How to Sync Multiple Google Calendars

Google Calendar is one of the most used calendars by individuals and companies, and yet syncing multiple calendars in real-time, reliably is complicated.

If you are a Google Calendar power user and want to learn how to sync multiple Google Calendars, this article will make your life easier.

How to manually sync multiple Google Calendars by importing?

The manual way of syncing two Google Calendars is sharing Calendar A and importing it into Calendar B.

This is the process of syncing two Google Calendars (Calendar A and Calendar B):

1. Open Google Calendar.

2. Hover the mouse cursor over the calendar you want to sync.

3. Click the three-dot menu icon.

4. Click Settings and Sharing on the menu.

5. Click on Export, and your calendar file will be downloaded locally to your computer.

6. Extract the zip file that was just downloaded to your computer, to access the ICS file.

7. Open the Google Calendar that you want to import this calendar to.

8. Hover the mouse cursor over the calendar you want to sync.

9. Click the three-dot menu icon.

10. Click "Settings and Sharing" on the menu

11. Click "import & export"

12. Select the ICS file we just downloaded and hit import.

That's a lot of steps for syncing one calendar to another. If you want to sync the second calendar to the first, you have to repeat the same process again. The same goes for syncing more Google Calendars.

If you are looking to sync multiple Outlook Calendars, we wrote a blog post showing how to sync multiple Outlook calendars.

Benefits of manually syncing two Google Calendars by importing.

1. Calendar clarity. You and your co-workers will have a full picture of your schedule, avoiding meeting conflicts and confusion.
2. The service is free. (However, please refer to the issues below for more information on existing problems with importing/sharing calendars.)

Downsides of manually syncing Google Calendars by importing.

1. No privacy controls. You will have very little control over the privacy of imported calendars. Workspace administrators may be able to see events and details for those events from imported calendars. This is a deal-breaker for a lot of people.

2. Syncs are not real-time: New changes take 24 hours or longer to update in Google Calendar. Oftentimes, new events are not synchronized, so you will have to follow the same steps as above.

3. Unreliable syncs: The syncs are not very reliable, as aside from the calendars not syncing in real-time, the sync often does not work.

4. Time-consuming process: You can only sync one Google Calendar to another Google Calendar. If you want to sync more Google Calendars, you will have to follow the same steps again.

How to automatically sync multiple Google Calendars?

By using software such as OneCal, you can sync as many Google Calendars as you like, configure the way the events are cloned, and adjust your privacy, in less than one minute.

The demo below shows how you can synchronize multiple Google Calendars, in less than one minute, using OneCal.

How to use OneCal to sync multiple Google Calendars:

1. Connect your Google calendars

2. Choose which Google Calendars to sync

OneCal supports one-way and two-way syncs between multiple calendars.

3. Configure how events are copied

Choose which information you want to sync over.

4. Your Google Calendars are in sync!

Events from your source Google Calendar will appear in your selected target Google Calendar(s) and OneCal will automatically keep them up to date.

📆 Now check your Google Calendars!

Benefits of using OneCal to sync Google Calendars.

1. Reliable, real-time Google Calendar sync. Once you've created your sync, you can have complete confidence that your Google Calendars will consistently and reliably sync without any concerns.
2. You have full control over your Google Calendar privacy. It's important to note that workspace administrators won't have access to view events or calendar details that are replicated by OneCal.
3. Easy setup, reliable syncs. When attempting manual synchronization through the import method, you have to go through a 13-step process to sync one Google Calendar with another Google Calendar. After following these steps, the sync might fail, and the changes don't happen in real-time. With OneCal, your calendars stay in sync automatically, and you can sync multiple Google calendars in one go.

Automatically Sync Multiple Google Calendars into One Using OneCal

To sync multiple Google Calendars, there are two methods you can use: importing one calendar into the other or utilizing a third-party application like OneCal.

If your main focus is on syncing just two calendars and you don't require advanced privacy features or reliability, importing can be a suitable choice.

Conversely, if you have multiple calendars to sync and you place high importance on both privacy and reliability, OneCal presents an outstanding solution.