Google/Apple Contact Sync Errors

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Does anyone have experience with incompatibilities in syncing Google Contacts to Apple macOS contacts

(For sync instructions, see for example:
Sync Google Contacts with your mobile device or computer - Computer - Contacts Help)

I find that birthdays don’t sync and the ending four digits of a nine-digit (US) postal code often is moved to the end of the first line of the street address.

Are there fixes for these or other sync errors?

By the way, this page explains known incompatibilities and a Python fix for exporting/importing vCards between Google and Apple:

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On @Shamino ‘s recommendation, I switched my syncing to use CardDAV.

It seems to work but ….

I still have (at least) the following problems with synching between Google Contacts and macOS Contacts:

  1. Dates, including birthdays, entered on Google Contacts that consist of only a month and day (with the year missing) do NOT sync to macOS Contacts at all. (Curiously, setting only a month and day for date in macOS Contacts syncs to Google with the year set to the placeholder 1604.)
  2. “Custom fields” entered on Google Contacts do NOT sync to macOS Contacts at all.
  3. Maiden Name added in macOS Contacts does not sync to Google Contacts at all.
  4. Adding a Maiden Name to a macOS Contact deletes Google Contact dates that don’t have years. This is a deal-killer.

Here’s an example that demonstrates these shortcomings:

I started by creating a Google Contact contact for Jane Q Doe with a

  1. Nickname
  2. Birthday without a year
  3. Two Custom Fields; and
  4. A Note

After it synced to macOS, I edited it by adding

  1. An Anniversary date without a year, and
  2. A Maiden Name

After the macOS changes synced back to Google, the birthday had been deleted so I added it back

After the syncing dust settled, this is what I have as both screenshots and vCard exports.



Google Contact

Google Jane Doe
Google Jane Doe1101×1598 96.7 KB

BEGIN:VCARD
VERSION:3.0
FN:Ms. Jane Q Doe
N:Doe;Jane;Q;Ms.;
NICKNAME:Jane Doe
BDAY:--0513
item1.X-ABDATE:16040613
item1.X-ABLabel:_$!<Anniversary>!$_
NOTE:Note in Notes field\nUndergraduate: University of Illinois—Urbana\, BS
  (1988)\nGraduate: Illinois Institute of Technology\, JD (1991)
CATEGORIES:myContacts
END:VCARD


macOS Contact

macOS Jane Doe
macOS Jane Doe803×597 30.9 KB

BEGIN:VCARD
VERSION:3.0
PRODID:-//Apple Inc.//macOS 12.7.4//EN
N:Doe;Jane;Q;Ms.;
FN:Ms. Jane Q Doe
NICKNAME:Jane Doe
X-MAIDENNAME:Blow
NOTE:Note in Notes field
item1.X-ABDATE;X-APPLE-OMIT-YEAR=1604;type=pref:1604-06-13
item1.X-ABLabel:_$!<Anniversary>!$_
END:VCARD


Does anyone have an idea for getting either dates without years or Custom fields to synch from Google to Apple?

Thank you.

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