Can Icloud sync with google calendar and gmail?

I am looking for similar information. I have used Google calendar in tandem with iCal for quite awhile and it has worked fine with Mobile Me, my iPad, iPhone 3GS, a MAcBook Pro and iMac. All sync flawlewssly together and I have a happy Google calendar in iCal. Now that I have made the conversion to iCloud, all my devices continue to work but iCloud on the web does not recognize the Google calendar? Is there a step that I missed in the conversion from Mobile Me to iCloud? Thanks in advance for any help you can offer.

Sadly, this is exactly my issue too. With the zillions of gmail folks out there, surprised we're not seeing any answers!

AMProf

icloud syncs your OSX Lion or Windows Outlook local Calendar . Syncing with other services outside your local calendar entries is not possible with the cloud system.

So in short words : no.

The same applies to email also. Only icloud calendar,Mail is synced in the cloud and across devices. Everything else must be handled with iTunes sync from and to the iOS device like in the days before icloud.

Shocking that this isn't documented anywhere.

But why can't my macbook iCal which has already synced with Yahoo calendar, not be able to send that information to the icloud calendar. I don't care if the information goes to icloud directly from Yahoo, I would be happy if the information would go to my macbook iCal, and then go from there to the icloud and from there out to my other devices.

Yeah, I wonder that too. Same exact situation as you: google syncs to my ical (on iphone) just fine (as does yahoo, and my lotus notes from work). I have all 3 color coded calendars showing up on my iphone. But won't go up to the cloud.

In short, yes for now you sort of have to stick with Google. iCloud seems strictly limited for use with iOS devices and actual laptop/desktops of any variety able to access the internet. MobileMe was a web based version of iCal centralized on a MobileMe account. You still had all the seperate accounts but could log in to see all of them and access each account directly just like you could if you had a web based Outlook client through your job, etc.

In long form:

In my expierience you can sync it to a device no problem just by setting up the account in the standard fashion but you, and the rest of us wont have it viewable on a website other then the provider's.

I have (on my iphone) gmail set up to be a regular account. I keep my contacts on gmail too. This is because I'm stuck with an android device and since AT&T wont unlock my old iphone for use on Tmobile (the provider my company uses) yet the iphone and the android phone both access google. Something I found thats workable:

Set up your gmail account on your macbook, iMac, iOS device, PC strictly with calander/email. Set this up as a NORMAL email account such as Yahoo, etc...NOT an exchange account.

For my contacts, I set it up gmail additionally as an "exchange" account so it syncs just my contacts to the phone and if I add one on my work provided android pos, it will also sync to my iPhone since I never had much luck using Contacts directly with my gmail account.

From iCal, Outlook, etc on any device set up for the account, I can select and choose which accounts I wish to show (gmail for work, yahoo although I dont use their calander, and iCloud. And can see everything on one calandar and when clicking on an item it shows me which provider account (google, yahoo, iCloud) it was put on. Additionally, when I'm adding events on my iOS devide, I can choose which account I want to add it to. It's similar to MobileMe but without a website to view them all together.

The important step here is to set it up on all your devices. It doesnt work in conjunction with iCloud (or ever did with MobileMe for that matter, as previously mentioned it was a web based version of iCal), but more as a seperate cloud and always has based on my experiences and how I've used it.

For the purpose of just using it to get by, you can take this approach and still access it on all your devices. Where it actually comes from isnt entirely relevant except for the setup convenience, and making sure you put something on your gmail calandar instead of iCloud as necessary so you can still see all your provider accounts on all your devices simultaneously. Convenient? No...but being able to view all the accounts on 1 (visible yet seperate) calandar makes it more long term convenient once you get past the initial set up and in the habit of logging appointments and contacts on the correct accounts.

Thanks for the great answer. But, meh, I'm just bagging icloud. I just had the notion that it would make life easier, but it doesn't seem to offer anything (in terms of email and contacts and calendar) better than good old free gmail, without jumping through a heck of a lot of hoops. The itunes backup is cool, true, and that works for me just fine.

iCloud is just as good as MobileMe. You just dont get the online version of iCal that let you see all your outside accounts. iCloud seems more centralized for Apple products which is fine, I just wish I wasnt sitting on Apple products I cant use so I could fully utilize the service. Thats the only thing stopping me from dumping gMail. I only use that account for my work calandar and to have full sync of contacts. I have an internal email account at work which cant be accessed outside anyway so the gmail account isnt required per say cept that they gave me an android device that asks you to set one up, its just a means of getting basic appointment info off site. Pretty much the only thing I use the actual email account for is spam if I have to sign up for something or provide an email address. The second I can get my iPhone 4 on T-Mobile without a jailbreak gmail's gonna go. I'm not using iCloud half heartedly either though (photostream, etc) because I dont need another account so I sort of feel the same way you do (for now).

AMProf and IR girl, I'm with you. This is one very disappointing aspect of iCloud. It seems like a backward step since it was working fine in MobileMe. You need to be able to see all your calendars in all places. As I type that, I begin to chuckle. The truth is that we have come a long way from the old notebook planners/calendars. I guess we want it all! I am still hopeful that Apple wil address this soon.

If you subscribe to an external (e.g. Google) calendar in iCal on Lion, you can choose to have that subscription "located" on iCloud or on your Mac. If on iCloud, that (read-only) subscription will propogate to all of your other devices that are linked to your iCloud account. That is a huge bonus of iCloud over Google calendars (imo). With Google, I had to manually subscribe to a calendar on each of my devices. The one downside is that these subscriptions cannot be viewed on the icloud.com website. I believe Google will display external subscriptions on their web interface. But hontestly, I rarely use a web interface for my calendars. Do you?

To grant read/write access to an iCloud calendar, the other user needs to have an iCloud account. This is no different than Google calendar. If I want to share a Google calendar with another user and grant read/write access, that user also needs a Google account.

In practical use, there is very little difference between the two.

THANK YOU ithos!

I have searched and searched to try and find a way to sync my Google calendars with iCloud.

You don't exactly say how to make this happen, but you gave me enough nuggets to put it together. Thank you for responding and helping me put it all together.

I have 5 Google calendars (Family, Work, Church, Extended Family Birthdays, US Holidays). My wife, two different assistants and I all share and update the calendars. I want all this to continue since it affects every aspect of my life. I sit at a PC at work and need to be able to view all those calendars during the work week, I also need to be able to view and edit from work (pc), iPhone, wife's iPhone, assistants computers, and our home (mac). So, staying Google - for now, is what I need.

I just upgraded to the 4S and Siri is one of the main reasons. Without iCloud syncing with my calendars Siri is USELESS with calendaring stuff. So, I have to have Siri able to view my calendars as well.

So, with that info, here's how I got it all to work.

For those of you who need a start to finish explanation, here it is:

1. Computer running the OS Lion (mine's an iMac)

2. Open iCal on the Mac

3. Open your Google Calendar

4. In iCal go to iCal --> Preferences --> Accounts.

Make sure iCloud is listed under Accounts. This was my default, so I didn't have to make any changes. If yours lists something different, sorry. I don't know how to change it. But I believe this is a KEY component as ithos above mentions that the subscription be 'located' on iCloud.

5. In iCal go to Calendar --> Subscribe

This will force a pop up asking you for the URL of the calendar you are trying to subscribe to.

Where do you find this URL? 🙂 I found this article from 2006 that gives the low down:

http://www.tuaw.com/2006/04/13/howto-subscribe-to-a-google-calendar-using-ical/

Don't worry, even though it's from 2006 it still works. Here are the steps in a nutshell, but you should read the short article so you don't miss anything.

6. In Google Calendar you need to dig into EACH calendar that you want to 'Subscribe to' and find the unique URL for that calendar. This will allow you to then force iCal to look at and scrape the data from this calendar as often as every 5 minutes. As you follow the articles steps (they are very easy) then your iCal calendar will populate with the Google calendar data from the calendar you subscribed to. I had to do this for EACH calendar I wanted to show up on my iCal calendar.

7. I then grabbed my iPhone and asked Siri, "What does my day look like tomorrow?" She responded with all my iCal / iCloud (which are all subscribed to my Google calendars) calendar data. I smiled 🙂

This ONLY allows the Google info to be pushed to iCal / iCloud. It doesn't allow the info to go the other way.

It won't let Siri manipulate the iCal/iCloud calendar or the Google calendar. But at least Siri can see what's already there. So, a step in the right direction.

Good luck!

OK - 2nd try.

With the above I was getting double calendar entries. And iCal wasn't syncing right. So, this is the fix my brother gave me. And it seems to be work.

From scratch.

1. Under Settings --> Mail, Contacts, Calendar --> Remove you Google Exchange and GMAIL accounts from your iPhone.

2. Reinstall them. It's important to do this to completely remove the initial settings you had on the phone for these accounts. I tried not removing and had lingering issues.

3. Use Exchange with Contacts - ONLY

4. Use GMAIL for: Mail, Calendar, Notes

5. iCloud should be: Reminders, Bookmarks, Notes - but NOT Mail, Contacts, Calendars.

6. In Mail, Contacts, Calendar it should read your default Mail account is: Gmail

7. (not important for this, but important for Siri - on this page under Contacts --> My Info --> Find your personal contact info and click it. This allows Siri to know who you are, your home address, phone number, etc.)

If wanting to view multiple calendars through Google calendar

8. In Mail, Contacts, Calendar if you are trying to view multiple Google calendars, make sure the Default Calendar reads the correct Google calendar.

9. On your iPhone go to: www.google.com/calendar/iphoneselect

This allows you to determine which calendars you can SEE on your iPhone. This is important if you want to view multiple calendars through Google calendar on you iPhone.

Click the calendars you want to see.

That last step is important, crazy that it's so hard to find.

Hope this helps.

All I had to do is Step 9. go to http://www.google.com/calendar/iphoneselect

Once there, sign-in and checkmark the existing calendars you want to see on your iphone/touch.

I don't recall having to do this prior to OSX Lion / IOS 5 and totally agree, it was a colossal waste of time looking for this simple solution. Google or Apple would do well to highlight this. Thanks!

All I had to do also was step 9. I've been trying to fix this calendar problem for weeks now! Thanks to you guys for figuring it out.