How to sync Outlook to Google Calendar

Are you someone who juggles between Outlook and Google Calendar for managing your schedule? If so, you've likely encountered scheduling conflicts and missed appointments.

The question that often arises is: How to sync Outlook to Google Calendar?
In this article, we'll explore effective methods and step-by-step instructions to seamlessly sync Outlook with Google Calendar, ensuring that your appointments and events are perfectly synchronized.

Say goodbye to scheduling conflicts and let's dive into the world of Outlook and Google Calendar synchronization.

Prefer video? Here is our step-by-step tutorial below that walks you through the entire process.

How to Manually Sync Outlook Calendar With Google Calendar

The first method to sync Outlook with Google Calendar is by following a manual 13 steps process.

By following this step-by-step guide, you can sync one Outlook calendar with another Google Calendar.

1. Open Outlook.
2. Click Outlook. 
3. Select Settings. 
   
   
4. Click Calendar (next to the calendar icon), then click Shared Calendars.
   
   
5. In the “Publish Calendar” section, find the link to the calendar you’d like to sync. 
   
   
6. Click Calendar, then click Can view all details. 
   
   
7. Click Publish.
   
   
8. Copy the ICS link (towards the bottom, below the HTML link).
   
   
9. Open Google Calendar. After copying the ICS link, the next step is to open the Google Calendar you want to sync with the Outlook Calendar.
10. On the sidebar, near the bottom of the page, click Other Calendars +.
    
    
11. Click From URL in the drop-down menu.
    
    
12. Paste the link you copied earlier and click Add Calendar. 
    
    
13. Your new calendar will appear in the list under Other Calendars + once it’s synced. You can then rename it and change its color settings.

If you want to sync the Google Calendar with the Outlook calendar, we wrote this guide: how to sync Google and Outlook Calendars.

Benefits of syncing Outlook Calendar with Google Calendar by importing.

1. Enhanced Meeting Transparency and Free/Busy Schedules. Your Google Calendar events sync with Outlook, providing you with complete visibility into your scheduled meetings. This facilitates clearer communication with colleagues, helping to prevent scheduling conflicts
2. While the service is free of charge, it's important to note that there are some issues you should be aware of. Please read the details below to learn more.

Downfalls of syncing Outlook with Google Calendar by importing.

1. Leads to double bookings: If your team uses the “Find a Time” feature of Google Calendar to schedule meetings, they won’t be able to see events outside of your Primary calendar. This often leads to meeting conflicts across calendars.

2. Little to 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.

3. New changes take 24+ hours: 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.

4. Unreliable: It's not very reliable, as aside from the calendars not syncing in real-time, the sync often does not work.

5. Time-consuming to sync multiple calendars: You can only sync one Outlook Calendar to another Google Calendar. If you want to sync more Outlook with Google Calendars, you will have to follow the same steps again.

How to sync Outlook Calendar with Google Calendar automatically?

By using a tool such as OneCal, you can synchronize as many Outlook and Google Calendars as you like, configure the way the events are cloned, and adjust your privacy, and much more, in less than 1 minute.

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

How To Use OneCal to Sync Outlook Calendar With Google Calendar:

1. Connect your Google and Outlook Calendars

2. Choose which calendars to sync

Select which calendars you want to keep in sync. We support one-way and two-way syncs between multiple calendars.

3. Configure how events are copied

OneCal allows you to have control over which events and information are synced by offering a wide variety of settings for you to configure.

4. Your calendars are synced!

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

📆 Now check your Calendars!

Benefits of using OneCal to sync Outlook and Google Calendar.

1. Real-time Outlook and Google Calendar Sync: Outlook and Google Calendar are synchronized in real-time. After setting up the sync, you won't have to worry that the events might not sync afterward.
2. You have full control over your privacy: You will have full control over the privacy of the synced calendars. Workspace administrators won't be able to see events and details for those cloned by OneCal.
3. Easy to sync multiple Outlook and Google Calendars: Sync multiple Outlook and Google Calendars, in less than one minute. When syncing manually by importing, you have to follow 13 steps to sync one Outlook to another Google Calendar. If you want to sync your Google Calendar with your Outlook Calendar, you have to follow the same 13 steps again. This gets messy when having more than 2 calendars. Furthermore, after following the manual steps, the sync might not work afterward, leading to wasted time that could have been used elsewhere.

Automatically Sync Multiple Outlook Calendars With Google Calendars Using OneCal

You can sync Outlook to Google by importing one calendar to another, or by using an external app, such as OneCal.

If you need to sync 2 calendars and don't mind the sync being reliable and having fewer privacy controls, syncing via importing is a good alternative. If you want to sync more than 2 calendars, where privacy and reliability are a priority, OneCal is a great alternative.