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3rd Party App with email AND calendar syncing

H

hokieputter

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Oct 20, 2011
28
24
I've searched all over the place already, so I'm pretty sure I know the answer. But is there a 3rd party app for OS X that combines email and calendar syncing into one? I just bought an rMB and would prefer one app for email, calendar (and including contacts would be nice as well). This desire clearly comes from years running Windows and using Outlook. It's a shame that Outlook for Mac doesn't sync calendars and contacts for anything but Outlook.com and exchange servers accounts. Lame.

I'm new to Mac. But have had an iPhone forever. I really like the Outlook app on iOS. IMO, it's by far the best email/calendar app available for iOS. I need to sync two gmail accounts, work and personal, with heavy calendar usage on the work account. Anyone have any suggestions? It appears there is not a single app that can sync email and calendar. Seems the best options can only handle one or the other.

I would welcome some app suggestions. Thanks.
 
FWIW, I moved from Google Apps to Office 365 for work and personal when it came out, and I'm stuck with the kludge**** that is Outlook 2016 for the Mac - I prefer Outlook 2016 for Windows, which works fine with iCloud and Gmail accounts too.

The go-to app I used at the time for Gmail/GCalendar is Mailplane - the friends I passed my Mailplane licenses on to report it's even better now. Mailplane is the only app I know of like you're looking for, besides Outlook, and it's made for Google's offerings.
 
Looks like Spark for Mac will do that. But it's not yet available.
 
campyguy said:
The go-to app I used at the time for Gmail/GCalendar is Mailplane - the friends I passed my Mailplane licenses on to report it's even better now. Mailplane is the only app I know of like you're looking for, besides Outlook, and it's made for Google's offerings.
Click to expand...

Mailplane is just an OS X app wrapped around the standard Google web interface. I've tried it. IMO, no better than using the web based options.

Fuchal said:
Looks like Spark for Mac will do that. But it's not yet available.
Click to expand...

Spark looks promising. I will check it out on iOS to see what I think. Any idea when it will be coming to Mac/OS X??
 
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hokieputter said:
Mailplane is just an OS X app wrapped around the standard Google web interface. I've tried it. IMO, no better than using the web based options.
Click to expand...
Exactly. And, your other options are - what? There aren't any besides beta software options. You asked...
 
campyguy said:
Exactly. And, your other options are - what? There aren't any besides beta software options. You asked...
Click to expand...

What beta options are there?? I'd be interested in checking them out.
[doublepost=1465366871][/doublepost]Spark for iOS doesn't sync Google calendars. Just emails..
 
Thunderbird does have mail and calendar built-in. It should be able to handle pretty much any calendar functions, alongside the email. The best part is that it is stable, free and always supported.
 
If you are willing to use a 3rd-party tool to do this, you can sync your contacts. For example soocial[dot]com lets you do this. You have to create a soocial[dot]com account and you can Gmail accounts, whose contacts will then be synced. Make sure you back up your contacts before you do this. Also keep in mind that this is a non-Google solution, and also, as far as I know, there is a max. number of contacts that are synced.
 
My final thought on this is that you should just use the Mac OS X stock apps for this as they sync with just about every service imaginable and are coordinated with each other on the system level. Flipping between the apps, if necessary, is as easy as Command-Tab.

Outlook for Windows hasn't, on it's own, synced with any contacts or calendars services other than Exchange. There have been clunky, third-party plugins for the Windows side that could make Google services, for example, sync in Outlook but I have hated to have to set those up for clients in the past (reliability).

If you were using Outlook for Windows and syncing all services then you likely were using an Exchange account. This you can do in Outlook for Mac, also.
 
 
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Everyone has a different way of working, but personally, I think the all-in-one is a ship that sailed a long time ago. Been there, done that, don't miss it at all. It's more direct for me to go to Calendar than to go to Outlook and then access the calendar.

You didn't mention "contacts," yet contacts are, to my mind, integral to the all-in-one. That's certainly the Outlook approach. The problem with integrated calendar and contacts, though, is the question of whether they interact with the rest of the iOS/OS X (MacOS) universe - Messages, FaceTime, Phone, Maps, system-wide Search, Siri, Share (share photos from Photos, web pages from Safari, etc.)... Messaging apps and browsers recognize addresses and dates - tap the item, you get the option to add to calendar or add to contacts (add to existing contact, create new contact...)...

To me, the only way for an all-in-one to be effective today would be as an alternate user interface for existing core services. Look at how an Exchange or Gmail account is handled today - On iOS you log into the account via Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars, or on OS X via System Preferences > Internet Accounts, and all the various functions supported by that account (mail, contacts, calendars, reminders, notes, messages...) are broken out to be available to whatever apps need to use them. Outlook is the old way, where you'd log into the account within the app, and interact with the account solely within that app.

What I see is a necessary modularity. The ways in which we communicate keeps expanding. "Integration" to me has to be OS/ecosystem-wide integration, to facilitate whatever comes next. Contacts and Calendars are core functions that transcend email alone. They're most effective when they can be both source and recipient of data, no matter what function or app you're using. Calendar event pulls event location from Contacts, Maps pulls that address for turn-by-turn instructions... Share from any app to anyone in your contacts - core services that any third-party app can access, rather than "I hope this app can interact with that app."

I'd suggest letting go of the old Outlook paradigm, and embrace "available everywhere" instead of "siloed in a limited-function app."
 
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