Discussion on:

Using Outlook 2011 on the Mac with Google Apps: Down the rabbit hole

What email client (if any) do you use with Google Mail? I prefer Outlook 2010 to the Google Web-based interface. Have you tried other email clients? Do you have one to suggest to your peers?

Funnily enough, it seems the majority of the blame lies on the user trying to shoehorn a trifecta of vendors into a single overly-complex solution. Using 3 different vendors (Apple, Google, MS) for contact/calendar/email sync should have been a red flag from the beginning.

Even with 2 vendors (Apple, Google) everything would have likely gone fine if the user had just used OS X Mail and Address Book instead of Outlook. And of course, switching to iCloud (a simple 1-vendor solution) solved the issue entirely.

I had exactly the same problem and I think it was triggered when I first activated iCloud on Lion after upgrading from Leopard (my assumption was I could use iCloud along with googleapps - I was wrong). I switched off iCloud but the problem persisted with my contacts tripled. Merge Duplicates on Local Mac Address Book & Google worked but only to be messed up again when Outlook synced back.
How I fixed it:
I deactivated Outlook sync with Local Mac Address Book. Merged duplicates on Address Book and on Google server independently. Synced them and found no further duplicates. Now the duplicates/triplicates were isolated on Outlook.
I exported my "clean" contacts to all the three file formats found on Google as a backup. Now I went into Outlook and DELETED ALL MY CONTACTS. I then synced Outlook with iCal ONLY AFTER THREE days of ensuring Google and Local Mac Address were syncing fine without any duplication. Its three weeks now and everything is working perfectly between all three. I was a bit worried that while syncing between Outlook & Mac Address Book all contacts would probably be deleted since I had deleted them on Outlook, but somehow that did not happen. My back plan was I would delete all contacts from all three places and restore by importing from my back up made earlier.

Regardless of whether you're using Windows or Macintosh, the best solution is to ditch Outlook and use the Google Apps for Business graphical user interface. True, it takes a little getting used to, but once you do, you will never look back. I uninstalled Outlook 6 years ago and never use it. Instead, I use Google's Chrome browser and an Android phone. It's pure heaven.

Douglas Baumwall
Certified Google Apps Reseller
http://EasygApps.com

If you enable syncing of contacts in iTunes, whilst on your iPhone the email sync includes contacts, you'll get a loop that will duplicate contacts over and over. Disable sync'ing of Contacts, Mail accounts, Notes etc. in iTunes and all should be fine.

By the way, to sync Notes on your iPhone, add a Gmail account using your Google Apps credentials (Google Apps should be 'Exchange' for Mail Contacts and Calendars) and sync only notes with that.

I have the same problem using Google Apps for Business, Office 2011 for Mac and syncing with iphone. Contacts in Outlook address book are tripled. I will try to fix it following vivek@...'s suggestion, but need some more explanation about "I exported my "clean" contacts to all the three file formats found on Google as a backup". I'm not an IT specialist, so what are the three file formats found on Google ?

Thanks to anyone who can help me.