Did you know you can sync up to 25 of your Google Calendars with your iOS Calendar – and from there, directly into SmartDay for iPhone? If you have SmartDay for Mac, you can also do this on your Mac’s Calendar (formerly known as “iCal”) but that is much more complicated.
One advantage of connecting your Google calendars to SmartDay via the iPhone Calendar is, you can bring in shared calendars – then make them transparent! That way, you can see what our family, friend, or team members are doing, but their schedules will not get in the way of our SmartTime logic which automatically schedules tasks into the free time between your calendar appointemtsn.
Here is how to set up Google Sync with our iOS Calendars. You can also read the details directly from the Google Sync website.
Requirements and Backing Up Data
- Google Sync is only supported on Apple iOS versions 3.0 and above. If you’re on an earlier version, update iOS before setting up Google Sync.
- Check your Safari cookies1 settings to see if it is set to “From Visited” or “Always”. If it’s set to “Never”, you’re more likely to be prompted to solve a CAPTCHA.
- Perform a sync with iTunes to ensure that Contacts and Calendars from your iOS device are backed up to your computer. Learn more.
- If your business, school, or organization uses Google Apps, your administrator needs to have Google Sync enabled before you can use Google Sync. Note that after you set up Google Sync, your administrator may also have additional device management capabilities (such as remote wipe or password requirements). Contact your administrator for more details.
Getting Started
1. Open the Settings application on your device’s home screen.
2. Open Mail, Contacts, Calendars.
3. Press Add Account….
4. Select Microsoft Exchange. iOS 4.0+ allows multiple Exchange accounts. However, if you’re on a device that doesn’t let you add a second account, you could also use IMAP to sync Gmail, CalDAV to sync Google Calendar, and CardDAV to sync contacts.
Enter Account Info
5. In the Email field, enter your full Google Account email address. If you use an @googlemail.com address, you may see an “Unable to verify certificate” warning when you proceed to the next step.
(iOS6 users click here to follow these setup instructions):
6. Enter your Google Account password as the Password.
7. Press Next at the top of your screen.
8. Enter m.google.com in the Server field.
9. Leave the Domain field blank.
10. Enter the user email address as the Username.
11. Press Next at the top of your screen again. Skip to step 12.
6. Leave the Domain field blank.
7. Enter your full Google Account email address as the Username.
8. Enter your Google Account password as the Password.
- Be sure that you have a strong password for your Google Account.
- If you see an error message saying “Invalid Password”, you may need to unlock your account by solving a short CAPTCHA. Go tohttps://www.google.com/accounts/UnlockCaptcha.
- If you are a 2-step verification user, please use an application-specific password instead of your regular password in this field.
- Check your Safari cookies settings to see if it is set to “From Visited” or “Always”. If it is set to “Never”, you’re likely to be prompted to solve the CAPTCHA.
9. Tap Next at the top of your screen.
9a. Choose Cancel if the Unable to Verify Certificate dialog appears.
10. When the new Server field appears, enter m.google.com.
- To access m.google.com, set the language to English (US).
11. Press Next at the top of your screen again.
Enable Mail, Calendar, and Contacts
12. Select the Google services (Mail, Calendar, and Contacts) you want to sync. To receive and respond to meeting requests on your device, both Mail and Calendar need to be turned on, and New events needs to be enabled in your Google Calendar settings.
To enable ‘New events’, sign in to your Google Calendar using the web browser on your phone or computer. Go to Calendar Settings > Calendars > Click on the Notifications for the calendar you want to sync. Under Email check ‘New events’ (and any of the other Invitation settings you want enabled e.g. changed events, cancelled events, event responses), and clickSave.
13. There are three options for keeping your contacts synced. You can keep your device’s contacts and sync just your My Contacts group, you can sync only Google Contacts and wipe your device’s contacts, or you can merge your contacts via iTunes and sync only the contacts that stream with your phone.
13a. If you would like to keep your existing contacts on your device select the Keep on my iPhone (or iPad or iPod touch) option when prompted. This will also allow you to keep syncing with your computer via iTunes. If you choose to keep existing contacts, you will sync the contents of the My Contacts group.
13b. If you have all your contacts in Google and you want to start syncing them to your device and don’t want to keep the contacts on your phone, tap Delete Existing Contacts. If there are no contacts on your phone, the contents of your All Contacts group will be synced.
13c. If you have all your contacts on your device and want to import them into Google, you can synchronize your Google Contacts with iTunes. All Contacts and Calendars that you sync with iTunes will be put into the On My iPhone Contacts and Calendar groups on your phone. iOS currently doesn’t allow you to move Contacts or Calendar events from the On My iPhone groups to the Google Sync groups.
You’ve set up Google Sync! Synchronization will begin automatically if you have Push enabled on your device. You can also open the Mail, Calendar, or Contacts app and wait a few seconds to start a sync.
Set up Google Sync with iOS Calendar
Choosing which calendars to sync
Google Sync can sync up to 25 Google Calendars with the Calendar app on your iOS device (your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch).
To select which calendars to sync to your iOS device, follow these steps:
- Open the Chrome or Safari browser on your device and go to https://m.google.com/sync/settings/
Note: You need to have the language set to English (US) to sync multiple calendars. - Select Sync.
- Sign in with your account and select your device from the list of devices you’ve set up for Google Sync.
- Bookmark this page so you can return to it easily.
