Best calendar syncing solution

[Velvis]

My customer has a Gmail address, uses Outlook on 2 PCs and Outlook on iOS.
What's the best way to get calendaring syncing between all 3 devices?

I feel like I'm missing something obvious, but I can't seem to make it happen.

 

[britechguy]

I don't know what Outlook on iOS does, but there are a number of options, free and otherwise, for synchronization of "other than email" to Outlook from Gmail. If iOS is already getting the calendar correctly, then you don't even need to worry about it, but since you say Outlook on iOS, someone else will have to chime in on that.

In the free, but reliable, realm, I've used GoContactSyncMod for Gmail to PC Outlook for years. Fruux is another option, and can be used to sync 2 devices at no cost, but beyond that must be purchased. Outlook4Gmail, which has been around for quite a while, is another option.

 

[fincoder]

They could use a free outlook.com email address as another account added to Outlook on each device. Could be used for contacts and calendar.

Or they can use emClient (alternative to Outlook, some say it's better). It will sync gmail contacts and calendar automatically.

 

[Sky-Knight]

The best calandar syncing solution is to stop syncing calandars!

They have a gmail address? Fine... use the Gmail tools to get the calandar there... problem solved.

Want it in Outlook? TOUGH! Google doesn't believe in desktop apps, get a service that does.

This is just like trying to use nonExchange mail clients in Outlook. Possible, but a source of endless pain.

 

[britechguy]

Fine... use the Gmail tools to get the calandar there... problem solved.

Well, that's fine if you can get away with it.

I can tell you that, working in the blind and visually impaired community, you can't, because the preference for desktop clients (and not just Outlook, but since Outlook is one of the best supported by screen readers it's right at the top of the list) is very strong for good reason.

This is a situation where those of you who are supporting businesses do have the advantage that you can dictate, and for good reasons, what it is you will and will not do and still keep your clients. Those of us doing residential can't when it comes to supporting currently active desktop email clients, along with contacts and calendars, with whatever underlying service(s) the customer has.

If you want to lose business, you just refuse to support Outlook or Thunderbird with IMAP. Like I said, I haven't had any problems with Outlook with either POP or IMAP over the course of decades that weren't "something dumb" like someone changing their passwords for their email service and forgetting that this had to be done in Outlook/Thunderbird/Windows Live Mail/{insert client here}.

I constantly say that I try to keep in mind what I know of the business situations of as many regulars here as I can, because what can, and cannot, be recommended in many cases is directly dependent on the clientele they serve. The recent discussion of taskbar positioning being an excellent example. If you're an MSP serving someone with tens through hundreds of computers, you can very reasonably dicatate certain minimum configuration requirements and limit what changes the end users can make. I can't tell a customer who prefers to have their taskbar on the left, right, or top that I will not support them, or at least I can't if I want to keep that customer.

 

[Sky-Knight]

@britechguy I don't get to pick these things...

Google has part of their mission statement to eliminate all endpoint software. They want the world to live in a browser. So if you use their tech, you accept that reality as part of the limitations of their design.

So if you're supporting people that need alternative access solutions, and those solutions are endpoint based you're in a place where you simply must choose to not use Google tech... OR you lose your mind.

Outlook.com is free... Office 365 for personal / family is not expensive... and use of the two with each other means desktop calendaring, contacts, and mail all rolled up into an Exchange fed always works solution that we've used for decades.

This isn't about home vs business, this is about home users choosing the wrong free tools to live their lives and then constantly whining about it. And then a small army of tech people that make their living giving out bad advice that leads to constant issues so they can be fed a steady stream of planned faults to feed themselves. When applied to a disadvantaged population, this process has all sorts of ethical concerns. For my part? I stick with what works, what always works, because a solution that works less well generates too many phone calls.

Get an outlook.com email, and hook it to Outlook mobile app for free and POOF, calendar is solved. Works on Apple and Android endpoints... works the first time, and every time. Modern auth potential built in... easy MFA options if you want them... it's all there. But muh GMAIL!!! Screw it... Gmail is a chore to work with in this context. Dump it!

Why is there no good way to sync Google Calendar into Outlook? Because GOOGLE DOESN'T WANT THERE TO BE! It's 2022 is anyone here silly enough to think this issue hasn't been solved? It has been... hundreds of times... and every time a solution gets too popular Google breaks it, because they do not want it!

 

[britechguy]

So if you're supporting people that need alternative access solutions, and those solutions are endpoint based you're in a place where you simply must choose to not use Google tech... OR you lose your mind.

No. Plain and simple, no.

I've been supporting Gmail with clients for years and years now, without an issue.

Gmail supports both POP and IMAP access, and do so for a reason.

Your insistance about certain things, as things stand now and are likely to stand for the foreseeable future, are without foundation. Google's not ripping away access via clients at any point in the immediately or even intermediately foreseeable future.

 

[Sky-Knight]

POP and IMAP are not calendar access. And also, if Google could get away with eliminating those services, they would happily do so.

The problem is our mail clients are not just mail clients. They are digital organizers, and they contain far more data than mail. If the world would come up with a standard to compete with the Exchange protocol... I'd be all over that. And Google would be a great company to do such a thing. BUT... THEY HAVE NOT... and they WILL NOT. Because again, they want you in the browser. They provide all the features you want in the service, but as soon as you step outside the standards ruled realm of mail itself you do a wonderful face plant.

So you can continue living in that bubble, or you can move to another bubble that services your needs better. That's your only real option, doubly so for "free" accounts for "mail", that are used for so much more than mail...

 

[britechguy]

And, yet, third party utilities to do exactly what's needed have existed and worked just fine with getting the Google ecosystem in touch with outside desktop clients for many years now.

I can't keep having this conversation, and won't. It is perfectly possible, easy, and reasonable to use Google services with a desktop client if that's what a client wants. My experience has been "configure it all and forget it" for years now. There may be the occasional odd "burp" that resolves itself, but I've never had the kind of issue recently discussed on that other topic.

Coming up with a way that is works, and doesn't require constant care and feeding, to allow my clients to use services they wish to use in the manner they wish to use them is part of the services I offer. That's not going to change.

Addendum: And, believe me, I try to convince anyone using Google Services to learn to use their web interfaces, including those who are blind. Google has put massive effort into making these fully accessible. Alas, it's very often worse than trying to pull teeth and I have to pick my battles. It's way easier to support Outlook with G-Services in those situations, which are plentiful.

 

[Sky-Knight]

My experience differs I guess... Whenever I use one of those 3rd party bridges, every six months or so it breaks and the phone rings again. You have that happening when you're responsible for priority support for more than about 50 people and it's just too much. Much less the 200-300 endpoints required as a minimum to support yourself in this market.

This is just one of those things that makes my phone ring and ultimately cost me clients because they're tired of constant issues. So I advise them to get into an ecosystem that works for them naturally instead of against them. Outlook in particular is the gold standard for personal organization in this space, and the fact that Google continues to resist full integration with it, and fails to produce a competent competitive option for desktops and laptops is just painful on so many levels.

But again they don't do these things because they don't want to. They want us all in a browser, I reject that operating model because browsers suck. And for my home users (yes I support a few), I'm still making recommendations that work consistently because I figure these poor souls have already worked... when they get home they want to relax. That means things need to be even more reliable than the office, not less!

 

[nlinecomputers]

I'm with @Sky-Knight on this. Outlook works better with exchange and Outlook.com is a free exchange server. If you must still use your old Gmail address you just forward it to the new outook.com address. Eventually, your friends & coworkers will update their address books.

 

[britechguy]

But some people have every bit as strong an aversion to Microsoft as some here do to Google.

It is not my purview to direct clients to other service providers when they're perfectly happy with the one they have and the setup they have, whatever it may be, works for them the vast majority of the time.

You could pry my Gmail addresses from my cold, dead hands. And I do have an Outlook.com address, just like I have a Yahoo address, but those two don't get used and, in all probability, will never be used as my primary email address or even secondary email address.

I know that quite a few here are with you, Sky-Knight, and YeOldeStoneCat on this one. That really doesn't matter. There are lots of us who support Outlook with IMAP because that's precisely what our customers want, and we don't generally have issues with it. Why that cannot be believed by some here eludes me. We all know that, in tech and in life, for sometimes mysterious reasons, "Your mileage may vary."

 

[nlinecomputers]

But some people have every bit as strong an aversion to Microsoft as some here do to Google.

I don't have an aversion to Google. I am just saying the right tool for the right job. Either your methods or my methods REQUIRE third-party software or services. I'm just saying that I get better results by sending the email to a free outlook.com address.

And frankly, I think Microsoft has a better record on privacy than Google has. I trust MS more, as much as you can trust any multibillion-dollar megacorporation.

 

[Sky-Knight]

MS is more trustworthy in this case largely because they lost the mobile OS war, so they have the best tools to work on Windows, Linux, Mac, Android, and Apple all at once.

Every other vendor listed works well, but only if you stay inside that vendor's box entirely. Only with Microsoft at the core right now do you have the flexibility to leverage the other markets as needed. That's why I'm so far up M365's posterior, I'm not Microsoft loyal, I'm loyal to my clients and the outcomes they require.

That and I'm ethically bound to recommend processes that stop my phone from ringing. That's the nature of this business, doing it properly means putting yourself out of business every single day.

 

[HCHTech]

I'm agnostic as far as choosing which way folks want to go (cloud or desktop), but I'm not shy about extoling the dangers of mixing the two. I have had the same experience with the syncing apps as @Sky-Knight . It all works fine until it doesn't. Something goes wrong somewhere in the process and you wake up one morning to every calendar entry you have being doubled without explanation. The fix? erase everything and setup the sync again from scratch. A few times around that merry-go-round and you start to see the wisdom of keeping google products in the google infrastructure and Microsoft products in the Microsoft infrastructure. Same goes with PC vs. Apple. Sure you can make them work together, just be prepared to support it when it breaks. If you want to most trouble-free setup, don't cross the streams - haha.

 

[britechguy]

If you want to most trouble-free setup, don't cross the streams - haha.

About which I doubt any of us would disagree.

It's just that the luxury of "not crossing the streams" is not always available. Particularly in the residential segment or when supporting those using assistive technology.

 

[Sky-Knight]

I have less tolerance for residential users that simply like making pain for themselves. I mean yeah I like getting paid, but those types of customers out here turn into negative reviews as they constantly whine about their own terrible decisions.

Now those that need alternative interfacing to handle a physical problem, that's a different ball of wax. And that problem is always a huge mess, but I've rarely had as much fun as enabling someone to live life a bit more normally. Not work I've gotten often, but work I always jump on, even if I'm taking a loss doing it.