I'm with Spencer and djr1904 - not ready for prime time - boatloads of deleted messages in Outlook with every sync. Bleah. For me, the free version of SyncMyCal does what I need, although (1) I have to sync manually and (2) it is limited to +/- 3 days from current. Since I only use it when I will be away from the office for a couple of days and need to check appointments, that works fine for me.

GBMax

This totally wrecked my calendar. The problem seemed to be that I had a US Holidays Calendar on gcal, and it was messing everything up. Once I removed that it stopped deleting things from outlook and putting everything from outlook onto gcal, but I didn't have a outlook backup so I'll never get all those events back.

Would not recommend unless you have never used one of the two before, because more than likely one of the two existing cals will get messed up.

cbotwell

For some time now a lot of people have been asking Google for this interface and surprisingly Google had ignored requests while leaving this gap open for a little to long. I've tried several third party programs written (including Google's late Calendar Sync) to fill this void and have found SyncMyCal (www.syncmycal.com) to be the best thus far. It syncs at startup and set times, 2 way syncs and most importantly syncs multiple calenders and it's free.

Twodeadpoets

It worked for me, but while the app is syncing it steals focus every few seconds. This makes it impossible to type anything until it finishes

Munkii

Returning from work I logged in for the the Internet bible that is Lifehacker and saw that Google had launched a Gcal and Outlook synch software. My heart grew wings and soared, only to be dumped back down to earth like a modern day Icaraus when it just didn't work.

Not only did it not synch properly but it actually removed meetings and other appointments. I have no doubt that one day it will work and Google will deliver the goods but I suspect it will be a long wait. After all, I am still waiting for the coloured labels facility in Gmail ...

Kevincumbria

I'm tempted, but the BB/Google mobile sync didn't work for me and I've read enough to lead me to believe that I should stick with my paid SyncMyCal.

jddphd

I hope Google will roll out an app to sync up the Google Contact and Google Calendar on my PPC (Tilt to be exact).

plchan

Well, I ---the Google captive--- downloaded the thing right away and excitedly installed... ah! the smallest things really do mean a lot sometimes... and: what an uninspired, inadequate beginning this is! In my case, who knows why, it doesn't sync any of my appointments---perhaps, as others commented, because they are recurring and have been in my outlook a good while. I tried every option on the pitifully inadequate control panel, but balked at leaving it on 2-way sync because of other users' comments about a duplicating frenzy that takes hours to fix. So: I'll leave this silly little thing be, since it doesn't require much to stay alive but won't really be able to use it until G does something more technically adequate with it.

drmarkz

I'll probably discover a bug after it's too late and this has riuned a perfectly fine day, but until then I'm really glad that this is out. I've been... I don't know.. drinking the Googlaid?... a lot recently, and apps like this are a big part of it. (when it all crashes, just don't say "whudja expect, it's free?")

SinA

@rarupp Thanks for the confirmation. I've also noticed that every time the sync runs, my Outlook shuts down without any error message. It also doesn't seem to be dropping any logs on my local drive - or at least isn't dropping them where the GCal FAQs say they'll be.

Eagerly waiting for the next version...

Chris Anderson

So can I use this to sync my Office Outlook with my Home Outlook? I had been hoping for a simple way to be able to add appointments at home or work, and be able to see it both places.

Office Outlook Google Calendar Home Outlook

kiloman

@Spencer:

Yep,the 1979 appointments are happening to me too, every time I sync the calendar. My Outlook deleted items box is flooded with these things.

Come on, Google!

djr1904

Apparently it only syncs calendar items from Outlook where the google account is an attendee. I guess it's doing some kind of name matching or something. I think that's the reason it syncs the items that I add to my outlook calendar but not the ones that are the meetings others have scheduled. I don't really need my blocked time that allows me to get work done on my gcal, I need my meetings so I can plan to be at a certain place at a certain time. I'm not very impressed.

jayheavner

yeah, what KevODundas sang..

stever

@Chris Anderson: I found the same thing. Outlook doesn't sync to gCal. I am on an Exchange server.

rarupp

Aaaaat laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaast.....my loooove has come along!!!!

KevODundas

I'm agreeing with Sphiro (secondary calendar support should be a requirment).

I have played around with gsyncit, which does support secondary calendars. I should just spend the $10.

My wife and I share our google calendars with secondary calendars for the kids. I also have another secondary google calendar for my during-the-day work meetings (I have google calendar access through my phone b/c I can't access my Outlook). So, I sync my outlook with the secondary calendar, rather than clog my wife's joint calendar with my daytime appointments.

ArnoldZiffel

I installed this and all of my events doubled... and then tripled... and so on, every 30 minutes, as that is what I set the sync at. Horrible! I just spent an hour deleting duplicates and then uninstalling google sync. I am going back to Plaxo, which, btw, syncs your contacts as well, for the poster above who was asking about contacts.

ophelita

@AndyMan1: I was in the same boat (using Outlook b/c of my iPod), but iPodCALSync lets me sync my GCal with my iPod directly. Up to 10 different calendars and it can keep them all separate. Free, easy, and obviates that need for Outlook.

I have a related question for people though. My wife uses Outlook at work and uses gMigrate to sync to GCal. Then she goes and gets a Blackberry. Since I didn't put it on there, I know the GCalSync isn't on the Blackberry. Despite that, the BB calendar seems to be syncing with her GCal automatically. Any thoughts?

Bubarubu

This tool is not ready for prime time. As other have said, appointments transfer, but meetings do not. Also a lot of empty appointments for 1979 end up in the deleted items folder. I would wait for the next release.

Spencer

Hmmm...all my GCal events synced to Outlook just fine, but none of my Outlook events made it to GCal. Anybody else seeing this type of behavior? Does it make a difference if you're using Exchange server?

Chris Anderson

I use Plaxo to sync up calendars and contacts from Google to Outlook/thunderbird on windows, Mail/thunderbird/address book on Mac.
It's a whole social network thing, but i only use it for the syncing and it run seamlessly!
Plaxo.com

bertsisterwanda

hallelujah...I have been waiting forever for this. I moved to Google Apps once IMAP rolled out. This allows me to keep Gmail and my Treo synched. However, my gcal and Treo cal a well as my contacts have been out of synch. GREAT NEWS!

bschoenbaechler

Is there any way to use a proxy?
In our company, to connect to the internet, there is a proxy with authentication and when I try to sync with "Google Calendar Sync" the program says that there is no connection to the internet

lpacchin

It works well for me for the most part, except it doesn't distinguish between the different types of Outlook events (free, tentative, out of office), and it apparently does not recognize Outlook recurring appointments if they were originally set up too long ago.

While any GCal sync product from Google is a step up from the nothing they had offered before, the lack of features here is pretty disappointing. Sure, it works, but this is very bare bones and it will probably be a year before they roll out their next inadequate batch of new features.

djr1904

Happy day! I've been waiting for this!

JiveMasterT

I've had the worst time with these types of programs. I haven't tried this one yet, but thanks to the others out there I now have my dentist appoint entered into my calendar over a hundred times. :( Should I risk it with this one.

VestedFox

I hope people get this working with Ximian Evolution soon.

lumahau

This made a mess of both my google and outlook calendars. I have several google calendars, and this utility grabbed them all, made them one, put them in Outlook, then synced them back.

I'd previously been using (and continue to use) the freeware version of Oggsync, which can differentiate between calendars.

TheMensch

Sometimes I really struggle to understand people's fascination with Google and its products. This is one of those times.

Google Calendar has been out for what, a couple of years now? And almost immediately people complained about a lack of a sync tool. I didn't switch to GCal until a few months ago because Airset was more functional and had a free, seamless sync tool.

And Google is just now getting around to releasing this? And even then it lacks the functionality and features of its competitors. I just can't get over how a company that large, with resources that vast, can be so slow on things like this and release products that are so far behind the curve compared to the competition.

Don't get me wrong, I use a ton of Google stuff myself and in general, I like most of their products. But sometimes I don't get where all the Google love comes from.

djr1904

Glad to see Google getting in on this. I'll stick with SyncMyCal for now since it works great and I paid for it. Hoping someday they get in on contacts and tasks for Outlook to Blackberry.

My current setup syncs my home calendar to my work calendar:

Home Outlook (SyncMyCal) < - > Google Cal < - > Blackberry (Google Sync / BES) < - > Work Outlook (BES)

zakharm

Once this app has multiple calendar support I'll start using it, but right now it's way too simple. SyncMyCal works great for what I need.

xxdesmus

weird question: Can I sync from today onward? Or does it sync past months?

I have some appointments from years ago in GCal I do not want on my Outlook calendar searchable retroactively.

OR: Can I simply erase all Gcal appointmants somewhow?

xrobevansx

gMigrate does this as well. But this tool looks nicer and has auto update.

jedipunk

@A3sthetix : have been playing with this, but I manage only to mark app. with a colour not as private ...

anyone?

rpjansen

I should note it sync outlook contacts. Havent tried with gmail ones. I use this to sync my work calendar with google, then when i get home my home calendar gets those changes and vice versa...

holymogwai

@pixelstuff: Funambol is an outlook plugin that syncs calendar/tasks/contacts/notes with scheduleworld.com, which then syncs with gcal. Free and works great.

holymogwai

grrrr why does the mac solution cost money!!

Gonzie

@Norcross:

Delay, I've been using GCalDeamon for months, LH is the one behind the curve here.

enine

I have literally been waiting for this since Gcal came out. Google is a little slow on the draw- will we have to wait a year for multiple calendar syncs as well?

jharris0221

The main problem with this application is that it doesn't sync the public appointments, just the ones you create yourself.

I've got a lot of recurring, boring, waste of time, stab me in the eye meetings in my calendar because of people at work who have nothing better to do than to sit around and talk about the things we aren't accomplishing because we're in too many meetings... and none of those show up on my google calendar...

Otherwise, this app seems to work really well, low memory usage and pretty much no CPU used even while syncing.

The How-To Geek

Yeah, I just checked, you can. I wonder then, about the feasibility of sync'ing Rainlendar to Google Calendar via Outlook as a proxy...

Lifehacker did it a while back, with another app, but the process was long, complicated, and sketchy:
[lifehacker.com]

Not something my mother could do. This, on the other hand...

Recoil

@rpjansen: Just use filters in Outlook and ensure you name your Privates :) something logical. For example "Priv: Some Appointment". Then have Outlook target "Priv:" and set this to private. I'm quite sure that will work. If you want your entire calendar to appear private, I think you can apply a category on your calendar and have Outlook run a similar filter on all appointments in your category. I have yet to try this.

A3sthetix

Huh, a thought occurs: You can sync Rainlendar to Outlook too, can't you?

Recoil

I have 4 calendars in Google, but this syncs just the first...is there a solution?

Sphiro

Sweet, thanks for the free app Google.
I've been looking for a way to sync my Outlook calendar with my MacBook.

Paul

I was waiting for this! But I have 4 calendars in google but this syncs just the first....

Sphiro

It works for me, but it only syncs private appointments if they are recurrent... That's one BIG minor.

I wanted my Google calendar to show as private in outlok. any ideas?

rpjansen

now all we need is something similar for mac that doesnt cost $20 (busysync)

kilvano

Has anyone successfully tried this with non-Latin records in Outlook?

I've recently uninstalled Nokia PC Sync that randomly added spaces to the Russian captions of my calendar entries and then on each sync multiplied the number of records (instead of "meeting 1" I got "Meeting 1" and "Mee ting 1" - number of records doubled on each sync). It was a real pain to fix my calendar after that.

I don't feel ready to suffer from another programmer who isn't aware of the "rest of the world" and other charsets than US-ASCII.

BTW: "это тест."

Sanja

Looks like everyone is getting in on the calendar sync now days. A big long list of them here
[www.google.com]

When are we going to get contact sync?

pixelstuff

Ha. Nice timing. I JUST set this up.

FYI - this program seems to be THE easiest mediator to sync your iPhone/iPod touch calendar with your Google calendar (assuming the SDK doesn't fix that problem).

From what I can tell, you don't need to actually have Outlook running to use it. Both iTunes and the GCal sync can play with the outlook file on their own. This is great as I just use thunderbird, and only have Outlook installed because iTunes won't sync calendars with any other program.

I just set up Outlook initially, then run this in the background and whenever I sync my iPod, everything gets updated in both directions.

Very cool.

AndyMan1

For Outlook 2003 and 2007 only - which you only find out at the END of the installation process :-(

brendonhatcher

I'll have to check that out, if IT hasn't blocked me like they have the rest of Google Desktop.

Been using gSyncIt ([www.daveswebsite.com]) for some time now--it supports secondary calendars and rules to apply take actions (including applying labels in outlook). Got a crazy setup going where I sync all my sports teams from secondary cals into my Outlook, and label them for filtering and autocoloring. Then set the primary cal sync to ignore these so it doesn't resync up to my primary google cal and give me a bunch dupes.

Pretty slick, but $10.

bygottski

There used to be a few apps out there that did this (for a fee, SyncMyCal comes to mind). Now that Outlook 2007 offers shared calendars for free via Windows Live, NOW Google decides to offer this? Why the delay?

Norcross