How To Keep Your Android Phone In Sync With Your Mac

Written by John Thompson on July 5, 2011 · Filed under How To, Software 

Android has come a long way since the days of Cupcake. Four desserts later, and new Android phones are rocking Android 2.3, otherwise known as Gingerbread, which has already made its way on to lots of handsets across the world.

If you’ve recently adopted Android, you may be surprised to see that there is no dedicated application for keeping all of your data in sync with your computer, at least not on most phones. Android makes sure that everything from your contacts to your application history is synced with the cloud, but what happens when you want to transfer those contacts over to your Mac?

Syncing Contacts With Address Book

All of your contacts are already synced to your Google account from your phone automatically, so to make things easier to keep everything in check that’s where we’re going to bring your contact data down from. As soon as you add, edit or remove a contact from your phone, the changes are synced with the cloud so long as you have an internet connection. Taking this information from your account and into the OS X Address Book is a really simple process.

When you’re using Address Book, go the preferences window by selecting ‘Address Book’ > ‘Preferences’. You will see an option at the top of the windows named ‘Accounts’. On this window, you can submit account information about your MobileMe, Yahoo or Google accounts. All that you need to do is select the configure button next to ‘Synchronize with Google’ and enter your account information. Address Book will then sync with your account and bring all your contacts down from the cloud. It’s really easy, and quite handy if you need contact information without having access your phone.

If you use Android’s calendar application, you can go through a similar process in iCal to sync your calendars from the cloud.

Syncing Music and Photos With DoubleTwist

Like most Mac users, I use iTunes to manage my music collection. Despite its bloat, iTunes is a well designed and easy to use application, but it refuses to sync with any non-Apple music players! How do you get your music to your phone, then? Enter DoubleTwist…

DoubleTwist, dubbed ‘iTunes for Android’, is better than ever right now. Not only can it take your entire iTunes library and sync any playlists or artists that you’d like to your phone, but the company has also recently introduced AirSync, which promises to do what even iTunes cannot with an iPhone: sync all of your music straight to your phone over your local network.

Although DoubleTwist is a free application for Mac OS X, AirSync capability must be purchased separately on the Market for $5. If you’re a mobile music junkie, the cost is well worth it.

As well as syncing music, DoubleTwist can also take care of any photos that you want to transfer to and from your device, making it a great, all-round tool for managing the media content on your Android phone.

Are there any applications that you like to use to keep your Android phone in sync with your Mac? Let us know in the comments, we’d love to hear from you!

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