CardDAV

[Rudism]

Originally Posted by brong

I really hope it can happen this week actually. We've been doing a ton of rewriting to get real JMAP support into the backend, because CardDAV was just too slow for shared account support to be enabled, and it would have taken more work to make CardDAV work across users for family sharing than to make JMAP work.

Just to make sure, family users are still going to get customer-facing CardDAV support, correct? JMAP is just being used behind the scenes?

[robn]

Originally Posted by Rudism

Just to make sure, family users are still going to get customer-facing CardDAV support, correct? JMAP is just being used behind the scenes?

Yes, everyone gets CardDAV. For now JMAP is only being used between the web client and the backends.

[Fontane]

Hello,
Are (Fastmail subscribers) at the point yet of being able to use iCloud contacts as our central contact database with Fastmail? Right now, I have to routinely download the contacts file from iCloud, delete my existing Fastmail contacts, and then upload the contacts file to Fastmail if I want to update my contacts. Pretty annoying and laborious. Any updates?
Thanks!

[PON]

Originally Posted by BritTim

That sounds really good. The architecture will be very sound, and we are looking forward to it.

Seconded. I've been waiting for this for a long time!

[neilj]

Originally Posted by Fontane

Hello,
Are (Fastmail subscribers) at the point yet of being able to use iCloud contacts as our central contact database with Fastmail?

No, this is not a planned feature. The point is you will be able to use FastMail *instead* of iCloud for all your contacts. Your iPhone/Mac etc. will be able to sync directly with FastMail instead of iCloud using CardDAV.

Neil.

[Fontane]

Originally Posted by neilj

No, this is not a planned feature. The point is you will be able to use FastMail *instead* of iCloud for all your contacts. Your iPhone/Mac etc. will be able to sync directly with FastMail instead of iCloud using CardDAV.

Neil.

Oh wow, that's a huge disappointment. It's a pretty basic feature to be able to sync with another service's contacts.

So if I do not want to use Fastmail to manage my contacts, I have to regularly upload a new export from my contacts database. This was the only annoyance I've had with Fastmail, but I held on because I thought there was a fix. Now I have to go figure out another solution. Bummer.

[neilj]

Originally Posted by Fontane

Oh wow, that's a huge disappointment. It's a pretty basic feature to be able to sync with another service's contacts.

Well, no, it's actually a really complex thing to add and I don't know any email service that does it (Gmail doesn't support syncing Google contacts with iCloud, iCloud doesn't support syncing contacts with Yahoo Mail etc.) But why bother hosting your contacts at iCloud at all? It's a lot easier to have one server host them.

Neil.

[Fontane]

Originally Posted by neilj

Well, no, it's actually a really complex thing to add and I don't know any email service that does it (Gmail doesn't support syncing Google contacts with iCloud, iCloud doesn't support syncing contacts with Yahoo Mail etc.) But why bother hosting your contacts at iCloud at all? It's a lot easier to have one server host them.

Neil.

Maybe I don't quite understand how it works.

If I use Fastmail to manage my contacts, can I still sync my iPhone and Macbook contacts with Fastmail? With iCloud, I keep my contacts in one repository and any changes I make from my devices - macbook, iphone, ipad, etc. - are reflected on each device.

Is there a way to manage my contacts at Fastmail, and be able to sync my devices as well as make changes on those devices and have the changes appear everywhere?

Thank you!

[N12L34]

Originally Posted by Fontane

Maybe I don't quite understand how it works.

Is there a way to manage my contacts at Fastmail, and be able to sync my devices as well as make changes on those devices and have the changes appear everywhere?

Not sure how it works on iPhones, but for me all changes are propagated to all devices (Android and Webinterface) over cardDAV. I can add a new contact in the Fastmail web interface, add a new number on my Phone and upload a new contact image from my tablet. So if an iPhone can communicate via cardDAV, the effect should be the same.

[Der]

Originally Posted by neilj

Well, no, it's actually a really complex thing to add and I don't know any email service that does it (Gmail doesn't support syncing Google contacts with iCloud,

Hmm. It did as of a few years ago. I know because I had my iPhone set up to sync with Google for awhile. I eventually disconnected the link because Google doesn't support custom labels and was corrupting my iCloud data, but if I had constrained myself to standard labels like "Mobile", "Home", etc., I think the syncing would have worked fine.

In order to preserve the labels I use in iCloud, I found an app (Contacts Sync) that would do one-way syncs from iCloud to Google, and I continue to use that approach to this day.

So yes, Google does--or at least it did--sync contacts with iCloud, and even if it didn't, there are third-party apps that do.

But why bother hosting your contacts at iCloud at all? It's a lot easier to have one server host them.

Well, let's think about this. First off, I agree that it's generally best to have one server as the primary host for one's contacts. However, redundancy is also helpful in case something goes wrong, and iCloud can be especially helpful in that regard. I have a Mac, which, of course, is connected to iCloud. In addition to the cloud storage, Apple devices also store data locally, so when my Mac's hard drive is backed up by Time Machine and by CrashPlan, my contacts (as well as my calendar) are also given the versioned backup treatment. I think you'll agree there is value to that.

But okay, let's say I'm willing to trust FM to be the only place with up-to-date contacts data. Would there be a loss of functionality by not syncing with iCloud? Would tapping on an address in Mail result in the opportunity to add the address to an existing contact or to create a new contact in FM. Perhaps--I haven't tried it.

Does the iOS Calendar app have good support for non-iCloud CalDAV calendars?

There are advantages to using the native apps on my iPhone if the apps meet my general needs, and I'm concnered that not going completely outside iCloud will reduce or eliminate some of those advantages. I don't actually know, because I haven't tried it. I may be worrying about nothing.

I also don't know how easily I can share the FM calendar with someone who is not an FM customer. It probably works fine--again, I just haven't tried it. I do know that iCloud works well.

[Der]

Also, I'm interested to know what happened between Post 178 of this thread and now. At that time (21 Feb), the intent was apparently to have FM contacts be able to sync with iCloud. Was it more difficult than anticipated?

[jtmusson]

Originally Posted by Fontane

If I use Fastmail to manage my contacts, can I still sync my iPhone and Macbook contacts with Fastmail? With iCloud, I keep my contacts in one repository and any changes I make from my devices - macbook, iphone, ipad, etc. - are reflected on each device.

Is there a way to manage my contacts at Fastmail, and be able to sync my devices as well as make changes on those devices and have the changes appear everywhere?

This is exactly what CardDAV is designed to achieve. Like you, I have an iPhone and MacBook and I can set up both of these devices to sync with FastMail's CardDAV server.

Then if I make changes on the FastMail website, on my iPhone or on my MacBook, changes to those contacts will be synced with my contacts on the FastMail website, and my other devices.

Originally Posted by Der

But okay, let's say I'm willing to trust FM to be the only place with up-to-date contacts data. Would there be a loss of functionality by not syncing with iCloud? Would tapping on an address in Mail result in the opportunity to add the address to an existing contact or to create a new contact in FM. Perhaps--I haven't tried it.

Does the iOS Calendar app have good support for non-iCloud CalDAV calendars?

An advantage of syncing via CardDAV is that, like calendars synced via CalDAV, the native iOS contacts and calendar apps can access these contacts and calendars. This means that using FastMail's contacts and calendars, syncing via CardDAV and CalDAV, should work pretty much as well as iCloud does. So your contact info would still pop up in Mail on OS X or iOS, and you'd still have the opportunity to create a new contact, which would then be synced via CardDAV to FastMail's servers.

This is the same for calendars. I have my FastMail calendars set up to sync on my Mac and iPhone, and it's syncing between my devices without any problems.

Originally Posted by Der

I agree that it's generally best to have one server as the primary host for one's contacts. However, redundancy is also helpful in case something goes wrong, and iCloud can be especially helpful in that regard. I have a Mac, which, of course, is connected to iCloud. In addition to the cloud storage, Apple devices also store data locally, so when my Mac's hard drive is backed up by Time Machine and by CrashPlan, my contacts (as well as my calendar) are also given the versioned backup treatment. I think you'll agree there is value to that.

If I may say something towards this concern about the redundancy of the data -- I think contacts and calendars synced via CardDAV and CalDAV to a Mac would still be backed up by Time Machine, as the machine maintains a cache of the data between syncs. But you could certainly schedule in manual exports of all calendar and contact information on a regular basis so you have the files backed up. (I think I'm going to set myself a recurring task to do that right now!)

Originally Posted by Der

I also don't know how easily I can share the FM calendar with someone who is not an FM customer. It probably works fine--again, I just haven't tried it. I do know that iCloud works well.

And, finally -- yes, you can share Calendars from FastMail with users of other calendar systems. There are details here:
https://www.fastmail.com/help/calend...tml?u=b8e44114

I feel like I've waded right into the middle of something. I hope I've done so helpfully.

J

[Der]

Originally Posted by jtmusson

If I may say something towards this concern about the redundancy of the data -- I think contacts and calendars synced via CardDAV and CalDAV to a Mac would still be backed up by Time Machine, as the machine maintains a cache of the data between syncs. But you could certainly schedule in manual exports of all calendar and contact information on a regular basis so you have the files backed up. (I think I'm going to set myself a recurring task to do that right now!)

Manual backups will not occur as reliably. However, I suspect you are right that the CardDAV contacts would be treated similarly to iCloud contacts.

And, finally -- yes, you can share Calendars from FastMail with users of other calendar systems. There are details here:
https://www.fastmail.com/help/calend...tml?u=b8e44114

Read-only won't cut it for me and my wife. So we have to sync with iCloud unless she decides to switch to FM. This has nothing much to do with contacts, though.

[ulmus]

.... for something different...
I am using FM carddav with my android mobile few months already... it is working great, but have one question:
what about photos/pictures of contacts and other carddav fields...
is there any chance to see items stored in carddav server by others?
When i was changing my mobile it was great to have carddav working, i had to only log into carddav and thats all, all photos of contacts were updated, all its data, numbers.... it would be great to have some photo support in web UI...
I think that it has something to do with different standards, but... maybe you can do something?

[robn]

Originally Posted by ulmus

what about photos/pictures of contacts and other carddav fields...

Photos are coming. If you're using beta.fastmail.com, you can already see the beginnings of this support.

For other fields, we may add more in the future, but we'll never show everything. CardDAV/vCard is completely open-ended, so there's no way for us to show everything, and many fields (eg anniversary or relationships) are not standardised and incredibly difficult to round-trip through the web client without losing data.

Of course you'll always be able to store and retrieve these extra fields via CardDAV. We just won't display them all.