Sync Mac 10.5 iCal and Google Calendar
In the past this was a difficult task on Leopard. It required *gasp* the purchase of software. Typically I am against that, but if the software is good, or performs a task that there is no free alternative for, I’ll buy it.
This was the case with Spanning Sync. I want all my calendars synced across all my computers and my phone. I had no trouble getting Rainlendar synced to Gcal on my XP machine. There wasn’t an alternative for os X 10.5. I looked into getting GCALDaemon set up, but I couldn’t figure it out.
I finally came across Spanning Sync, which was a cool little piece of software that did the job for me. It worked great. But alas I have come across a free solution!
Recently, Gcal added support for CalDAV, a protocol that “allows multiple client access to the same information thus allowing cooperative planning and information sharing.” Wikipedia This generally means there is now a free alternative to syncing iCal and Gcal. Get setup syncing Google Calendar with iCal using CalDav.
There are it seems a few issues with Gcal CalDAV vs Spanning Sync.
- Event reminders/alarms don’t sync
- Event reminders/alarms don’t sync
- iCal errors when changing the calendar name/color
- Unable to create iCal To Dos for Google Calendar
- Unable to create new iCal calendars for Google Calendar
- Google Apps: Room scheduler is not supported
- Google Calendar events don’t appear in iCal
I did a little poking around on Spanning Sync’s Forums and found some advantages of Gcal CalDAV vs Spanning Sync.
Spanning Sync lets you select which calendars you want paired up and
synced. Meaning, I could sync a gCal calendar called “Tasks” with an
iCal calendar named ToDo, for example. In addition, Spanning Sync also
syncs your address book and gMail contacts. Original.
It’ll certainly be interesting to see if Spanning Sync Will remain my choice (since I’ve already got the lifetime license) for syncing iCal and Google Calendar.
Tags: google calendar, ical, spanning sync
Comments (5 comments)
[...] Read the rest of this entry » [...]
AppleGeeks 3.0 / July 31st, 2008, 10:09 am / #
buy a mobileme.. cheaper and better than anything!
Lef / August 2nd, 2008, 4:25 am / #
@Lef, MobileMe is $99 a year. Spanning sync is $24. The CalDAV solution Dave gave us is free… plus it allows for syncing across platforms, which MobileMe doesn’t allow. It might be good for syncing between Apple systems, but otherwise it doesn’t work.
Mark / August 2nd, 2008, 1:55 pm / #
Why don’t you try Plaxo??
Plaxo syncs for free contacts, calendars and more between google, mac, yahoo, hotmail, etc..
Luis Villagrán / August 21st, 2008, 8:31 pm / #
@Luis http://blog.plaxo.com/archives/2008/07/post_1.html Plaxo is now owned by Comcast… no thanks. Get ready to have all the people in your address books information sold.
Dave / August 26th, 2008, 11:15 am / #
Post a comment