Triangle Trip

How to Sync Google Calendar with Your iPhone and iCal

by on Jun.29, 2009, under Business Tools, Business Travel

I spent the better part of my Sunday trying to figure how to best sync my calendars on my Mac and my phone.  And I think I finally found the magic formula using Google’s free services.  Here’s how to better sync your life:

Google Calendar Setup:

1) First create your calendar(s) on your Google account.

2) If you have multiple Google accounts, pick one to be central point of access and on that account add any calendars on your other Google accounts.  For example, I have a personal Google account and another one for my work through Google Apps.  I chose my work Google account to be the central account and added my personal Google Calendar via its email address.  You will first have to give full read/write sharing permissions to the central account on your other Google Calendars.  If all goes well, your central Google Calendar should list out all your other Calendars under “My calendars”.

Mac iCal Setup:

1) Download the Google Calaboration utility.  This tool helps automate the setup of your Google Calendars on the your Mac iCal application.  Before, it was a tedious process but this definitely make it a whole lot easier.

2) Open up Calaboration, sign in to your Google account, select the calendars you want to add, and click the “Add to iCal” button.  Quick, simple, and efficient.  If everything went well, you should now see your Google calendars on your iCal application.

TIP: If you have multiple Google calendars on iCal, you can easily move an event to a different calendar by dragging the event to the respective Google calendar in the Calendar List view.

Phone Setup:

1) Follow the instructions for you specific device listed here.  I, for example, followed the instructions for the iPhone OS Version 3.0.  Regarding the iPhone setup, note that you can only setup Microsoft Exchange account, hence the importance of the “central” Google account.

NOTE: If your Google account is on a different domain via Google Apps, please have your administrator enable Google Sync on the domain.

2) After the Google Calendars have been configured for your device, go to http://m.google.com on your phone.  If your Google account is via Google Apps, there’s link towards the bottom that says “Google Apps user?”; click on that link to add your Google Apps domain.

3) Click on the link labeled “Sync”.  You should now be able to manage your calendars on your device.

AND presto!  Your entire life is now synchronized.

 
1 Star2 Stars3 Stars4 Stars5 Stars (6 votes, average: 4.33 out of 5)
Loading...


:, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
2 comments for this entry:
  1. How to Sync Your Notes Across All Your Devices - Triangle Trip

    […] my previous post on syncing calendars between your iPhone and Mac, I mentioned that my life was fully synced. Now all my knowledge is n’sync as well, this I […]

  2. Unimenu Editor

    FYI, the Google folks have updated Calaboration.

    Here’s the updated info: http://www.google.com/support/calendar/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=99358#ical

    you’re the best Statusmonger.

Leave a Reply

Looking for something?

Use the form below to search the site:

Still not finding what you're looking for? Drop a comment on a post or contact us so we can take care of it!

Visit our friends!

A few highly recommended friends...