Windows Phone gets another Gmail syncing reprieve

Google has extended support for syncing Gmail accounts to Windows Phones, in the continuing absence of a complete official solution from Microsoft.

At the end of last year, Google said it intended to remove Exchange ActiveSync support for Gmail, hobbling the collection of Gmail in mail clients for Windows Phone.

However, Google subsequently agreed to extend support until the end of July, and has now again extended support through the end of the year.

“We’ve reached an agreement with Google to extend support for new Windows Phone connections to the Google Sync service through 31 December, 2013,” a Microsoft spokesperson told The Register.

Earlier this year, Microsoft said that new support for CalDAV and CardDAV – protocols Google approves of – in Windows Phone 8 would let users connect directly to Google services. That was supposed to be ready by the end of July, but it hasn’t been rolled out to all users yet.