Improved Contact Sync in Snow Leopard
September 1st, 2009 | Published in Google Mac Blog
In May 2008, we told you how iPhone and iPod touch users could sync their Gmail contacts with Address Book in Mac OS X 10.5. Now with Mac OS X 10.6, syncing Gmail contacts is also available to users who do not have an iPhone or iPod touch. If your Mac is running Snow Leopard, you can turn on contact sync in the Address Book preferences.
The syncing is better, too: in Mac OS X 10.6, only contacts in Gmail's "My Contacts" group are synced, rather than all of Gmail's contact suggestions. And photos are now transferred as well, since sometimes you just need to put a face to a name.
Before turning on contact sync, it's a good idea to back up your Gmail and Address Book contacts. Our help page explains how to do that, and covers a bit more on how contact sync works.