Calendar syncing help for a couple using 2 Macs, an iPhone and a HTC One
May 31, 2012 9:29 AM   Subscribe

Trying to make calendar syncing work across multiple devices and accounts is driving me up the wall. Please help!

My wife and I are trying to sync our calendars across our various devices. Please help me not tear my hair out. Between the both of us, we have:
1. Separate iCloud accounts that we still have to figure out how to use. I tried sharing my local iCal calendar with her and seeing if it was visible on her iPhone using iCloud but nope, no sign of it there
2. My wife's iPhone 4
3. My HTC One V
4. My Macbook Air (10.7) and her Macbook (10.6)
5. A GMail calendar each. We work as independent consultants so this is where we store our individual appointments - work and personal. We are able to share this with each other on GMail but can't figure out how to make them visible on iCal locally or on iCloud
6. My client's Exchange calendar where I store appointments related to the work I do for them

The only way that I can see this being possible is if we make multiple copies of our calendars. So I store 1 appointment on my Gmail calendar (using iCal) and then copy the same appointment to my iCloud calendar (on iCal), thereby making it visible to my wife.

However, this is really inelegant and I don't want to open up my iCal and see a soup of colors and appointments. AskMeFi - I turn to your collective wisdom to see me through. Thanks
posted by epiphinite to Computers & Internet (5 answers total) 4 users marked this as a favorite
 
Well, let's see...

First of all, I think it's easier to break the question down a bit.

Calendars:
iCal
iCloud (although based on your description, it doesn't sound like it's in actual use)
Google Calendar (2)
Exchange Calendar

Devices:
MacBook (2)
iPhone4
HTC One V

Questions:
Are you intending to make one giant calendar that encompasses all those calendars listed? Or do you want to keep them as separate calendars?

Is iCloud configured on both MacBooks? (I'm drawing a real blank on whether iCloud was a part of 10.6.)

Do you need the ability to _edit_ calendars via the mobile devices or view them?

Adjust my break-down if you see errors, please.
posted by tcv at 10:45 AM on May 31, 2012


The one way to not do double adding/deleting is add icloud by url to gmail calendar.

All calendars should have a url option that you can add to the other calendar.
So Once you add something in Gcal... automatically shown on icloud/phone/computer or vice versa
posted by radsqd at 11:07 AM on May 31, 2012


Best answer: Your question makes me think you're not familiar with m.google.com/sync which is the place one can set which calendars appear on which devices.

Subscribe & Share your calendars with each other on the google calendar page, then use the sync screen to set which are visible on each device.

You will get different calendars in different colors, but that's useful for ignoring other people's events, isn't it?
posted by Heart_on_Sleeve at 11:29 AM on May 31, 2012


Is iCloud configured on both MacBooks? (I'm drawing a real blank on whether iCloud was a part of 10.6.)

I think you need 10.7 to access iCloud.
posted by Mcable at 4:19 PM on May 31, 2012


Response by poster: I did what Heart_on_Sleeve suggested to some extent. My wife and I subscribed and shared each others Google Calendars and put visibility to show just busy/free (otherwise there would be just too much text on the mobile phone screens). I also scrapped the idea of syncing with iCloud because it would not take in the delegated calendars from Ical and more importantly, syncing with Android sounds like it is painful

The 2nd step was to share todos but there did not seem to be anyway to do that in Google. So we've installed Astrid on both our phones and taken accounts - it works well.

No more tinkering around from now on, phew
posted by epiphinite at 1:34 PM on June 21, 2012


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