Calendar Sync – Google Calendars Will Make Your Life Easier
If you are anything like me you have a work calendar, a personal calendar, a family calendar, a significant others calendar and probably several other calendars you must keep an eye on for work. This was starting to get overwhelming especially because all of my calendars were spread across multiple platforms. It also doesn’t help that I have use my iPhone, iPad, and MacBook Pro interchangeably, and needed everything to sync with out having to think about it.
So… Google Calendars Set, I went on a journey of discovery to figure out how I could get my Google Calendars (all of them) to sync with my iPhone, iPad, and MacBook Pro, all with out the help of anything like MobileMe. (I am not a huge MobileMe fan but thats a blog post for a different day)
Step One: Relieving all of your devices of their native calendars. In order to have everything play nicely together you must pick one platform…Google Calendars it is. I am a huge fan of Google’s calendar capabilities anyway so this wasn’t too big of a jump for me. Once you make sure all of your data is migrated onto a Google Calendar (herein referred to as gCal) you are ready to start. (Note: it is much easier to create several calendars for types of events rather than trying to squeeze everything onto one)
Step Two: Go into the Mail, Contacts, and Calendars settings on your mobile devices. Make sure to turn off other calendars if you plan to use a gCal for everything. Once that is complete, delete your gmail account from your phone and iPad. (I know this sounds scary, but dont worry, everything is backed up online)
Step Three: Go to m.google.com/sync on your computer and follow the directions on setting up Gmail using Google Sync. This may take some time, however the directions are super easy to follow. Essentially, you are creating an exchange account for Gmail. (Hint: When setting up the Google Sync your phone and iPad will more than likely name this account Exchange. If you are super picky how things appear on your phone like I am, make sure to change this to Gmail.)
Step Four: Go to m.google.com/sync on your mobile device. You will be prompted to login using your Google sign in. From here select the device you are working on. You will be presented with a list of all of the calendars you own and have access to in your gCal account. Simply select the ones you would like to work with on your device, and just like magic they will appear.
Step Five: Open iCal. Go to preference and delete your previous gmail account and set up a new gCal using CalDav. Once you have the account set up, click the third tab in the preferences named “Delegation”. If you have this account properly set up you will see all of the available calendars. Select all of the gCal’s you would like to manage and have synced with your other mobile devices.
COMPLETE!
Make sure to run a few tests and check when adding new calendar entries that they update across all of your devices. The easiest way to do this is to create a new event in iCal, check and amend it on your iPhone, and finally delete it on your iPad. Then log in to your gCal online and make sure its gone. Make sure to check the update/sync times on your devices. I originally thought I had messed up, however I had the auto-refresh times set to long and as such didn’t get the updates immediately. This is easily changed in the preferences.
Finally: Enjoy knowing when and where you need to be. No matter what device you happen to be in front of, you can schedule your time away and know you will have total access when ever and where ever.
Guest Post by Greg Grospitch @greggrospitch.
Note: I originally wrote this post for my other blog, but I wanted to repost on TSA. I hope it makes your life a little bit easier!
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I’m still waiting for a complete Exchange replacement from Google. I’d love to move everything to our Google Apps account, but having the flawless syncing of everything across all devices (PCs running Outlook 2010, MacBookPros running Outlook 2011, iPhones, iPads, etc) via Exchange is still worth the price of a hosted service.
Is there also a way to sync outlook with google for those of us using outlook ( and it’s corresponding meeting requests) at work ?
If you have business google apps, it has outlook sync.
If you don’t have business ga, then companionlink.com works extremely well to sync outlook and google.
If you are a Google Apps customer and wish to sync your shared calendars to you iphone do the following:
1. Log into your Google Apps calendar on your desktop.
2. Once logged in, visit https://www.google.com/calendar/b/0/iphoneselect You will be presented with a list of your Apps shared calendars, check the ones you wish synced with your iphone.
3. Done.
Thank you for the article! I had the same questions as Chad and Kellee, so I will be looking at the business version per Steve’s comment. Thanks again!
@ Steve Hong
Companionlink.com has no support for Mac…
Great post! I was having trouble getting my iPad, Android phone, and Thunderbird w/Gmail sync’d up. This did it! Thanks!
I’ve been doing this for years and I strongly encourage everyone reading to use Google Calendar and sync it to their mobile device. The periodic alerts Google Calendar sends to my phone for various birthdays and anniversaries has helped me so much in my personal life. I went from the guy who could barely remember his own birthday to the guy who remembers to call random aunts and cousins on their birthdays! Plus it’s a great for scheduling meetings, being notified about deadlines and so on.
Google products are pretty ideal for real estate agents, especially with everything set up on a Droid.
For anyone that gets a “Unit is not supported” when visiting m.google.com/sync: change the language to English on the bottom of the sync-webpage. Had this, and found the solution at http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Google%20Mobile/thread?tid=0ba47df3f2d9e6b4&hl=en …
Great post and feedback. Just moved to an Iphone and it sounds like Google calender may be a good solution. Hope I will be able to move events/alerts from my calender on my old blackberry that were originally synched from Outlook.
[...] 8. Google Calendar – I love my Google Calendar. With all my events on Google I can access it from anywhere – my iPhone, iPad, work computer, home computer, someone else’s computer. By having everything stored on Google calendar I have immediate access anytime. It gets better! You can have multiple calendars to separate your kids activities from yours, your work activities from your personal activities, your activities from your spouse’s. You can also share your calendar(s) which comes in extremely handy when you are coordinating with your kids, a spouse or co-workers. If you don’t use Google calendar it is worth looking into. [...]
You forgot Step 6: Get wife to put family appointments/meetings/dinner dates on the shared calendar. My wife had been getting so frustrated with me because she would tell me that we were having dinner with some friends on a particular night. Well before I could put it on my calendar, my phone would ring with an issue I had to take care of on a closing that was falling apart, or a buyer would call, or one of my agents would need my help, or or or… I’d forget to put that dinner appointment on my calendar and would end up scheduling a business appointment. The next week, she’d be upset with me that I forgot and didn’t put it on my calendar. I told her that she should log into my gmail and put it on my calendar instead of calling be but she resisted for months. Finally I shared my Google calendar to her Google account and shared her calendar to my account. Any time she added anything to her calendar, it would sink to mine and BAM… no more forgotten family appointments. It’s made my work life/personal life balance so much easier.