Syncing iCal on two Macs

October 4, 2007 11:10 AM

I want to sync iCal to two different Macs, one at work and one at home.

Here's what I want to be able to do: I have my iCal calendar at work (already synced my Entourage calendar at work). I want to be able to download that to my iCal at home and then sync my iPhone with it. I have been successful at doing that with iCalx.com (it's like .Mac). But now I want to be able to take calendar items I create on either my iPhone or my home iCal and merge it with my work calendar (both at home and at work).

Here's what I did (but below that is what I think I should do). The important concept is I want to "merge" these calendars. I don't want to have two calendars on each iCal (home and work), but one.

I created a Work calendar and published it to iCalx.com. At home I subscribed to that calendar and it came into my home-based iCal. Now, to go the other way I created a Home calendar, published it to iCalx.com and then at work subscribed to that.

But, I want to merge the Home and Work calendars. So what I think I should do is to name the calendar I publish the same name from both computers. So, instead of a Work calendar coming from work and a Home calendar coming from home, use the same name and publish and subscribe to it from both calendars.

Am I missing something? (Or will something go wrong if I give both published calendars the same name?) Essentially, I want to have one identical merged calendar I can update from home or work.

[I've looked at past AskMeFi questions on syncing but didn't find any recent answers that seemed to fit my query.]

posted by Taken Outtacontext to Computers & Internet (13 answers total)

I'm pretty sure getting a .Mac account will allow you to do this.
posted by clh at 11:48 AM on October 4, 2007

Response by poster: Actually, iCalx.com allows you to do the same exact thing as a .Mac account (only for free!). What I need are detailed step-by-steps on how to do what I want above. Thx.
posted by Taken Outtacontext at 11:58 AM on October 4, 2007

You could do this with Spanning Sync. Unfortunately it's pretty pricey at $65. A simpler solution would be to just use a web-based calendar on all three devices.
posted by scottreynen at 12:12 PM on October 4, 2007

I use Spanning Sync to do this. You can pay $25/year instead of $65/once if cost is an issue. I think it's worth it.
posted by bradbane at 12:23 PM on October 4, 2007

Response by poster: Thanks. I've talked to the people at Spanning Sync and there's a problem with it corrupting Entourage databases. I actually pull in from Entourage so I don't want to chance that possibility.

Actually, I'm sure the way I would like to go is possible. There must be a .Mac person who's done it (and icalX works the same way as .Mac). Where are you .Mac people? -g
posted by Taken Outtacontext at 1:35 PM on October 4, 2007

notMac, "a free, open-source utility for using the client-side dotMac services provided by Apple," might work (I haven't used it myself). I think you'd need to run it on an OS X machine as a server.
posted by kirkaracha at 2:45 PM on October 4, 2007

I am pretty sure iCalX does NOT do the same thing as having a a .mac account, in particular the single calendar updatable from multiple clients.

notMac looks more promising, though I can't find a FAQ to confirm it does iCal sharing.
posted by mzurer at 4:29 PM on October 4, 2007

notMac looks more promising, though I can't find a FAQ to confirm it does iCal sharing.

"Here’s a list of features which are required by the rules of the challenge: ... Sync (includes: Bookmarks, calendars..."
posted by scottreynen at 5:09 PM on October 4, 2007

What about BusySync?
posted by squink at 5:32 PM on October 4, 2007

BusySync only works on local networks.
posted by scottreynen at 5:40 PM on October 4, 2007

Not to hijack topic but can anyone think of a way to do the other way around?

I.e. sync two different calenders to one mac? Or just one calender from .mac account A, but like iDisk, etc from .mac account B?

Without subscribing to each others calender? That always seems to screw it up and such...crazy formatting and junk.
posted by UMDirector at 8:27 PM on October 4, 2007

notMac does what you want. It is a free version of .Mac. You need a Mac that will act as the .Mac server though, so maybe this isn't ideal.

You may want to try googling WebDav + iCal. I think that's how .Mac lets you edit published calendars. This *may* work: Synchronize iCal on multiple machines via WebDAV. This looks more promising: Sharing, Syncing and editing iCal over WebDAV.

But yeah, I'd look into notMac first.
posted by chunking express at 6:53 AM on October 5, 2007

A bit of a hack, but this might get the job done and for $0: create a gMail account and calendar, and set up both your home and work computers to sync with the same gCal.

Some options for syncing b/w gCal and iCal were recently discussed on ask.metafilter here.

Not sure if there are any unintended consequences with this strategy (backup your iCals first!) but in theory this might work.
posted by lorenzism at 8:44 PM on October 5, 2007 [1 favorite]