After yesterday’s fun trying to get both my Google Apps and my GMail account work on my Milestone (Droid), I decided to write up the steps for others.
First, why do you need to do this? If you have a Google Apps account and it’s your primary account on your phone, you won’t be able to access things like My Maps on Google Maps. Google Apps accounts don’t have that feature.
Second, be aware that the procedure outlined below starts with a factory reset of your phone. You won’t lose any data, but you will lose all installed apps and your home screen settings. Not to worry, though–once you’re back up you can open the Market and go to the Downloads tab to see all of the apps that you had previously downloaded and re-download them. You will have to spend some time redoing your home screen. I use the excellent ADW.Launcher, which saves your Launcher and Desktop settings to your SD card, so restoring my home screen was a snap.
Before you do any work on the phone, you need to associate a gmail.com account with your Google Apps for Domains account. To do this, go to the Google Accounts login page and log in with your Google Apps account (full email address, including your domain name). Under “Try something new” click on GMail and add a new gmail.com account. This account will be used for Buzz if you like, so choose something accordingly. I added chris.dollmont@gmail.com to my account.
You can sign on to your new account and go to Settings. Under Forwarding and POP/IMAP, forward a copy of all incoming mail to your Google Apps for Domains account. I have all mail forward to my domain account and deleted from the GMail account.
You should now have two accounts that are linked together. One is your Google Apps for Domain account and the other is a GMail account. You can access the first from your normal domain login page and the second from gmail.com. Now that that’s taken care of, on to the phone!
First, go to Settings|Privacy and do a “Factory data reset”. When the phone comes back up, set up the phone again with your Google Apps for Domains account. Once the setup is complete, immediately go to Settings|Accounts & Sync. Add your GMail account. If you’re only using your GMail account for linking, you can turn off sync in your GMail account’s sync settings.
Once you’ve added both accounts, go back to restoring your phone. Re-add your apps by going to Market and selecting the Downloads tab. You should see a list of all apps you’ve previously downloaded. Re-download the ones you want again. You can also go back and redo your home screen(s).
Now you can go to Maps and hit the menu key. Under More, select Switch Account. Switch to your Gmail account (gmail.com). Under Layers|More Layers you should now be able to select My Maps and see a list of your saved Map sets.
Note that when you access Maps on your PC web browser, you should show as being signed in to your Gmail account. You can edit your maps here and the changes will be available on your phone. Add directions and routes, add points of interest. Do it from the desktop where it’s easier and sync to your phone automatically. The Google My Maps Editor for Android tool will now work properly, too.
Another side effect of this linking is that you’ll now be able to access Buzz. Sign in through gmail.com to your GMail account and select Buzz from the menu on the left. You can also go to buzz.google.com on your phone and get all the Buzz on Android.
You may also use Google Voice and Google Listen. In fact, as far as I can tell, all of the Google services now work properly. Even the Picasa uploader in Gallery works, when it didn’t before. The only real change I’ve noticed is that I now appeared signed on to all services under my GMail account rather than my domain account, even if I use my domain login.
For those of you who are wondering, I took the step of factory reseting the phone because attempts to add the GMail account kept failing. I had a bunch of other accounts added (Twiiter, Last.FM, etc.). It appears that the reset followed immediately by adding both Google accounts solved the problem.
The whole process is a bit of a pain, but it’s worth it in the end. I think it would be better if Google solved this problem internally somehow, but for now, this process Worked For Me(tm).
#1 by Rob on 2 February, 2011 - 2:28 am
I also have the problem of getting a Google Apps account and already having a Gmail account and an Android phone.
I understood that when you change your account from Gmail to Google Apps (or from gmail to different gmail account) you lose all previously bought applications under your Gmail account.
Do you have any experience with this?
Also you said that you can add two google accounts (Gmail and GApps). Wouldn’t it be possible to use Gmail as main account and GApps as second? Hoping to keep bought apps and also calendar for GApps account.
#2 by Rob on 2 February, 2011 - 5:33 am
If ‘fixed’ it by doing the following what I read from the following thread: http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Google%20Mobile/thread?tid=1a743e9b86168207&hl=en
And suddenly I had my GApps account also. Don’t know what caused it because the account didn’t appear directly after trying one of the above,
I also had a calendar problem. It seemed impossible to display my GApps calendar on my phone. Tried about everything I could find. In the end I shared my GApps calendar with my Gmail account. You also need to give outside permission (only those you add) in your GApps domain settings. After this you can add entries in Gmail calendar in GApps. By default the entries are added for your GMail account. By hiding the GApps calendar (from the GApps calendar) the Gmail account is used as default. With this you can view appointmens made from your GApps account. When sending an email to the appointments attendants, the email is send from your GApps account.
#3 by chris on 28 February, 2011 - 7:19 am
If you use a Google Domains account and tie it to a GMail account as outlined here, you will keep all of your apps. You’ll also get signon’s for all of Google’s services–even the ones not included in Google Domains.
#4 by Nic Doye on 12 July, 2011 - 11:08 pm
Does this still work? I couldn’t see “Try something new” when I looked.
Also, is there a minimum Android version required should I get any further? I’m stuck with 2.1 on my phone.
#5 by chris on 13 July, 2011 - 9:22 am
Since I wrote this post there have been more changes to the way Google Apps for Domains and regular GMail accounts relate to one another. With the rollout of Google+, even more changes were made. Hopefully, Google will complete transitioning Apps for Domains accounts to the real world soon.