Tag: google calendar

Sync Multiple Google Calendars on iPhone: Finally Figured it Out! [en]

[fr] Instructions pour synchroniser plus d'un calendrier Google avec son iPhone.

This is something that has been annoying the hell out of me for some time, now. I use at least half a dozen different Google calendars to keep track of my stuff, but when adding a Google account to iCal, all it does is add the main calendar.

I had come upon a hack which consisted in adding each Google calendar in iCal on the computer separately, rather than using delegation. A few weeks ago I was doing some digital housekeeping, and forgot why I had initially done that, and switched back to normal delegation. There went all my lovely syncing.

Let me explain things a bit more clearly:

  1. I have a bunch of Google calendars.
  2. I prefer using the iCal application on the computer and on my iPhone rather than the web interface.
  3. I want everything to sync.

Now, getting Google calendar to sync with iCal on the computer is quite straightforward: add a Google calendar account to iCal following these instructions, and under the “delegation” tab, include any secondary calendars you may have.

It gets tricky with the iPhone. You might think that now that you have your Google calendars in iCal, you will find them on your iPhone if you configure your iPhone to sync calendars with your computer. But no. iCloud or no iCloud, that’s not how it works.

So, you can add a Google account to your iPhone under Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars > Add Account… > Google Mail. That’s fine if you have only one calendar, but not if you have more than one, because there isn’t anything like the “delegation” function you had in iCal.

So, if you have more than one like I do, here’s what you need to do:

  1. Add your Google account as a Microsoft Exchange account as described here.
  2. Head over to https://m.google.com/sync/settings/iconfig/, select your iPhone (or other device), and choose which calendars you want to sync.

It’s pretty straightforward, but (a) you have to know about it and (b) do not forget the trailing slash in the URL above. I kept getting “device not supported” and 404 errors which were driving me batty until I figured out what was the cause. Almost gave up!

Thanks a lot to @zecege who patiently tweeted to and fro with me while I figured out all this!

OS 10.6, iCal, gCal, and my iPhone [en]

[fr] Après ma mise à jour de OSX, petit problème avec iCal qui refusait de synchroniser avec mon iPhone les calendriers Google "délégués". La solution: ajouter chaque calendrier CalDAV individuellement. J'ai aussi trouvé la source des alarmes énervantes qui ont fait récemment leur apparition pour chaque nouvel événement que j'ajoutais: l'onglet "Notifications" dans Google Calendar.

I upgraded to OSX.6 (Snow Leopard) a week or so ago and discovered that iCal supported built-in sync with Google Calendar. I’d been using Spanning Sync until now (and was happy with it) but thought that if iCal did this out of the box, I might as well try it.

So, I set up delegation to add my multiple gCal calendars to iCal, but was disappointed that only my main calendar seemed to sync with my iPhone.

I found the solution to the problem here: how to make multiple Google Calendars in iCal sync with iPhone. In short, you turn off delegation, and add each gCal manually as a CalDAV account. Five minutes of work, but it works!

Since my upgrade I also had annoying notifications for each new event I created, even though I had turned off alarms in iCal. After hunting high and low, I spotted the “Notifications” tab in gCal calendar details, and discovered I had a series of default alarms set there for my main calendar. I turned them off, and while I was at it, linked my mobile phone to my account so I can get SMS alerts when I want them. (For once that this kind of stuff works with Switzerland too!)