Transfer GMail Contacts to Address Book

Before, I used to Google high and low for a solution that will let me transfer all e-mail addresses that I've corresponded with using my Google Mail account into Address Book for use with Mail. There were apps here there free and none free; techniques in Address Book dealing with syncing it with GMail.

None worked - okay, that's an exaggeration - some worked. Syncing Address Book with GMail (now that we've got Snow Leopard 10.6) is a myth or maybe I was just being too dumb to follow along the how-to - I'd rather tinker with my EFI partition and probe the innards of my now dead HP Mini 1000 than attempt followint that Sync Address Book with GMail stuff again.

But this method works and it's so simple it might've been conceived for the mentally challenged mob (like me ;)):

(1) Launch your fave web browser, I did this in Safari 4, and log into your Gmail account. Supposing we live under a rock and this it our first encounter with the concept of "electronic mail", here's the address.

(2) On the right sidebar, along with your "inbox" and folders list, click on "Contacts"

(3) A new box will appear; on the far upper left corner, click on "Export":

(4) Choose which contacts you want to import; there's handy drop-down menu you can choose an option from. And select the third option for the export format - "vCard format". Click on the "Export" button at the bottom.

The contacts will be downloaded as a "contacts.vcf" file and Address Book will automatically launch (it did for me) and ask you to confirm import of contacts contained in the file.

That's it. In less than a minute, depending on the number of contacts you have and net connection speed, you've imported your GMail contacts into Address Book ready for browsing next time you use Mail to write an email. :D