How to Sync Google Calendar with Outlook

Google Apps is free for consumers, though the business version, called G Suite, comes with email hosting and other features that organizations need. G Suite has a monthly fee and several service tiers. Google Calendar comes bundled with Google Apps and is a simple but effective calendar app that you automatically have if you use Gmail. If you like to mix and match your applications or work somewhere that uses G Suite or Microsoft Office, you may want to sync Google Calendar with Outlook or vice-versa.

Outlook also has a built-in calendar that is a slightly more involved calendar app. Thankfully, Google Calendar and Outlook Calendar play pretty well together, and you can sync one calendar with the other, so you never miss a meeting again. Similarly, both calendars allow you to look into other calendars and show reminders, which is excellent for work and home and has much potential for helping you stay organized.

In this tutorial, we’ll show you how to sync Google Calendar and Outlook to ensure you’re always aware of what must be done when managing your busy schedule.

How to Sync Google Calendar with Outlook

To sync your calendars together, you’ll need another third-party tool. Although you can add your Google Calendar to Outlook and vice versa, you cannot edit both on one platform.

There is a wide variety of valuable tools available on the web. Some have free options, but to get an optimized experience, you’ll likely need to pay a monthly or yearly fee to use services like automatic syncing.

SyncGene – This service offers a free version that allows you to sync your calendars, but unfortunately, the two will not update automatically. It may be worth the cost if you’re especially interested in having everything in one place while keeping you organized.

CalendarBridge – CalendarBridge offers the same functionality as SyncGene but has no free option. Fortunately, the paid options are slightly more affordable and include automatic syncing. CalendarBridge Pricing

If you’re thinking this is beginning to sound a little more complicated than it should be, don’t worry. You aren’t alone. Fortunately, we have some options for connecting your calendars below without external services. However, this won’t include the same seamless functionality as the options we’ve listed above, but there are simple steps to get you moving forward.

How to Make Google Calendar Appear in Outlook

As the title says, the word here is “appear,” not sync. It is very straightforward to connect your Google Calendar with Outlook and should only take a minute or two:

  1. Go to your Google Calendar.” Hover over the calendar you’d like to view and tap on the “three vertical dots” on the lower left-hand side. Google Calendar
  2. Next, click on the option “Settings and sharing.”Google Calendar - Settings and sharing
  3. A new page will open. Scroll down to “Integrate Calendar” and copy the “link” found under “Secret address in iCal format.” We like this link because your Google Calendar will stay private. Google Calendar - Settings
  4. Now, let’s head over to “Outlook.” Keep in mind this works best with the desktop client. We experienced some issues with the web version. In Outlook, click on “File.”
    Outlook Top menu
  5. Click on “Account Settings > Account Settings.”
    Outlook Account Settings
  6. In the new window, click “Internet Calendars > New,” paste the “link” from Google into the URL box, and then click “Add.” Account Settings - Internet Calendar
  7. Now, follow the steps to finish the process. Open the “Calendar” tab in Microsoft Outlook to see all your Gmail calendar reminders added perfectly with Microsoft Outlook.

Your Outlook calendar should now be populated with your Google Calendar entries. Outlook uses the exact refresh mechanisms to download new emails and calendar updates, so your calendar should remain up-to-date. You may be unable to edit Google Calendar entries in Outlook, but it still syncs any changes you make on the other platform. If you need to add multiple calendars, repeat this process for each one.

If you run into problems and want to clear your Google Calendar and start over, you’ll want to remove all the events from your Google Calendar.

Sync Outlook with Google Calendar

If you want to keep both calendars up to date rather than just syncing one with the other, you can do that too. The same as you can sync Google Calendar changes with Outlook, you can do it the other way around, and sync Outlook changes with Google Calendar. The only drawback is that Google adds the calendar to the “Other Calendars” category, which only updates every 24 hours or later.

We’ll start with the steps for Outlook installed on your machine from within the Office suite as an example, and then we’ll cover how to do this for Office 365 after.

  1. Open “Outlook” and select your “calendar.”
  2. Select “Publish this Calendar” from the ribbon tools.
  3. Outlook Web Access will open in your browser, then log in.
  4. Select a “calendar” from the OWA page that opens. Make the calendar “Public” so you can share it.
  5. Select “Save” to keep your settings.
  6. Copy the link in the next window. You should see two, an HTML one and an ICS one. Copy the “ICS link.”
  7. Log into “Google Calendar” through your browser.
  8. Select “My Calendars” from the left and select the “+” icon next to “Add a friend’s calendar.”
  9. Select “From URL” and paste your copied URL into “URL of calendar.”
  10. Select “Add calendar.”

Your Google Calendar should now populate with your Outlook calendar entries. If you always want the latest changes, remove the Outlook URL and add it again. As you have subscribed to the calendar, it should be regularly polled for changes, but not for 48 hours or later.

For Outlook within Office 365, the process is pretty much the same for the Google part but different for the Outlook part:

  1. Select the “Gear icon” (Settings) from your Office 365 dashboard.
  2. Select “Share.”
  3. Enter your Gmail address in “Share with” and select “Send.”
  4. Open the mail and copy the URL ending in “reachcalendar.ics.”
  5. Log into your “Google Calendar” through your browser.
  6. Select “My Calendars” from the left and select the “+” icon next to “Add a friend’s calendar.”
  7. Select “From URL” and paste the URL where it says “URL of calendar.”
  8. Select “Add calendar.”

Like Outlook, Google Calendar should poll your Office 365 calendar regularly but does so less frequently. Depending on how your Office 365 installation is set up, you may need to modify permissions for Google Calendar to be able to read your Office calendar.

To do that, select “My Calendars” within Office and then “Permissions.” Select your chosen sharing options and then “Save.”

If you’re a home user, you should be able to do this without issues. You may not have permission to modify sharing or any Office setting if you’re at work. If so, you must follow up with your IT team.

Syncing Google Calendar with Outlook and vice-versa is a simple way to use multiple applications to manage your work-life balance and stay organized.

Outlook to Google Calendar FAQs

Does Outlook have a calendar app?

Not exactly. Whether you have the Outlook app on your mobile device on your computer, you can access the calendar from there.

1. Open the Outlook app on your device and select the small calendar icon in the lower right-hand corner.

2. From here, the calendar will take up the whole app interface (acting much like its own application). You can schedule meetings, create alerts, and invite people from the Outlook app.

How do I make my account private again?

After following some steps above, you may be concerned about account privacy.

1. To change your account to private, follow the steps above and uncheck the Public option.

Can I add other email accounts to sync all of my calendars?

Yes, you can add any email server to Outlook. Assuming the service provider offers a calendar option, they should sync automatically. You may need a Port number or other information to complete the merger, depending on your email client.

Particularly for ISP email clients, you can visit the email help page to get the information and instructions to add your email address to your Outlook app.

Calendars Synced

As you’ve seen, syncing your Google Calendar with Outlook is pretty simple, requiring a few clicks and copying and pasting.

If you have other ways of doing this, please tell us in the comments below!

14 thoughts on “How to Sync Google Calendar with Outlook”

George Broze says:
Hi, Cassandra,
When I try the 2nd part, i.e. Sync Outlook with Google Calendar, the only option I can find is “publish to webDAV server.” Also, when I linked the Google calendar to outlook, they display separately. Do you have any hints?
I am running Windows 10, and Microsoft 365.
Steve Larner says:
I’m not sure where you see “publish to WebDAV” for the first part unless I’m looking in the wrong section. When you click the “vertical ellipsis” (three-dot icon) next to the calendar in Google Calendar and you select “Settings and sharing,” you should be able to scroll down to the secret address in iCal format. For the second part, they WILL appear separately, but you can combine them by clicking the “left arrow” in the Google Calendar tab and then clicking the “right arrow” to separate them again later if desired.
Cariola says:
Thank you! I have been fiddling around for months with this issue of trying to get my gmail calendar to work with outlook on pc and android and FINALLY, thanks to your clear information, I’ve managed it.
Ali says:
Hi, thanks for the tips. Following your first steps to subscribe to the Google calendar in Outlook results in Outlook saving the “internet calendar” as a .pst file. Our company is no longer allowing use of .psts and will be deleting them all and not allowing access post 9/30. Are you aware of another way to subscribe to the Google Calendar via Outlook without it generating a pst?
Steve Larner says:
I don’t think another option exists unless you subscribe to a third-party application.
José Organista says:
Thank you for this excellent article!
catbill says:
I have used Office 365 for a few years and never heard of “Office 365 dashboard.” So I contacted Microsoft technical support. They told me that Outlook and Google calendars cannot be synced for personal gmail accounts.
Steve Larner says:
Well, that’s Microsoft you’re talking to.
Arlie Haig says:
cannot I just allow .ICS files sent by an Outlook user to go directly to populate my Google calendar?
Steve Larner says:
If I understand your question correctly, you can sync Outlook Calendar to Google Calendar using GAS-ICS Sync. When set up correctly, it will sync your Outlook Calendar to Google’s and you can edit Outlook in Google.
Dinand says:
Thank you Cassandra,
It answered my questions.
It became CalanderBridge.
Very useful nice work
pjcamp says:
Office 365 settings only allows dinking around with the theme.
Jenny says:
Ive followed these steps and I can initially see my Outlook calendar in my Google calendar but the Outlook calendar does not update. It used to work but it got slower and slower over time and now does not work at all. I’ve removed the calendar and started with a fresh install but it doesn’t help.
Steve Larner says:
If Outlook Calendar is in the “Other Calendars” section, it won’t update no sooner than every 24-48 hours, if not longer. You need third-party calendar sync.
Shaylo1 says:
Thank you for the post,
I have outlook installed on my windows PC and I am using the google G Suite.
Yet I found out that the calendars are not sync. Indeed you can update the outlook calendar to the one of google for current status.
but any updates you are doing on the Outlook desktop are not updated back to the Google.
I read that this is an outlook issue.
Some third party, even offer dedicated utilities to overcome it, but they are not reliable.
Do you mange to sync both calendars with no limitation ?
Steve Larner says:
Using pre-included options, Google is very slow, as in 24-48 hours or longer to sync with Outlook or any other calendar. You need a third-party application or script, as you mentioned. Try GAS-ICS Sync. When added to Google Scripts, that script syncs Outlook, etc., to Google Calendar in the main section, not the “Other Calendars” category. This means it will sync fast (every 1-10 minutes), and you can edit Outlook entries in Google Calendar directly.
Brian says:
Perhaps I missed a step, but my Outlook to Google sync is not working. The initial setup worked like a charm, but no further updates from Outlook are syncing to Google. Is this a known issue?
Steve Larner says:
Yes. Google is extremely slow to sync other calendars. You need a third-party tool to speed up the process.

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