If you want to sync a Google calendar with your iPhone there is a real easy way to do this and get a free online/calendar backup in the process.
We will be using Microsoft outlook 2007 but 2003 supports this too.
Before we show how to set this up, we’ll discuss how this works.
We setup an Google online calendar, it’s free and then set this to sync with your Outlook calendar, then set the same Google calendar to sync with your iPhone.
Make any change on any of the calendars, Outlook, iPhone or Google and the changes will quickly replicate to the other calendars.
To a certain degree this gives us a calendar stored in 3 places, if you ever lose data on your iPhone or Outlook just re-sync and it will re-add any entries.
To me this setup is priceless, if I plan to do something I can see on my iPhone if my wife has already booked anything on that date or vice- versa.
To set this up you first need a Google calendar, search in Google for this to create your account.
Make a note of your Google account credentials and add toOutlook
You can use either Outlook 2003 or 2007
Download Google calendar sync from http://dl.google.com/googlecalendarsync/GoogleCalendarSync_Installer.exe
Run the file then configure the Outlook calendar sync options
Enter your Google account details.
Setup for 2 way syncing, and how often you want to sync, I set mine to 10 mins which is the minimum.
You can always sync manually or change options by right clicking on the calendar sync on the bottom right of the screen, this also tells the last time it was sync’d.
And finished.
iPhone
- To sync iPhone calendar or calendars, make sure your iPhone is using firmware version 3 or above.
- Go to Settings
- Select Mail, Contacts, Calendars
- Add an Account
- Choose Microsoft Exchange
- Within the Email Box Enter the Email Address of your Google Account
- Leave the Domain Box Empty
- In Username Enter the Email Address of your Google Account
- Select Next
- Accept any Certificate
- You Will Now See a Server Box – Enter – m.google.com
- Select Next
- Choose Calendar and Contacts
- If You Have Current Contacts or Calendar Entries on your iPhone and you wish to Keep Them Make Sure You Select Keep on My Phone When Prompted (it’s also worth backing up contacts and calendar entries via iTunes)
Now if you open the calendar as long as you have a data connection it will begin to sync automatically, you can also set it to start automatically as long as you have Push enabled under fetch new data (Settings – Mail, Contacts, Calendars)
And that’s it, once in place the whole thing works so seamlessly.
Add an entry to any of the three and it then syncs quickly to the other two.
If ever you add an entry while your offline it will sync up as soon as you’re back online.
You can add more computers and iPhone’s as needed, this works very well for small companies who want shared calendars but not the expense of other email setups.
If you have any questions in regard to your Google Calendar please ask.
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