Google backup, what am I missing?

[Curlycherry]

Newb here. We got my wife and I HTC Heros about a month ago and I am trying to come up to speed but there is a lot to learn and a lot to figure out. My wife's phone gets backed up on her mail server at work because her IT guy set her up to get her work email on her phone. She has some quirks with her system but we are working through those.

My problem is that I do not want work email on my phone so I am flying solo for backup. I cannot get HTC Sync to work on my home computer and I am trying to embrace the cloud. I have a google mail account but for the life of me I cannot get my phone to backup to my google account. It never asks me to sync and I cannot find any button on my google pages to initiate backup. And my contact list and calender on google remain empty yet the contacts and calander on my phone have stuff to backup.

What specifically do I need to do? Please help a newb come out of the cold.

 

[MR_COATES]

I presume you've got the Gmail application on your phone?

 

[mpw]

Settings>Data synchronization>Google>

if Auto-sync is checked, then the last sync time will be below the item, if it isn't checked, you can prompt it to sync for each app.

 

[Curlycherry]

Settings>Data synchronization>Google>

if Auto-sync is checked, then the last sync time will be below the item, if it isn't checked, you can prompt it to sync for each app.

I have a gMail account and am logged into it on my computer. I checked the settings/data/sync and all boxes are checked. What do I do next? It has had these boxes checked for over two weeks and still nothing on my google account.

 

[mpw]

...It has had these boxes checked for over two weeks and still nothing on my google account.

Do you have your contacts set as type; Google, SIM or Phone? and are you in the UK?

Oh, and is there a date & time of last sync under the application(mail/cal/contact) in the settings menu?

 

[Curlycherry]

Do you have your contacts set as type; Google, SIM or Phone? and are you in the UK?

Oh, and is there a date & time of last sync under the application(mail/cal/contact) in the settings menu?

I am in the US. How do I check to see if my contacts are set as Google? Edit to add I think I found it and yes google is checked.

I do not know the last time it tried to sync automagically.

Also edit to add: I forced a manual sync and I was watching my gMail account and I saw a circular sync icon appear at the top of the page. Maybe my stuff is on google and I don't know how to find it on google. Where do I see a list of contacts on google?

 

[mpw]

To the right of their name in list view of the 'People' app on your phone, it should say 'Google' or 'SIM' (or phone I assume, but don't have any set to phone)

Try adding a new contact on your phone as a Google contact, then check your Google account online, and vice versa put one online, and see if it appears on your phone.

In the settings, uncheck the aut sync, then re-checking should prompt an initial aut-sync... I think.

 

[Curlycherry]

To the right of their name in list view of the 'People' app on your phone, it should say 'Google' or 'SIM' (or phone I assume, but don't have any set to phone)
.

Yep I am seeing Google listed next to every one of my contacts. Maybe I am just not seeing it on my Gmail account. Where on contacts on gmail?

 

[mpw]

To the left, below inbox/sent/ etc.

 

[Curlycherry]

To the left, below inbox/sent/ etc.

It is not there. I wonder what is happening? Here is a screen capture of my google page. No contacts! So sad!

GoogleScreenCapture.jpg picture by drvermin - Photobucket

 

[Curlycherry]

Could my phone be sending the sync stuff to some wrong account? I may have had an old google account from a past life. How do I check on my phone that it is connected to the right Google account?

 

[mpw]

Not sure, but do contacts have to be added to the Google Chat service from your contacts list?

login to your gmail account, and check your contacts there.

 

[Curlycherry]

Not sure, but do contacts have to be added to the Google Chat service from your contacts list?

login to your gmail account, and check your contacts there.

I am not sure what you mean by checking google chat service. I am logged into my gmail account and I have zero contacts in it. That's the problem they do not seem to be showing up.

 

[Curlycherry]

I think I solved the mystery. Somehow it went to an ancient old gMail account I had set up eons ago to receive spam and junk mail. How it got to there I have no idea.

How I figured this out might be useful to folks. I sent a gMail email from my phone to my work email and then I hit reply and looked at the address it wanted to send the email to. Bingo, it was a different gMail account than I thought it should be going to. I logged out of the gMail I was currently looking at and then went to the old one. I recovered my password, got in and sure enough stuff is there. Woo-hoo!

Thanks for you help.