Companies like Apple tie you into their products by locking their services on their own devices. That means sharing services between your Android and iOS devices isn’t easy, but not impossible either.
There are some loopholes to help you access your Apple iCloud services on your Android device or to help you transfer your content from one service to the other if you’d prefer to stay platform-independent.
Syncing Your iCloud Emails
If you want to start syncing your iCloud emails, you don’t need any additional apps on your Android device. All you need is an Android device with Google services installed, as you’ll need to use the Gmail app.
Open your Gmail app and click the accounts button in the top-right corner. Click “Add another account” at the bottom, then select “Other.”
Type in your iCloud email address and your password at the next two stages. Once your email account is logged in, your iCloud emails will begin to sync, and you’ll be able to see them and any future emails you receive, too.
Also read: How to Sync CalDAV and CardDAV to Android
Accessing Your iCloud Calendar
Your iCloud calendar is a little harder to access on Android. You can’t access your specific calendar, but you can transfer all of the events on your calendar from your iCloud account to your Google calendar.
To start, you won’t need your iPad or iPhone nearby, but you will need a web browser. Go to the iCloud website and log in with your Apple email address and password, then select “Calendar.”
On the left you’ll find your list of calendars. Click “share calendar” next to your calendar name and select “public calendar,” then “copy link.” The link you’ll have is a webcal:// link. Paste it into your browser’s address bar and replace webcal:// with http:// before hitting Enter.
The .ics file that then downloads can be imported into your Google Calendar. Open Google Calendar on your browser and click the menu button under “other calendars” on the left side.
Click “Import,” then upload the .ics file before clicking the “Import” button underneath. You should then see your iCloud calendar events transferred to your Google account, which you can then access on your Android device using the Google Calendar app.
Syncing Your iCloud Contacts
Like your iCloud calendar, you’ll need to download your contacts from iCloud and import them to your Google account separately. This is assuming your iPhone contacts are backed up to your iCloud account.
You can enable this in your iPhone or iPad iCloud settings.
Go to your iCloud contacts on your browser, then select all of your contacts, holding Shift to select them all from top to bottom. Hit the Settings icon in the bottom left, then click “Export vCard.”
A .vcf file will then download, which you can then import directly into your Google Account by visiting Google Contacts. In the menu on the left of the Google Contacts website, click “More,” then “Import.”
Select the .vcf contacts file you downloaded, then click “Import” to complete the process.
Making Your iPhone Redundant
With all of your iCloud services accessible or transferable to Android, you don’t need to keep your iPhone. You can switch to Android without losing any of your emails, contacts, or calendar events.
If you want to switch to Android but enjoy the style of iOS devices, you should make your Android look like an iPhone next.
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