Syncing Outlook with Google Calendars And Thunderbird
May 12, 2008 | In Development |I currently use a Windows Mobile 5 based PDA for my day to day calendar, tasks and contacts. This is extremely convenient as it syncs at home and at work, and the WiFi allows me to sync my emails and calendar when I’m out of the office.
I’m soon to be moving jobs however, so I wanted to preserve the convenience of the calendar and task access when I won’t have access to a hosted Microsoft Exchange server. I have been using Google products for a while, documents, email, etc. so I thought why not try the Google Calendar. The calendar provides various access options, including iCal and XML feeds.
For the PDA to Google link I am using SyncMyCal Mobile which will keep my Outlook mobile calendar in sync with the Google calendar and can handle multiple calendars and is pretty seamless. It was only $25 which is pretty good at the current UK exchange rate. There is a free version, but this is restricted to syncing 3 days in advance or arrears.
Having this working successfully, I thought why not do the same with Thunderbird, the email client I use at home. A bit of research found that this too is possible, never really doubted it to be honest. For the Thunderbird to Google link I am using an add-in called Provider for Google Calendar, available here:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/4631
This is currently version 0.4. Finally, Thunderbird requires the Lighning add-in to provide the calendar features (this is essentially a full PIM). This is in version 0.8 and is available here:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/2313
The following page shows how this all ties together, so I won’t repeat it here. Suffice to say that it is not difficult if you follow the instructions. Note that the versions of the above add-ins linked to are now outdated.