Sync google apps (gmail) contacts directory with Mac address book

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We use Gmail (Google Apps for business) at my work.

I have set up my Mac (OS X 10.7.5) address book to sync the local address book with my gmail account, however this only syncs "My Contacts" but all my work contacts are in a group named "Directory" (a readable LDAP style group). I would like to sync my Mac address book with the Directory group but I can't find a way to do this.

I thought I had achieved a similar effect by dumping all the contacts from the directory into My Contacts, but it seems that only the email addresses are in My Contacts and the rest of the information is shown by being linked to the original Directory entry – therefore only email addresses are synced to the address book with no further information (e.g. addresses, telephone numbers…)

Is there a way to achieve this?

Best Answer

There is no direct way to get all the contacts from the directory directly to your Mac. If you open the section in the Contacts Mac OS application, it will never list its entire content but only let you search.

However, there is an easy workaround:

  1. Open the Contacts web interface https://www.google.com/contacts
  2. On the sidebar, find the Directory option. The entire content will now appear.
  3. Select all the entries.
  4. Add these to a group, i.e. "Corp. Directory"

Now, all these contacts will be imported to "My Contacts" and will be synched to the Mac.

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