To synchronize your Android / Google Calendar with iCal iCal open the app on your Mac and go to iCal > Preferences > Accounts . Click the plus symbol (+) in the lower left corner and add a calendar to iCal. Let Account Type Automatic are, enter your Gmail address and password, and click Create .

If multiple Google calendars linked to your account, you can choose which one you want to appear in iCal by Delegation ( iCal Preferences >> > Accounts ) button, and then ticking. relevant boxes

Media

One of the easiest ways of media, including music, videos, pictures, and podcasts, synchronize, Double Twist – a free Android app which is commonly known as “iTunes for Android”. You can use DoubleTwist sync media via a USB cable (free) or via Wi-Fi (there you have AirSync by DoubleTwist needed, what once cost $ 5).

Regular USB sync via DoubleTwist works with Android devices which USB mass storage (MSC) mode is enabled. Android devices Jelly Bean or later run support USB MTP mode, but no USB MSC mode. Therefore, these devices (including the Samsung Galaxy S3 and the Samsung Galaxy Note 2) until its DoubleTwist app will update with support for USB MTP sync over Wi-Fi only with AirSync.

with Double Twist to get started, download the desktop app on your Mac and install it. When you load it for the first time, the program scans your iTunes and import the media (music, videos, photos, and podcasts). Your playlists are not imported automatically, but you can do it manually: Go to Playlist Setup (in the menu on the left bottom), and select Import iTunes Playlists . If you want DoubleTwist future changes in your playlists automatically import, check the box next to Automatically Import iTunes Playlist Changes to.

Download

then the free DoubleTwist app on your Android phone. Use a USB cable to connect your device to connect to your Mac and follow the on-screen instructions to mount. It to the computer Once this is done click (in the menu on the left bottom) on your device to open. Synchronization options You can sync all your music and videos at once, or you can choose different playlists. You can also download files and photos to your phone drag.

Files

Thanks to cloud storage services is not synchronizing media files (such as documents and spreadsheets) between your Android phone and your Mac easily. In this example we use Dropbox (we assume that you have already set this app on your Mac), but you can use any service of your choice, such as Box, Google Drive, SkyDrive or SugarSync.

Download the Dropbox app on your Android phone and log in from there on Dropbox. Subsequently, each file you drop into your Dropbox folder automatically synchronized between your devices.

Just like on the iPhone you can Dropbox so that you take pictures automatically stored in your Dropbox and sync with your Android phone (if you enable this option, you also get a free 500MB extra storage). This function is similar to upload automatically to your Google Account with Google’s option for new photos and it may at first be a little scary (maybe does not want you to be pictures from your phone to another device synchronized), but it can be useful if you lose your phone.

All

The easiest way to everything from your Android device to sync to your Mac is to use Google’s own apps for email, calendars, photos, and contacts. use If you do, you can enable synchronization from your Web-based Google account to your Android device to Settings > Accounts > Google and pressing (under Accounts ).

to your Google account

From this menu you can sync multiple Google services on or off – including Google Chrome, Photos, Google Play Books, Magazines Google Play, Google Play Music, Google+ and Picasa Web albums. You can also choose to synchronize Internet an interesting feature that synchronizes your Google search results between different devices.

This is a fairly translated article from our sister site TechHive.com, written by Sarah Jacobsson Purewal (@ geeklil). The views of the author do not necessarily reflect those of ComputerTotaal.nl / Macworld.nl.