gSyncit is a plugin for Microsoft Outlook that synchronizes Contacts and Calendars between Google’s free Gmail service and those in Outlook.

gSyncit: An impressive range of configuration options.

In The Hypervisor tests we found gSyncit could handle multiple Outlook calendar and contact folders and offered a wide range of flexible configuration options. For example, calendars and contacts are configured separately, and for each there were options to sync Outlook to Google, Google to Outlook, and options to not sync private entries.

We tested gSyncit by installing it on a variety of PCs running Outlook 2007. In each case the installation went smoothly, although gSyncit needed to shut-down Outlook for a moment while it was being installed.

gSyncit automatically added two buttons to our Outlook button bar. One was used to access its configuration pages and the other to manually start synchronization. Before we could synchronize anything for the first time we needed to enter our Gmail account details. We were pleased to see an option to use an SSL connection to Gmail, and found the “Verify Account” button useful for confirming we’d entered the Gmail details correctly.

We used the Sync Options panel to configure automatic synchronization every five minutes, and again, we were impressed by the range of options available to control automatic synchronization.

Another nice touch is that gSyncit can handle multiple Gmail accounts, so we could synchronize data from our colleague’s Gmail accounts with the various calendar and contacts folders in our copy of Outlook. This means gSyncit and a few Gmail accounts are all you need to provide group calendars and group contacts in an organization, even if the various parties are widely dispersed around the world and connected only by the Internet.

And once calendar and contact data is stored in Gmail it can be synchronized with a range of mobile phones. For example, we configured our iPhone to sync with Gmail and were pleased to see that within seconds of changing our iPhone calendar or contacts, the changes were reflected in our Gmail account. And less than five minutes later the changes also showed up automatically in Outlook.