iCal & Google Calendar Sync Tutorial

By Dan Hinckley

5 responses. »

Google has finally made it quick and easy to sync your Google Calendar with iCal. In fact, setting up iCal to sync with Google Calendar doesn’t require you do anything on Google Calendar at all.

To setup iCal to sync with your Google Calendar:

  1. Open iCal and select Preferences from the menu bar
    2. iCalScreenSnapz001.png
  2. Once Preferences opens, select Accounts and click the + at the bottom left.
  3. When the pop up screen appears enter a Description for your Google Calendar, enter your email address and password for Google Calendar in the Username and Password fields.
    4. iCal.png
  4. In the Account URL option enter in the following address: https://www.google.com/calendar/dav/maciverse@gmail.com/user – but be sure to change the email address in the URL to match your email address.
  5. Click Add and wait for the sync to take place. Google notes this may take up to 5 minutes initially but that all future syncs are instantaneous.

After syncing iCal with your Google Calendar you can quickly and easily keep track of your events from any web browser and be sure they’ll be updated on your home computer.

Use Google Calendar to Sync Outlook and iCal

I also sync my Outlook Calendar from work with my Google Calendar and because I do so, all of my work events were added to iCal as soon as the accounts were sync’d. You can use Google Calendar Sync with Outlook and follow the instructions above to keep your work and home calendars all sync’d up.

About Dan Hinckley
Dan Hinckley is an experienced Mac user who converted to Apple products when they introduced them on Intel Processors. He loves helping others get more out of their devices! Subscribe to Maciverse.com to get the latest from Dan and the Maciverse Team!! Find out more about Dan:

5 Responses so far.

  1. Tom Mount

    July 30, 2008 at 1:30 pm

    Interesting – I thought two-way sync wasn’t possible natively, but I guess it is now. Will be interested to see if this data is available offline in iCal because if it is then there’s no reason to renew my SpanningSync license next year.

    Tip – if you have multiple calendars in your account you can go to the Calendar Settings for that calendar and swap in the Calendar ID towards the bottom of the page, which will allow you to sync with that calendar instead of your primary “your name” calendar.

  2. Best of Maciverse August 08

    November 7, 2008 at 1:42 pm

    [...] Sync iCal, Google Calendar, and Outlook – This tutorial takes you through the needed steps and tools to keep your iCal, Google Calendar, and Outlook Calendars all in sync. [...]

  3. Colin

    April 1, 2009 at 2:11 am

    Actually, no syncing occurs. This just allows you to VIEW and EDIT your Google calendar from you Mac. While it accomplishes much of the same resulting desire that syncing does, it is not actually syncing anything. Any device NOT connected directly to the Google calendar will not get updates (such as, your iPhone).

  4. Jenny

    June 6, 2010 at 10:21 pm

    i'm trying to sync multiple google calendars into iCal, but it hasnt been working too well. my account continues to sync the same default calendar on google cal

  5. Kimberly

    August 25, 2010 at 5:46 am

    No "add" button appeared. "The server where this account is located doesn't allow you to see availability" appears instead.

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