Talk to AnnaHow sync works
Rolyio keeps shared labels in sync between people’s address books. Here is honestly how it works, including the timing you can expect.
What moves, and what doesn’t
Only shared data moves between people. Contacts in labels you have not shared stay private in your account — Rolyio reads them to show your labels, but never copies them to anyone else. Rolyio also does not keep a copy of your address book; contacts live in your Google or Microsoft account.
Sync timing
- Google accounts — Rolyio polls the Google People API on a schedule, roughly every 60 seconds. A change you make in Google Contacts typically reaches recipients within a minute or two.
- Microsoft accounts — Rolyio uses Microsoft Graph webhooks, so changes are picked up near-realtime: Microsoft notifies Rolyio when a contact changes, and the update propagates within seconds. If a webhook notification is missed, the regular scheduled sync catches up automatically.
- Manual sync — you can always trigger an immediate pass with the Sync contacts button.
Cross-ecosystem shares combine both: a change on a Google-side label reaches an Outlook recipient after Google’s polling pass plus the write to Microsoft.
How conflicts are resolved
When the same contact is edited in two places, Rolyio applies last-write-wins with roles taken into account:
- If the recipient has the Edit role (or higher), the most recent change wins and syncs to everyone.
- If the recipient has the View role, the owner’s version always wins — the recipient’s local edits are overwritten on the next sync.
- Deletions follow roles too: an Edit recipient deleting a contact from their “(Shared)” group removes it from the owner’s label. See the warning in Roles and permissions.
Rolyio also protects against echo loops, so a change written by Rolyio itself is not mistaken for a new user edit and bounced back and forth.
The Sync monitor
The Sync monitor shows recent sync activity for your connected accounts, so you can confirm changes are flowing and see when the last pass ran. If something looks stuck, run Sync contacts manually and check the Sync monitor again.