Cant sync Google Calendar to Windows 8 or Outlook.com? Fix it with ICAL!

Recently Google pulled the plug on using Microsoft’s EAS (ActiveSync) technology and only made it available to people who pay for GoogleApps for Business. This sucks for us little people who dont have Apps and who want to have one calendar system regardless of provider.

Google’s solution is to buy Google Apps (50$ a year), Microsoft’s is to export all your data into their system. As a avid android and Windows 8 user I came up with a solution that I was unable to find anywhere else on the net.

Issue: Google calendar will not sync with Windows 8. *note you can still sync mail by ensuring you have the contacts and calendar button unchecked.

When adding a Google account to Windows 8 you will notice it can be difficult. Simply un check “Include your Google contacts and calendars” then you can add the account, this is not required for this guide but may be of some use if you want to get mail.

Solution: We will use ICAL settings to create a sync relationship via a private url. All these settings will be applied in the browser, it will apply to the OS when we are done automatically.
This sounds hard but its easy, I have included lots of images to make this easy.

First Im going to assume you have a Google and Outlook.com / Hotmail.com / .NET account. Head on over to https://www.google.com/calendar and log in. Lets make an event called  A Google Event for today.

Now you will need to pick the down arrow next to the calendar you want. Chose Calendar Settings. .

This will open a new menu.

Now you will see a bunch of options scroll down to the bottom and look for a green ICAL button next to the words Private Address.

Click this button and a new window will appear.

 

 

In this new window is a private URL, dont share it with anyone. Copy the URL from the window make sure its correct.

Now we need to head over to calendar.live.com once there look for a Import button near the top left.

 

 

You will be taken to a new screen Click on Subscribe on the left, you will then need the URL you copied from Google and paste it in the Calendar URL, give it a quick name and anything else you want.

Click Subscribe.

 

 

It may take some time for the calendar to sync but mine was almost instant. *Note Google states ICAL will update every few hours (2 – 24 hours). Keep this in mind as your next Google event wont show up until the refresh.

Great! Now we have Google events going to Outlook.com you will also see them appear in Windows 8 (provided you use the same account there). To make it full circle we need to do the same with Outlook.com to Google.

In the main menu of Outlook Calendar click the Share button, pick the calendar you want to sync.

 

Then choose Get a link you will want to pick the ICS link. Copy the entire URL into your clipboard and lets head back to Google quickly.

 

Now that we are back at Google Calendar with our URL . You will want to click on the arrow next to Other Calendars then pick Add by URL.

 

Now you will need to paste the URL into the field just be sure to change the text from webcals:// to https://

 

 Pasted, but incorrect, this will throw a error.

 

Correct header this will work.

 

 

After that you should see a new calendar added and Google will update shortly.

Your done!