Apple launched iCloud Control Panel for Windows which enables synchronization with Microsoft Outlook.
Do not start using it before you understand how it works. It may cause loosing of your valuable contacts, calendar entries and mails, both in iCloud and your iPhone.
Why?
1. iCloud Control Panel for Windows creates new folders for you iCloud Contacts and Calendar separate from your default .PST file
2. To sync your Outlook Contacts and Calendar with iCloud you need to merge now separated folders. Until Apple come out with a tool for syncing – easiest way is to copy Outlook entries into iCloud folders.
3. Whatever you edit in Outlook iCloud folders or iPhone or www.iCloud.com it is automatically updated on each of these locations. Therefore – whatever you delete in one location it is gone forever in each other – instantaneously.
Understanding those 3 facts you can take actions to prevent loosing your data or to do syncing as easy as possible…
Moving data from iCloud folder to any other will cause your entries to be erased both in iCloud and iPhone. Therefore be cautions when using Drag and drop in Outlook.
Copying data from your previous Outlook folders to your iCloud can be easy if you setup list view for your entries.
Setting up list view in Contacts folder:
Setting up list view in Calendar folder:
Now you have to select items you want to copy (use standard CTRL+A, or CTRL+Click procedures to do so) and copy selected entries to clipboard:
And at the end go to iCloud folder in Outlook and Paste (CTRL+V) selected entries into iCloud folder. It can be done both in Contacts and Calendar folder. Pasted entries will be automatically synchronized with iCloud and therefore with your iPhone/iPad.
Thanks for the post. Never new how this is functioning. iCloud Outlook plugin caused that I accidentally delete all of my data. My iPhone was empty. Fortunately I’ve found my entries in Outlook Trash folder and restored them to iCloud.