Google today released a piece of software that may just be the holy grail of calendar synchronization. Well, if you use Windows and Outlook, anyway. Google Calendar Sync is a utility that automatically synchronizes your Outlook and Google Calendar appointments.You can configure Google Calendar Sync for 2 way sync, meaning that any time you update either calendar, the changes will be copied to the other. Or you can choose a 1-way sync which will only copy changes made from one calendar to the other and not vice versa.
What's really exciting about Google Calendar Sync is it gives you a way to synchronize your calendar across multiple devices easily. Just install Google Calendar Sync on multiple computers and now when you update your laptop calendar it will automatically sync with Google Calendar, which will automatically sync with your desktop PC, which will sync with your Windows Mobile PDA. Pretty cool, huh?
Google Calendar Sync is hardly the first tool for synchronizing Outlook and Google Calendar, but it's free and it performs automatic synchronization at regularly scheduled interviews while most other programs cost money and/or require you to activate them manually.
Now if Google would just release a version that works with Thunderbird (with the Lightning extension) and iCal.
[via Official Google Blog]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
3-06-2008 @ 5:29AM
copperfish said...
www.goosync.com
Works great to my Symbian phone and since I dropped Outlook long ago its all I need...
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3-06-2008 @ 6:25AM
Sam Abuelsamid said...
forgot the link
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/sunbird/addon/4631
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3-06-2008 @ 7:58AM
Justin Brown said...
Plaxo. that and a lot more
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3-06-2008 @ 7:59AM
Zia said...
Great news, especially that this is not a 3rd party software but an official release from Google.
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3-06-2008 @ 8:00AM
copperfish said...
www.goosync.com
Works great to my Symbian phone and since I dropped Outlook long ago its all I need...
Reply
3-06-2008 @ 8:00AM
Sam Abuelsamid said...
The google calendar provider extension does automatic syncing between lightning or sunbird and gcal. After installing, you subscribe to any google calendars you want and any changes made on your machine instantly show up in google and vice versa. None of this once per hour or 15 minutes. Works on mac and windows
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3-06-2008 @ 8:00AM
Adam said...
Doesn't work with Windows 2000...can't use this at work which is the most useful place for me. That sucks.
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3-06-2008 @ 8:01AM
Barry Cleave said...
Great step forward!
In a post on my blog on 5 Feb 08 (GTD - Getting Things Done) I said:
"At present I am constrained by the need to use MS Outlook at work so I really need some freeware utilities that can intelligently exchange data with Outlook." I am sure this applies to lots of other people.
Unfortunately we are still using Outlook 2000 at work and the Google Sync utility only works with 2003 and 2007. We also sit behind a firewall and proxy so I wonder if this will also be an issue (Anyone know the answer to that?) Anyway I shall certainly use it at home but will still have to rely on Activesync and my mobile phone to sync my work calendar
Regards
Barry
http://proreviewer.com
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3-06-2008 @ 8:01AM
ChiliPepr said...
Anyone know of something that syncs Outlook contacts with the web as well?
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3-06-2008 @ 9:01AM
blewett said...
Meh.... I mean it's nice and all, but let me know when it can handle multiple calendars instead of just the default.
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3-06-2008 @ 9:31AM
Nick said...
Schedualworld.com works great however requires a lot of juggling and often can screw up appointment times.
Works just as well as this google sync however it offers the ability to sync calender, Contacts, Tasks, and to do list!
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3-06-2008 @ 9:47AM
Frank P. said...
Seems to work fine for appointments I added myself, but it doesn't sync Outlook events that were added to my calendar by other people.
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3-06-2008 @ 11:17AM
rushangshah said...
Here's another product that syncs Google calendar + contacts with Outlook, Palm Desktop, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile and Palm OS. It also supports older versions of Windows and Outlook (for Adam, Barry, Cleave, and everyone else who were asking...).
http://www.companionlink.com/products/companionlinkforgoogle.html
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3-06-2008 @ 11:19AM
rushangshah said...
Here's something that works with older versions of Outlook, Windows, Palm Desktop, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, and Palm OS phones:
http://www.companionlink.com/products/companionlinkforgoogle.html
Reply
3-06-2008 @ 12:15PM
kyoko said...
I've installed it and every time it syncs, my outlook (2003 SP2 - build number: 11.8002.6568) shuts down without any warning.
anyone having the same issue?
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3-06-2008 @ 12:57PM
finkelmana said...
Didnt work for me... Just causes outlook 2007 to crash on my winXP system.
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3-07-2008 @ 7:59AM
nizzy1115 said...
Works perfect for me. Office 2007 and Vista business. I upgraded to SP1 and it still works perfect. Thanks!
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3-08-2008 @ 12:28PM
VitaminCM said...
Plaxo is a far better solution. It has a toolbar for Outlook and Thunderbird that syncs with Outlook, Gmail and Calendar, Yahoo, MSN, Hotmail, AOL. That covers about 99.9% of people.
If you have an iPhone or Smartphone, then you can sync everything everywhere.
Here are step-by-step instructions on Syncing Everything Using the Plaxo Toolbar.
Reply
3-20-2008 @ 12:34PM
Calgoo said...
Its great to see Google recognize that their users want a sync to a desktop platform and this is a very good start. The sync itself works quite well, many of the people at our office have given it a whirl to see how it all goes.
Unfortunately it does not let you sync multiple calendars or calendars that have been shared with you. You can only sync your default calendar. But hey if someone needs that thats where the 3rd party suppliers come in. We offer a product (Connect) that allows this and there are other companies out there who do this as well, all you have to do is search around a bit.
Cheers!
Calgoo
http://www.calgoo.com
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