How to Sync Google Calendar with Outlook Calendar

I’m starting to get ready for CTIA in April, so I’ve been spending a lot of time booking appointments, et cetera, et cetera. The only trouble is I use Outlook for my e-mail and Google Calendars for my calendar.

That means every time I confirm an appointment, I have to launch my browser and input data into the calendar. If someone asks me to do something in between, sometimes I forget until a half-hour later—which could lead to an accidental missed meeting if I don’t remind myself.

So today I searched for a Google Calendar and Outlook sync program, and, lo and behold, Google itself released one. It’s called Google Calendar Sync, and can be downloaded from Google’s support page.

Once it’s installed, you just need to enter your Gmail address and password, then choose whether you want to sync in three different ways: 2-way syncs both your Google Calendar and Microsoft Outlook, Google Calendar to Microsoft sends only your Google Calendar events to Microsoft Outlook; Microsoft Outlook calendar to Google Calendar sends Outlook events to your Google Calendar.

Then you can choose how often you want the programs to sync; the default is every two hours. Mine synced up 119 events in about 45 seconds, which is pretty speedy. The whole application runs in your taskbar tray so that you can edit settings anytime you want. I’m loving it so far. Did anyone else know this existed?