How to Sync Your Google Calendar or Google Apps Calendar to Outlook 2010

Last year, grooveDexter wrote a groovy guide on how to add your Google Calendar to Outlook 2007. With Outlook 2010, the process is slightly different, and if you’re adding a Google Calendar from one of your Google Apps for Domains account, you’ll have to complete a few additional steps.

This guide will show you How to add a Google calendar to Outlook 2010, and also How to add Google Apps calendars to Outlook 2010.

Both methods incorporate the ICAL private calendar sharing URL in order to add an Internet calendar to Outlook 2010. But as you may have noticed in your Google Apps account, the private calendar URL is missing. I’ll get to that later—but for now, let’s walk through how to add a normal Google Calendar in Outlook 2010.

Step One – Add a Google Calendar to Outlook 2010

Log in to your Google Account and open your Google Calendar. Click Settings and choose Calendar Settings.

Step Two

Click Calendars and then click the name of your Google Calendar that you’d like to add to Outlook 2010.

Step Three

Scroll down to Private Address and click the ICAL button in the middle.

Step Four

Copy this URL to your clipboard.

Note: There is no authentication for this URL, meaning that if someone knows this URL, they can access your calendar. If for some reason this URL falls into the wrong hands, you can reset your Private URLs by clicking Reset Private URLs in the previous screen. Note you’ll have to re-add any calendars you’ve added prior to resetting your Private URLs.

Step Five

Launch Microsoft Outlook 2010 and click Calendars.

Step Six

In the Home ribbon, click Open Calendar in the “Manage Calendars” pane and choose From Internet…

Step Seven

Paste the private ICAL url into the box and click OK.

Step Eight

When prompted click Yes if you want to add the calendar without tweaking any settings.

Otherwise, you can click Advanced to change some settings. Really, the only settings worth configuring are the Folder Name (i.e. how it’ll appear in the navigation pane) and the description, if you need it. You should leave the item under Update Limit checked, so you don’t accidentally flood your Google account with updates and get locked out (this probably won’t happen anyway).  There’s an option to include attachments from your Internet Calendar, which you can do in Google Calendars using the Google Labs Event Attachments feature, but the attached doc won’t transfer to Outlook regardless of whether you check this or not.

Step Nine

Congratulations! You can now view, edit and update your Google Calendar from Outlook 2010. You can even display it side-by-side with your Outlook calendar.

Or, you can right-click your calendar and choose Overlay to see your two calendars in overlay mode, so you can see exactly where your appointments overlap.

Adding a Google Apps Calendar to Outlook 2010

Adding a Google Apps for Domain calendar to Outlook 2010 is done using the exact same procedure. However, by default, your Google Apps calendars will have the private sharing URL hidden for users. Here’s how you reveal the private calendar sharing URL for Google Apps accounts.

Step One

Log in to the Manage this Domain  dashboard for your Google Apps account. Note: Only administrators can do this. Next, click Calendars.

Step Two

Under Sharing Options choose Share all information and outsiders can change calendars. Click Save Changes.

Step Three

Now, when you go into Calendar Settings in your Google Apps for Domains account, you’ll be able to see the Private Sharing URL. Complete steps three through nine in the above tutorial to finish adding your Google Apps calendar to Outlook 2010.

Note: For some reason, it may take awhile for existing calendars to display a Private Address. But new calendars created after making the above change will have the Private Address available immediately. For this reason, it’s a good idea to make this change before you set up new user accounts.