Synch Your Google Calendar and Contacts with MS Outlook
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If you're a Microsoft Outlook user and a Google Calendar or GMail user (I use all three) did you know that you can synchronize your GMail Contacts and Google Calendar with Outlook, saving you from having to jump between multiple applications all the time? The process is very easy, and also free. In this post, I'll provide instructions for how to do both tasks.
Synching Google Calendar with Outlook. Although you can do it without getting help from a separate software application, the easiest way to synchronize your Google Calendar with Outlook is to use a slick piece of open source software called Remote Calendars. You can download it for free.
First, with Outlook closed, extract and run the Remote Calendars application, then open Outlook. You'll have a new toolbar available with “RC" written in the background on it:
On the toolbar, click the plus sign, to subscribe to a non-Outlook calendar. Then open up a separate browser session and go to calendar.google.com. Click on the down arrow next to the calendar that you want to synch and choose Calendar Settings. Right-click on the ICAL icon and select either Copy Shortcut or Copy Link Location.
Next, go back into Outlook and paste the URL into Remote Calendar's URL prompt. Name your calendar, and you're done. Whenever you want your Google Calendar information updated in Outlook, click on the second icon on the Remote Calendar application's toolbar, which likes like the Refresh button in your web browser. That's it! You can also use Remote Calendar to keep multiple Google Calendars synched with Outlook.
Synching GMail Contacts with Outlook. The easiest way to synch GMail Contacts with Outlook is to import your GMail Contacts file into Outlook. To export your Contacts file to a .CSV file, in GMail go to Contacts/All Contacts/Export/Outlook CSV/Export Contacts.
To import the .CSV file into Outlook, go to the File menu and choose Import from another program or file. Select CSV (Windows), Browse, Next, Contacts, Next and Finish. Very easy.
For many more tips on Microsoft Outlook, see my previous post.
Do you have any good tips on Google Calendar, GMail or Outlook?
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