Google Sync - iCal & iPhone - Tutorial - HOWTO

Hi

*This is for 10.5 only*

After much trial an error I've found a reliable way to get the iPhone syncing with Google calendars and iCal. Once setup the syncing works in every direction:

iPhone to Google (both ways)
Google to iCal (both ways
iCal to iPhone (both ways)

When I first tried to upload my iCal .ics files to Google, I kept getting the an error message "Calendar is not available. Please try again in a few minutes." The upload worked fine if it was a newly created calendar with a couple of entries but my Home iCal file goes back years and I wanted to keep it intact.

So follow these steps and it works great.

Part 1: Get your iCal calendars onto Google calendars

1. Backup iCal (File/Backup iCal)
2. Backup iPhone (connect to iTunes, let it do its thing)
I then went to the info tab and told iTunes NOT to put my calendars on iPhone. I don't know if this point is necessary since they are removed automatically later but I did it anyway.
3. Download Spanning sync http://spanningsync.com/
There is a 15 day free trial but you only need to run it once to get your calendar(s) onto Google
4. Create calendars on Google calendar that you wish to be copies of the ones on iCal
5. Run Spanning Sync and sync your iCal calendar with the Google versions
6. Your calendars are now on Google and ready to be synced to your iPhone and iCal

Part 2: Setup Google Sync for your iPhone

1. Follow Google's instructions here:
http://www.google.com/support/mobile/bin/answer.py?answer=138740&topic=14252
WARNING: This will remove the any calendars from your phone so make sure you have done a backup (see Part 1, step 2)
2. In step 12 & 13 of Google's instructions make sure you only sync calendars, NOT contacts as this will replace your contacts on your phone with your contacts list in GMail. So have Mail and Contacts set to OFF.
3. To setup which calendars you want on your iPhone, if you have more than 1 on Google, go to http://m.google.com/sync in Safari on your iPhone. Log in and check which calendars you wish to sync.
4. You now have your iPhone syncing with Google calendar.

Part 3: Setup your Google calendars in iCal

1. Download Calaboration http://code.google.com/p/calaboration/downloads/list
2. Run this, log in to your Google account and check which Google calendars you want to add to iCal
3. They now appear in the sources of iCal. You delete or turn off the versions that are stored locally in iCal.

Done!

Cheers
G©H

You will not need to use Spanning Sync if Google will accept your exported .ics file.

It wouldn't accept mine

"When I first tried to upload my iCal .ics files to Google, I kept getting the an error message "Calendar is not available. Please try again in a few minutes." The upload worked fine if it was a newly created calendar with a couple of entries but my Home iCal file goes back years and I wanted to keep it intact."

This is the workaround...

Cheers