If your phone contacts are saved in your Google account and you want to sync them to your iPhone, you will want to find out the methods for how to sync Google contacts to an iPhone. There are a couple of ways to do this and this guide covers those methods for you.
iPhone Contacts Tips
Export iPhone Contacts
Well, head over to the App Store and download Contacts Sync App for your iPhone. Once installed, go to the Sync section of the application. Contacts Sync will now prompt you to sign in to the Google account that you wish to sync your contacts with. Once done, tap on iCloud Contacts - Gmail. The direct way to sync Google contacts to iPhone is to turn on the contacts sync of Gmail. You should first add your Google account in Settings and then enable the contacts sync. It will sync Google contacts to iPhone as well as sync iPhone contacts to Gmail. All the work is done on iPhone and no other applications are needed. Meanwhile, if you wish to stop syncing Google contacts to iPhone, then you need to turn off the sync for Google Contacts in settings. This will help you to stop syncing contacts from Google contacts in your iPhone. However, if you set Google Contacts as a default contact saving location.
Import Contacts to iPhone
Fix iPhone Contacts Problems
More iPhone Contacts Tips
If you have been using an Android device as your primary phone, you have likely stored all your phone contacts in your Google account. It is because most Android users prefer to keep their contacts synced with their Google account and this makes transferring contacts from one device to another easier and faster. If you have now got an iPhone, you will want to import your Gmail contacts to your iPhone.
Although you can associate your Google account with your iPhone, it is not as seamless as doing it on an Android device. However, you can still load your Google contacts onto your iPhone and there are two ways to do that. This guide covers both of those methods to help you get your Google contacts restored on your iOS-based device.
You can’t miss How to Restore Contacts from Google >
Sync Google Contacts to iPhone by Adding Account
iCloud is Apple’s cloud storage service that allows you to store and keep your iPhone’s data online. You can then access this data from various devices and services.
However, iCloud is not the only service where you can sync data from your iPhone. Although it is a preferred method to store your data like your contacts, it is not the only option you have. You can actually add your own Google account to your iPhone and sync your Google data with your iPhone. This includes your Google contacts as well.
Google allows your account to be added to any compatible device and then you can start syncing various data types including contacts to those devices. Using this method, you can add your Google account to your iPhone and sync all your Gmail contacts with your iOS device. This is how you can easily get your Google contacts transferred to your iPhone.
Step 1. Go to Settings on iPhone > Scroll down and tap on Passwords & Accounts which will let you manage the accounts that are linked to your iPhone.
Step 2. On the following screen, tap on Add Account as you want to add your Google account to your iPhone.
Add An Account to iPhone
Step 3. Your iPhone will ask what account you would like to add. Tap on the option for Google as you are going to add a Google account to your device.
Step 5. Enter the log-in details for your Google account and continue. On the following screen, turn the toggle for Contacts to the on position and it will start syncing contacts from your Google account to your iPhone.
Sync Google Contacts with iPhone
When the contacts are synced, launch the Contacts on your iPhone and you will see all your contacts are now available in there.
What to Do if the Google Contacts Do Not Sync with Your iPhone
There will be times when your Google contacts will not sync with your iPhone even though you have correctly added your Google account to your device. If this happens to you, you will want to do something about it or you will never get the updated contacts from Google to your device.
Google actually recommends you to enable an option in the Settings that will allow you to successfully sync contacts from its servers to your iPhone. If you are facing difficulties syncing contacts, then it is worth using this option to force your contacts to be synced with your iPhone.
What this option basically does is it enables an SSL connection between your iPhone and Google’s servers. This way your contacts are transmitted securely over the Internet and are a preferred way for Google to send contacts to your trusted devices. You can enable this option as follows on your iPhone.
Step 1. Open the Settings on your iPhone > Scroll down to Passwords & Accounts.
Step 2. Select your Gmail account on the screen that follows. Then, tap on the Account option at the top to view your Google account settings on your iPhone.
Open the Google Account Settings on iPhone
Step 3. You will see various settings that you can modify for your Gmail account on your iPhone. Tap on the option that says Advanced to open the advanced settings menu.
Step 4. Scroll down on the following screen and find the option labeled as Use SSL. Turn the toggle for this option to the on position and it will be enabled.
Enable SSL for Google Account Sync
From now on, your Google contacts will be synced over SSL to your iPhone and you will have no sync issues at all.
Part 2. Transfer Specific Contacts from Google/Gmail to iPhone
The above method syncs all the contacts that are saved in your Google account to your iPhone. If you are only looking to import certain chosen contacts to your device, that method will not work for you.
To achieve what you want, you will need to first export the chosen contacts from your Google account to your computer and then transfer those contacts to your iPhone using an app. We show you how to do both of these things in the following section of the guide.
Export Contacts from Your Google Account to Your Computer

One of the great things about using Google Contacts is that it allows you to sync as well as download contacts to any device you want. If you are closing down your Google account or you simply wish to move to a new account, Google will let you download the contacts file to your computer and you can import that file to your new account.
That is exactly what you can do to transfer contacts from Google to your iPhone. You can reach out to Google Contacts and request a contact file to be downloaded to your machine. This file can contain either all your Google contacts or certain contacts chosen from your account. You can then load this file on your iPhone to import all the contacts.
If you did not know Google offered this feature and you now wish to use it, the following steps will teach you how to use it to export contacts from your Google account.
This only requires logging-in to your account and downloading a file to your computer.
Step 1. Launch a web browser on your computer and head over to the Google Contacts website. Sign in to your Google account if you are not already signed-in.
Step 2. On the left-hand side of your screen, you will find several options to manage your contacts. You need to find the option that says Export and click on it to export your contacts.
Step 3. Google Contacts will ask how you would like to export your contacts. Configure the options as you want and click on the Export button to save the contacts file to your computer.
Save Google Contacts to Computer
Save the file in a convenient folder on your machine.
Import Contacts from Your Computer to Your iPhone
Now that you have downloaded all your contacts from your Google account to your computer, you can load that contacts file onto your iPhone and make all your contacts available on your device. However, the issue here is that you cannot manually send the file to your iPhone.
AnyTrans, which allows you to add contacts to your iPhone from any of the contacts file saved on your computer, is a professional data management tool. With it, you can add all your Google contacts that are available in a contacts file on your computer to your iPhone. It will ensure all the entries in your file get imported to your iOS device.
AnyTrans does not require access to the Internet and all it needs you to do is connect your iPhone to your computer and you are ready to import the contacts. The following are the full steps on how you can do this on your phone.
Step 1. Download AnyTrans and run it on your computer > Connect your iPhone to the computer >Click the More on the right hand. You can view more file types that you can copy from your computer to your iPhone.
How To Sync Contacts To Google Iphone
Using AnyTrans to Import Google Contacts to iPhone
Step 2. On the following screen, click on Contacts in the left sidebar and then click on the + (plus) icon at the top. Choose the contacts file saved on your computer.
Step 3. Click on the To Device button at the top to add the Google contacts to your iPhone.
Transfer Google Contacts to iPhone
Free Download * 100% Clean & Safe
That is all it takes to load contacts from your computer to your iPhone.
Conclusion
The above is how you sync Google contacts to an iPhone using various methods. This will be one of the first few tasks you will want to do when you move over to a new iOS-based device like an iPhone.
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By Gina Barrow, Last updated: July 17, 2020
Recent issues: “how to backup iPhone contacts to Google account”
Smartphones have dominated the telecommunications arena and undoubtedly still the topmost choice of people. Chatting and calling became easier and convenient with the help of contacts saved on our devices.
Sadly, if you did not take any iPhone contacts backup then you might end up with no contacts at all. However, there are plenty of ways to save, backup, sync contacts or merge iPhone contacts.
We can even backup iPhone contacts to Google. Yes, even though these two giants are competitors yet they prove that everything is just in the name of fair play.
In this article, we will learn how to transfer and backup all our iPhone contacts to a registered Google account.
People Also ReadRecover Deleted Contacts without iCloudHow to Export Contacts from iCloud
Part 1. How to Quickly Backup iPhone Contacts?
Well to avoid many hassles and possible issues, you can choose to backup iPhone contacts to the computer or sync iPhone contacts via third-party apps safely and securely. All you have to do is to simply run the program and it will do the stuff for you.
FoneDog Toolkit - iOS Contacts Backup & Restore is a professional program that efficiently manages all phone data through ‘backup and restores’ option.
This software is able to back up the entire device to the computer without any data loss and no overwriting issues.
Free Download Now, you can try to backup and restore your iPhone contacts in a few clicks.
Step 1: Download, Launch Fonedog and Choose Backup Option
Download and Launch Fonedog toolkit. Connect the iPhone to the computer with an original USB cable connector and wait until software loads up. Choose iOS Data Backup from the main menu and continue to the next step.
Step 2: Select Contacts Backup Mode
You can choose from the two given options of data backup mode: Standard and Encrypted. Standard will backup all data regularly while Encrypted will let you set one password for the entire phone files. Choose whichever you desire and click Start.
Step 3: Choose Contacts to Backup
Among the given phone data onscreen, mark iPhone Contacts to backup and then click Next to continue.
Step 4: Contacts Backup Complete
Wait until FoneDog Toolkit - iOS Data Backup & Restore has finished backing up the entire contacts. It will prompt you when the process is done.
Quick Tip: How to Transfer Contacts among Different Devices
A great tool recommended here would help you to transfer the contacts between Android devices, iOS devices, Android and iOS devices, or even Android/iOS and PCs. It is called Fone Dog Phone Transfer.
Part 2. How to Backup iPhone Contacts to Google

It may sound a little weird but yes you can backup iPhone contacts to Google. All you need is to add or register a Google account and we will give you the steps on how to smoothly keep all the contacts safe.
How to Backup iPhone Contacts to Google
- Step 1: Install the Google Drive app.
- Step 2: Register a Google account.
- Step 3: Turning on the contact sync option and sync the contacts on your iPhone to Google.
- Step 4: You can verify if all the contacts were synced by opening the Gmail account on a browser or go to contacts.google.com and check if all contracts are complete.
- On the iPhone, install and launch Google Drive
- Tap Menu in the top left corner
- Tap Settings
- Tap Backup
- Tap Start Backup
Before you start the backup, make sure you are connected to Wi-Fi and not mobile data to avoid extra charges and of course a stable connection.
Step 2: Register a Google Account:- Launch Settings app on your iPhone
- Tap Contacts, scroll down and tap Accounts
- Tap Add Account and then Google
- Enter your email and password (if you enabled 2-Step verification, use the same app password)
- Tap Next
- Toggle Contacts on
- Tap Save
After turning on the contact sync option, all the contacts will be saved to Gmail automatically. You can verify if all the contacts were synced by opening the Gmail account on a browser or go to contacts.google.com and check if all contracts are complete.
How To Sync Google Contacts
If contacts are not syncing or if you are having problems with syncing the contacts, follow the troubleshooting below:
- Open Settings app on the iPhone
- Tap Contacts
- Tap Accounts
- Tap the Google account
- Turn 'Contacts' on.
- Tap Account
- Tap Advanced
- Turn 'Use SSL' on
- Tap Account
- Tap Done
- Add account of your Gmail account again
This will then start back up your iPhone contacts to Google drive. Remember that when you back up multiple times, all the previous backups will be overwritten especially for contacts, photos, and calendars.
Third party contacts such as Microsoft Exchange and Facebook will not be added to the backup
Part 3. How to Transfer iPhone Contacts to Gmail Using iCloud?
ICloud is so far the best way to backup all the contacts on any iOS devices.Also, it can sync contacts. This is because it gives total convenience to ensure that all data is safe no matter what and wherever you are. All you need is to simply turn on the iCloud backup.
Note: Here you are going to do with Google Contacts as well. Google Contacts greatly helps in contact transfer.
Follow the steps below on how to backup contacts to iCloud:
- On your iPhone go to Settings and tap your iCloud account or your name then tap iCloud and toggle Contacts on.
- On your computer, open iCloud.com and enter your Apple ID and password
- Click on Contacts among the given options and then select the contacts you wish to sync from your iPhone to Gmail
- Tap on Settings and click the Export vCard option
- Open Google Contacts and sign in or go to contacts.google.com
- Click the Import Contacts... option from the left panel and click Choose File in the new popup window
- Select the vCard you just exported from iCloud and then click Import
That’s it! You have just performed how to backup iPhone contacts to Gmail via iCloud.
Part 4. Summary
Imagine if you lose all your iPhone contacts. Will you be able to call or text anybody from your phonebook just by memory? We bet not.
We cannot deny that contacts are extremely important in our everyday phone use. We cannot remember all our family and friend’s numbers all at the same time that is why we rely mainly on our phonebooks.
There are so many ways to backup iPhone contacts to Google drive even if they are competitors. Users are given their free will on how to back up their own personal data as long as they follow the above-given methods.
In case you are having a hard time syncing the contacts to Google, simply use FoneDog Toolkit - iOS Data Backup & Restore and you will surely have all the contacts safely, easily and faster!
