How-To Geek
View Your Google Calendar in Outlook 2007
Google Calendar is a phenomenal web application for managing your calendars, but so many of us are still forced to use Outlook at work. The good thing is you can have the best of both worlds by subscribing to your Google Calendar from Outlook.
The first thing you’ll have to do is get your Google Calendar iCal link. Just open your Google Calendar and go to Settings \ Calendar.
Pick the calendar you want to sync with Outlook. Now in the Private Address field click on the ICAL button. This will show you your private Calendar address. Copy this address to the clipboard.
Now open Outlook and go to Tools \ Account Settings.
In Account Settings choose the Internet Calendars tab, click on New… and Paste the URL you just copied from Google into the location and click Add.
You then get to the subscriptions screen. Give the calendar a name and description and click OK.
You can now see the calendar in the list in the Outlook sidebar panel.
That is all there is to it! Now I can view my Google Calendar side by side with my personal or work calendar!
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Comments (69)
Programmer by day, geek by night, The Geek, also known as Lowell Heddings, spends all his free time bringing you fresh geekery on a daily basis. You can follow him on Google+ if you'd like.
- Published 05/28/07
Someone’s gotta add this feature to OL2003 :(((
I tried it, but Outlook 2007 tells me that it “cannot verify that the URL is a valid calendar” address or add it to Outlook.
The tab in Account Settings takes the URL and everything but doesnt update, and doesnt give me any “Other Folder” in the list.
Of all the complicated stuff Outlook 2007 does so well, how did they manage to screw THIS up?
HA! I thought M$ finally did something right. Nope. This feature would be great if it would just work. I have the same issue as the fellow above me.
Make sure you choose the Private Address in google calendar and not the Calendar Address.
How do I find the private URL? I can only find the public one and don’t see the “Private address” option.
You have to be logged in as the user to the “Private Address” option. If you’re looking at someone else’s calendar you’ll only see the Calendar Address option.
Becky,
Thanks for the suggestion, but it seems like it was something else:
Using the admin control panel, I had set the highest level of sharing to “Do not share”. This makes the “Private address” section disapear.
So, to fix this: go to “https://www.google.com/a/cpanel/MYVERYCOOLDOMAIN/Dashboard” and log in as an admin, Service settings -> Calendar -> Sharing options.
Save the changes and we have lift off!
Cheers!
Stephan Dekker
(Filed under: “Missing private address section”, “Private ical not showing up”)
The steps above worked for me and i see the goggle calendar in outlook. But whenever I update the calendar in google will it automatically show my the updated google calendar when I view it in outlook?
Worked great and easy for me. It updates everytime I hit “send/ receive” (F9). Too Easy!
One slight problem I have noticed is that the google calendar is a read only calendar. I would like to be able to write to my google calendar from within Outlook. As of now, the only way to do that is to invite my google address as an invitee to my event on my default calendar in outlook. I hope that makes sense. Write back with any questions.
Does anyone have the answer to the issue of “cannot verify that the URL is a valid calendar” address or add it to Outlook?”
Are you sure you are getting the right link from GMail. I don’t recall if it is iCal or XML that you need, butI think you might have selected the wrong one.
Hi,
I found the way to get around the “cannot verify that the URL is a valid calendar” problem (for Google calendars, at least) was to:
1. paste the private URL for the ICS file into your browser (Firefox, in my case) location bar
2. change the http:// prefix to webcal://
3. hit enter
4. the browser should then offer to launch the external application (Outlook 2007) for you to handle this URL.
5. Follow the Outlook 2007 prompts and it should subscribe to the calendar
YMMV
Thanks man works great…
Daniel,
That did not work for me :-( I still get the “cannot verify that the URL is a valid calendar” even that way.
Does this have something to do with the URL encoding of the “@” sign in the username part of the URL?
Thanks Daniel. That worked like a charm.
Daniel Pauly,
I tried what you said and it worked… except for the fact that by doing so, you are basically skipping the Internet Calendar subscription process. My shared Google calendar is not added to Outlook’s Internet Calendar list, and thus is not updated. It’s more like adding a snapshot than subscribing to an Internet Calendar.
Has anyone found a way of avoiding the “cannot verify that the URL is a valid calendar” problem? I imagine this problem is due to the fact that we are using POP3 emails, and as such are not logged into a a “domain”.
Fernando
This makes sense …. it seems Excel basically does just take a screenshot of ht URL … We need to investigate how to add a live feed to Excel. Also … how to verify results are in “real time”.
Dude, you need to update this post and talk about google’s tool for synching your google calendar with outlook…
http://dl.google.com/googlecalendarsync/GoogleCalendarSync_Installer.exe
Awesome tip! Works like a charm!
Daniel – the problem with your method (either click the .ics link or loading it in a browser window) is Outlook doesn’t SUBSCRIBE to it but rather, it takes a “capture” of the calendar. There will never be any updates to that calendar because it’s a static snapshot.
See details here:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/HA101674951033.aspx
Hi Chris,
Thanks for the feedback, but that hasn’t been my experience. Following the method I described, all my updates to my Google calendars are automatically synced to to my Outlook calendars.
As I said, YMMV.
Happy to help with any specific inquiries.
cheers,
Daniel
Regarding the Outlook 2007 error of the private Google iCal address being an invalid calendar:
I tried Daniel’s approach a while back and it was being static since it was not added to my Internet Calendars (it shows up in Calendar view but not in Tools->Account Settings->Internet Calendars).
Here is what worked for me:
Add the new Internet calendar but modify the prefix from https:// to webcal://
Details:
Tools->Account Settings->Internet Calendars->New
Paste the private Google calendar iCal link
Modify https to webcal
Hope this helps,
Afzal
I also got the Outlook 2007 error: “cannot verify or add the internet calendar to outlook. verify the link is a valid”, until checked the “Make this calendar public” checkbox under the “Share this calendar” tab in google calendar. The https prefix worked fine then.
Hello
It works but I can’t make a new appointments to my google calander bucause i get the msg:
I can’t change the contens of this dir because it is read-only(this msg was translated).
Who does know to solve this problem?
Marc
Part 1 – http://blogs.howtogeek.com/mysticgeek/2008/03/31/turn-vista-home-premium-into-ultimate-part-1-disk-imaging/
Part 2 – http://blogs.howtogeek.com/mysticgeek/2008/06/13/turn-vista-home-premium-into-ultimate-part-2-dreamscene/
Making the calendar public isn’t a particularly great idea since I do not believe you want to share it with the world.
The only solution that worked for me is using the Google calendar Sync utility provided by Google. The only problem I had with that was that it works with a single calendar and sometimes causes Outlook to hang. Not enough for me to get rid of it but enough to notice the issue.
Hope this helps.
Afzal
Hi,
I’ve tried all the tips in these posts. I can’t add my GCal into Outlook 2007, nor can I add any other public iCal feed to my Outlook account. Is is possible to lock out his feature on a business machine?
Thanks
Hi Guys
Is there anyway to get both sets of appointments (the ones’ in my deafault calendar and the ones in my GCal) to display in the startup Outlook Today screen and in the To-Do bar? I only get to see, and be reminded of appointments in the default calendar.
Thanks!
Daniel Pauly you are a star.
I’ve been looking for a solution to this for ages.
Cheers mate
Make sure you share your calendar to be public before you do this, otherwise, outlook 2007 will throw an error message
Thanks Afzar – I was having trouble with the “Cannot Verify or Add…” error. Switching the prefix to Webcal worked, and I don’t have to change my Share settings. I use the Google Sync option for my primary calendar, but if you have created more than one calendar in Google, this doesn’t sync them all. Adding the Private ICAL helps.
Daniel,
Your solution is the only one that actually DOES WORK and it updates nicely. Big thanks for that!
Google Sync tool does not work for me but I’m just one of thousands who have got an issue with that. Google guys always say on the forums that they are ‘working on it’ – whatever it means as it is taking forever.
Hi the above method did not work for me until I tried it a different way.
The Google iCal link starts with http:// Microsoft seems to want webcal:// . At any rate adding the calendar kept failing with the error ” Cannot verify or ad the Internet Calendar in Outlook. Verify the link is a valid calendar lin: ”
until I simply pasted it as a URL in my web browser. As soon as I did that, Outlook grabbed the calendar and we were all set, great !
Yes, but how do you get your subscribed calenderas to show up in the To-Do Bar?
If you have the error “Cannot verify or add the internet calendar to Outlook”, please see the link below for advice which might help if you enforce HTTPS for your Google Calendar service:
http://ryanmaizel.com/2009/07/03/google-apps-outlook-internet-calendars-and-ssl/
Daniel Pauly, Your tip worked wonderfully for me! Thanks! (I’m using Firefox)
I was getting the same Cannot verify or add the calendar error as you guys. I found the solution to be a two step process. Change the https to webcal like stated above, but also change any @ signs that have been encoded as %40 in the html code back to the @ sign. Wirked great for me and changes I make in google calendar are now syncing to outlook.
This is brilliant, thanks for the help.
If it still gives you an error, try disabling SSL. Just take out the “s” if you can (personal account) or turn off forced SSL for an apps account. That worked for me.
Great tips !!! thank youuuu
it alkl works except for being able to add/edit events in outlook
Does anyone know how the internet calendar can be made editable? Ideally I would like to be able to drag appointments both ways to ‘synchronize’ the calendar. I can drag from the internet (Google) calendar to Outlook, but not vice versa as the internet calendar is ready only.
No, I don’t want to use a google sync etc (can’t due to workplace restrictions), so any help with this would be massively appreciated.
Oddly, on my newly installed Outlook, changing the protocol to webcal: busted it — but using http: worked! So, definitely try it all ways. Thanks for the tip!
‘Karen’ January 21, 2008 11:18 am, question about the encoding of the @ symbol resolved the issue for me
I replaced the %40 in my email address in the middle of the URL with an @ symbol and the calendar loaded without issue
Heya,
Anyway to make the calendar editable in outlook.? Without the use of googld calendar sync?
I remember i had it setup once. And outlook asked for my credentials when i first set it up.
Cant remember how i did it. Anyone have any idea?
Still getting the error message”cannot verify…” I’ve tried changing the http to webcal. I’ve changed the %40 to @…any other suggestions?
Also, is it going to cause problems if I do this with more than 1 calendar?
Thanks!
You’re the bomb, this worked great! We just got Office 2007 installed this weekend and now I can see my personal calendar too.
Awesome stuff.
I’m so glad the days of syncing my google calendar with the old outlook are over.
Thanks :)
Great man! Really usefull description!
Hello
It works but I can’t make a new changes in my google calendar within outlook bucause i get the msg:I can’t change the contens of this dir because it is read-only(this msg was translated).
Is there anyone that solve this problem?
MS is just useless. Sometimes it works sometimes it doesn’t. Same with publishing outlook 2007 via office live. Everyone needs the same thing; the ability to update shared calendars on more than one machine. Why do we accept such rubbish from MS? Buy Apple.
@Daniel Pauly: Thx for the webcal hint, now it works. :)
nothing here worked using on office 2007 vista x64.
using ’2sync” works for multiple calendars for me but it costs for each machine
Worked Great! Thanks for the easy version!
I have 3 calendars in outlook.
Calendar A, B and C. I can view all A, B and C. I can’t edit B and C. I keep getting the error: “You cannot make changes to contents of this read-only folder.”
I own all three email addresses. Meaning I am the user of all three gmail addresses, but I can only edit the original email address that I set up (Calendar A).
Any solutions to this? It’s driving me crazy!
Excellent tutorial. I moved to Win7 x64 and realized Google Calendar sync did not work.
Thx Mysticgeek — worked like a charm.
I had problems getting this working until I tried WITHOUT selecting the ‘Download Attachments’ option, i.e. not ticked.
It then worked great.
Thanks Mysticgeek
Outlook won’t allow me to paste the ical address into the form. This took me a minute to setup on my ipad, already spent an hour with Microsoft….
Hi Guys,
I cannot allow the world to see by calender, ihave win7 and office 2007. Not very technical but i do know that there are settings that can be changed in IE that will solve this. I’m using IE9. Does anyone know what the settings are that need to be changed?
I used the workaround of pasting the iCAL link into IE, changing the %40 to @ and changing https to webcal … got the “Allow” thing just fine, but my problem is that Outlook prompts me to enter my username and password … and does it three times, then gives me the “Cannot verify or add the calendar to Outlook …” error. I’m entering the correct username/password for my Google calendar.
This is frustrating and annoying.
“cannot verify that the URL is a valid calendar”
I clicked the button reset private urls, and tried it again,,,, it worked for me
Many thanks for this solution!
But I still have to delete myself as guest before syncing with Outlook 2007.
This problem only appears when I sync an appointment from my SE Xperia arc to Google-calendar and then to Outlook.
It appears an error-code (0x0004002B) and syncing will be ignored.
Syncing an appointment, created in Google-calendar or Outlook – vice versa – , works.
Peter
Vista Home premium 32 bit, SP 2
Office 2007
How to Geek:
Thanks so much for this helpful post. I’ve bookmarked this page and refered to it several times already. Google has introduced a sync tool but I’d steer clear of it and use this reference guide. The sync tool permanetly places google items on your outlook calendar and I’d just rather have a “view” into my google calendar.
Very useful article – I appreciate it very much.
Thanks!
Daniel Pauly,
Your trick worked for me. Thanks all for the comments and to the author for posting a blog about iCal feeds in Outlook.
Best regards,
Chris
This worked great and so easy to follow! Youre a genius. Thanks for this post!!
Renea
My calendar stays empty! I can connect to Google calendar, but I don’t get any calendar items into Outlook.
Does anyone know?