April 26, 2024

See Shared Google Calendars in Native Apple Calendar Apps!

My company uses Google Apps for email, calendaring, etc. What bugged me was that I couldn’t figure out how to see other employee’s shared calendars in the native iOS/OS X Calendar application. So I would have to use Google’s web calendar app to see these, and that always seemed like a PITA to me.

On iOS I found a couple apps that allowed me to see these shared calendars on my iOS devices, but never found anything for the desktop (other than web-based apps). My favorite of those apps are Calendars 5 by Readdle and Sunrise. Sunrise actually has a desktop app via the web, but I’d rather have something native that I can use offline. Both apps were decent (I started to use Calendars 5 by Readdle as my main/default calendar app), but they seem a little slow to sync which slows down how fast you can use the app to check something or make changes.

Being frustrated, I happened to do another search today. Perhaps I used different keywords for my search, but I actually FOUND something that worked!!

The blog post is here by Google App Tips from Refractiv and outlines the steps required to set up a Google Apps account on both iOS and OS X Calendar apps to see all of the shared calendars you want to. The key step I was missing was Step 5 which has a link to a Google Apps sync setup page that allows you to choose what calendars you want to enable for sync. You have to browse to that link from a desktop web browser (I believe), but one of the commenters shows a link that works from a mobile device as well.

caldav-sync-settings

Also, I had to close my calendar apps (on the desktop and mobile) in order for the changes to reflect. They may show up over time, but I didn’t feel like waiting. You can then pick and choose which calendars you want to display in your calendar app, so you can set up all calendars to sync, but only display the ones you want to see at any given time. This would offer you the best availability.

I know it may seem silly, but I am SO excited that I can now view these calendars in the native Calendar apps, which I like better than any other calendar app (so far). Enjoy! 😉

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Update: Just in case the post goes offline in the future, wanted to capture the URL from Step 5 to select the calendars to sync.

https://www.google.com/calendar/iphoneselect

And the URL that commenter Michael Dweck listed (I never tested this one).

https://m.google.com/settings/iconfig/chooseCalendars

This mobile link doesn’t seem to work, however the first link was accessible from my iPhone, so just use that link.

Tim Federwitz

I am a husband of one and a father of five, and even became a grandfather! I run a blog called VirtuallyGeeky.com, where I let my inner-geek flag fly.

View all posts by Tim Federwitz →

2 thoughts on “See Shared Google Calendars in Native Apple Calendar Apps!

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