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Using Google Calendar in Microsoft Outlook




I've recently started using the Google Calendar as my main calendaring application. It's neat because its accessible wherever I go, and you can easily add appointments from email messages if you use Gmail. However, when I'm using my notebook, I like to use Outlook for email so that I can keep copies of everything locally. So, I started searching for a way to integrate Outlook with Google Calendar, and found this [link: Incorporate Google Calendar in Outlook]. It's a nice solution, but it involves downloading pieces of M$ crapware (Visual Studio 2005 Tools for Office Runtime, Office 2003 Update: Redistributable Primary Interop Assemblies) and an Outlook plug-in.

I, not a huge fan of installing unnecessary stuff, found a much easier way to integrate GCalendar with Outlook that is enough to meet my needs and requires installing nothing.

Behold!


How it's done:

  1. In Outlook, right-click on the folder you want the GCal link to be in and do "New Folder...". Call it whatever you like.
  2. Right-click on your newly created folder and select "Properties...". Under the "Home Page" tab, put in the address of Google Calendar (http://www.google.com/calendar/render?pli=1) and select "Show home page by default for this folder."
  3. Click ok, you're all done.

One drawback of this method, is that you are not really using the Outlook calendar, so its not really a solution for you folks in corporate world on MS Exchange. But if you're happy using Google as your main calendar store, this'll be fine!