Two Ways to Sync Outlook Between Computers
One of the biggest reasons I purchased my laptop was because I envisioned how great a tool it was going to be for working remotely. I will readily admit that although I look nothing like Mel Gibson, I had big plans on becoming the next Road Warrior.
It did not take me long to realize that there is no easy way to sync information between two computers, especially Outlook email, contacts, and tasks. I have a decent size contact list and a full calendar, so it was too late to switch everything over to online applications. For that reason I started a search into easy and affordable ways to sync Outlook between computers.
Which software do I need?
There are a whole lot of choices out there for software that will sync your Outlook, each promising similar features with a wide range of pricing structures. It was all rather overwhelming. What I ended up testing was Sync Outlook by Syncing.Net and SynchPst. Each came with a trial period for you to test out before you make your purchase.
Installation
Installation is pretty straight forward for both programs. Whereas you may only need to install SynchPst on your laptop, you will need to install Sync Outlook on both computers (we will talk about how this will affect your pricing later).
In both cases there was a little fiddling involved in sharing your Outlook folder between your two computers. If you have a very basic understanding of how to share a folder over your network, you should have no problem.
With both programs installed, it was time to test them out!
Sync Outlook Home Edition
Sync Outlook looks great and works great. It continually runs in the background on both computers and automatically updates when there are any changes. You could not ask for an easier way to sync your computers. For ease of use alone I thought I had a winner…until I checked out their confusing pricing structure.
I will admit that I do not fully understand Sync Outlook’s pricing (I even emailed the company for clarification, but it’s been two months and I still have not heard back). As far as I can tell, you will need a license for each computer running Sync Outlook. That means you will need one for your computer and one for your laptop. At over $50 a license this means you will be spending over $100 for your setup (there was no perpetual license when I tried this software out, so it was nice to see that you can now purchase the software outright instead of paying a monthly fee of $29/year/per computer).
Where I am a little confused is in the matter of how pricing works for multiple Users on your computer. If I have two User Accounts on my computer and laptop, does that mean I have to purchase four licenses? If that’s the case, it is going to get real expensive real fast. Again, it would be great if Sync Outlook could clarify this for me.
Highlights
- Very simple background syncing
- Can share up to 25 files with basic Home Edition
- Higher licensing expense for multiple computers/users
- Only need one copy of software for multiple computers
- No background syncing
- Outlook had to be turned off on the computer you were trying to sync with
Lowlights
SynchPst Basic
SynchPst is a very straight forward program that allows you to copy your ‘Personal Folders’ (pst) files between multiple computers and users. Think of it as a copy and paste of all your Outlook info.
There are not a lot of bells and whistles with SynchPst, but it does what it is supposed to do well enough. The program does not run in the background so you will need to run it every time you need to sync, but what you sacrifice for ease of use, you make up in that fact that you only need to buy one copy for all your computers.
Highlights
Lowlights
Travis King is a freelance web designer and owner of Green Tea Design. He also looks a lot like Mel Gibson!
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What about MobileMe (www.me.com) service ?
You can sync calendar, mails, contacts, files. And you can access all those informations on any computer just by going on the Me’s website, or sync it with your iPhone
For that money, why don’t you just go with hosted exchange? In the long run more expensive, but WAY more convenient and lots of peace of mind.
I used to use SyncPST when I was using POP3 e-mail. It was pretty good at syncing my files, however it is a bit slow if you have a TON of items in your Outlook. It can be a time consuming task to run it before heading out the door to a meeting or event.
There is an alternative to all of this synchronizing though. You could get a Hosted Microsoft Exchange account. I use Sherweb, it’s only $8.95/month per Exchange mailbox, and you can check it through Webmail, Iphone, Windows Mobile. And the Outlook client synchronizes with the server everytime you connect, and it is pretty fast.
They also give you Outlook 2007 for FREE! Well, not exactly free, you still have to pay $8.95 per month…But still!
Sorry for sounding like an advertisement, I’m not affiliated with Sherweb, I just really like their service.
I can back up Mark, hosted Exchange is the best way to sync mail across multiple machines but there is an alternative. You can use IMAP4 for your email which stores all mail in the cloud and then make use of Plaxo (www.plaxo.com) with multiple sync points – one for each machine – to ensure your calendar, contacts, tasks and notes are on each machine’s base PST. Another alternative is to use Google Apps which can give you pretty much the same when set up just right with the Google sync tools.
For people interested in synching your inbox on multiple computers with email solutions other than Outlook (ex- Mozilla Thunderbird) – I highly recommend Microsoft SyncToy. It’s not web based or very dynamic – but it provides an easy way to synchronize folders (such as your Mozilla Thunderbird profile/inbox folder) across a network.
Here’s how I synchronize my stuff:
DropBox: Sync project files between a Windows XP computer at my part-time job and my Macbook Pro for freelance work. Amazing software/service, $10/month for 60 GB online storage.
MobileMe: Sync contacts and my calendar between MBP & iPhone
Gmail: E-mail
Slimtimer: Time-tracking and task management
Basecamp: More robust project/task management if needed
It all works very nicely
I actually prefer using Gmail over outlook, I open outlook every 2 weeks or so to download backups and have my settings to leave mail on server for 15 days.
Anyway here is 13 reasons to switch to Gmail.
Nice post Travis.
I was looking for a solution like this a few weeks ago, but as some of the other posters have mentioned there are cloud-based alternatives if you don’t always dock your laptop back at base.
I am surprised by Sync Outlook’s pricing in today’s world of The Cloud and near commodity-based software as a service pricing. Maybe they need to rethink their pricing strategy or risk losing market traction?
Personally, I opted for IMAP for email and use Noteworthy for my email, etc., as my laptop is rarely ever back at base. This also has an Outlook sync option which allows me to sync contacts, calendars, etc up to the web-based account and so propagate them to connected machines. And it’s only a few cents a month.
I agree with Jacob, Gmail is the way to go.
Outlook is just another Microsoft bloatware legacy app that has the end of it’s lifecycle firmly in site.
I dropped Outlook over 3 years ago to go with Gmail and its one of the best software moves I have EVER made. Gmail simply puts Outlook to shame. My productivity has gone up, WAY up by using Gmail.
If I ever need to use a stand-alone mail client (which is almost never) I fire up Thunderbird. Its free and its simple.
Cheers,
Lowkase
As Ian suggested, I use IMAP to make sure that my email is the same across all machines. This is something I get for free with my website hosting. For everything else, I use Plaxo: it works great, costs nothing, and syncs to as many computers as I want.
I use Outlook 2007, which can be a little sluggish to start up, but is fine once it’s sorted itself out.
I’ve also found the simplest way to make sure my email accounts on my work desktop and laptop both sync is to just set outlook to leave email on the server for 14 days. I pretty much always check mail on both machines within that time.
I do prefer IMAP, but it has its own set of issues.
Thanks for this great advice.
Using SYNCING.NET is sooooo easy.
You can share team calendar, contacts and all other outlook data. I use it for projectmanagement with my whole team, sharing files like excel, word …..
I have only one advice.
USE SYNCING.NET
SyncPST is brilliant! I have been working for over a year trying to sync my Exchange calendar with my Wife’s personal calendar in Outlook 2007. I have tried ALL the programs – SyncMyCal, CalGoo, etc, etc. The best solution, for a time, was using Google Calendar Sync on both PCs (using the same Google Cal login name) to sync up from my Outlook to the Google Calendar, then Google Calendar Sync would sync back to each PC every few hours. This solution works great for a few weeks, but after a time it really bogs down the computer, locks up several times per day and eventually crashes Outlook and the whole computer after creating duplicate and triplicate events.
SyncPST has none of those problems does exactly what I need – sync up just the Outllook 2007 calendars on each computer. As well I run it on just one computer. Finally I have found a solution! The only (minor) drawback is that the Outlook process has to be closed on each PC. That’s an Outlook issue beyond the software developer’s control, but there is a RemoteOutlookKill program from the author to address that issue. As well the PC is just across the room from me so it’s nothing to just turn off Outlook at night and let SyncPST do it’s job!
It is not helpful to suggest using gmail, or some other service as good as they may be! We already have POP accounts with our ISP, outlook works great on the two separate XP accounts on the machine. Changing email addresses is far too much work!
Thank you to those you recommended SyncPST, it was on my short list, and I will give it try as well. If this was business related, I’d look at a more robust or hosted solution. But I find MANY homes are now equipped with a main desktop PC for home and a laptop for traveling or just having a second machine for the spouse. I think this is an area not well addressed out there.
The other item to keep in mind, is that you want your sent mail sync’d as well as your inbox. One should be able to get on the second machine and see it all.
Thank you for the article!
Outlook sync? I love SimpleSYN (http:www.simplesyn.net)
Kerry