Microsoft Outlook must be installed in order to sync calendars

I am having this issue as well. Isn't there any support on this from Apple. Why is Apple support team sleeping on this?

veegeeyem wrote:

Why is Apple support team sleeping on this?

Perhaps they don't know there is a problem? Use iTunes Feedback, or sign up for a free Apple Developer Connection account and make use of Apple Bug Reporter. They don't generally talk back, but they do claim to read everything.

tt2

I have exactly the same problem and I don't find solution.

Well after months of frustration with the same problem I've finally found a solution that has worked for me. Given the plethora of solutions I've come across I'm convinced that this issue probably has many causes & I don't expect this solution will help everyone. BTW, I'm running Outlook 2010 (64-bit) on a Windows 7 PC (64-bit); iTunes (v12.3.317 the latest at the time) & have an iPhone5S that I synchronise using a USB cable (I've never used iCloud to sync).

There were two (maybe three) issues at play for me:

1. Inactive & missing add-ins in Outlook
2. A "corrupted" SyncServices folder in Windows
3. An old version of MobileMe Control Panel still installed on the PC

The solutions below were all from various blog & forum posts.

1. Missing add-ins in Outlook:

Inspecting the Outlook Add-Ins (open Outlook & go to: File - Options - Add-Ins) the "Outlook Change Notifier" Add-in was Inactive.

Select "COM Add-ins" in the Manage drop down-menu & click "Go..." to active this.

Missing was the "iTunes Outlook Addin".

This proved harder to resolve. I couldn't find the iTunesOutlookAddIn.dll file anywhere on my system but it did exist in an old back-up I had from over 6 months ago in the following folder:

C:\Program Files\iTunes\

Despite copying the file to this folder & being able to select it, Outlook wouldn't retain it in the Add-In list.

In desperation I tried copying it to both the following folders:

C:\Windows\System32\

C:\Windows\SysWOW64\

I thought I would see if I could select it from there in Outlook, but much to my surprise when I opened the Add-Ins page it had appeared as an Active Application Add-in (in the iTunes folder) without any intervention from myself.

I don't understand DLLs enough to explain what happened, all I can say is that it worked.

If you don't have a backed up copy of the iTunesOutlookAddIn.dll file I don't know how you go about acquiring one.

Although I now had the required Add-ins in Outlook it still didn't fix my problem.

2. A "corrupted" SyncServices folder in Windows

Following on piece of advice (which had helped many others) I renamed the sync services folder in Windows from:

C:\Users\<my account>\AppData\Roaming\Apple Computer\SyncServices
to
C:\Users\<my account>\AppData\Roaming\Apple Computer\SyncServices_OLD

When I started up iTunes next it created a new sync services folder & the option to synchronise my contacts & calendar with Outlook had returned. At last!

3. An old version of MobileMe Control Panel still installed on the PC

Finally I don't believe this issue contributed to this problem but I will include it for completeness just in case it did. I had been receiving a pop-up error message every time my PC booted into Windows 7 stating "AppleSyncNotifier has stopped working".

It may just be coincidental that this appeared around the same time I encountered the Outlook problems, but to resolve this matter I had to uninstall the long since redundant MobileMe Control Panel which still appeared in the Windows Control Panel under Programs and Features.

I'm not a guru with any of this stuff, but I'm mighty happy that I've finally found a way to fix things up. BTW, I never reinstalled iTunes or Outlook at any stage.

I hope this helps someone. Good luck!

I can confirm that the 2nd solution works. Windows 10 x64 environment, Office 2010 x86. I skipped the 1st and 3rd, since it seemed the most probable.

Thank you!

I had to reinstall iTunes 12.5.3 from scratch (but maintaining the iTunes media folder intact.) Got the same problem. Solution 2 worked (the only one I tried.)

Thanks!

Thank you, @SwimmingInAFishBowl!

I spent a week trying to restore calendar sync functionality to iTunes, and never would have figured out this solution on my own.

I also performed only step 2, forcing the SyncServices folder to be recreated. Success!

In my case, I'm using Outlook 2013 and iPhone 7 and Windows 10. There is a .exe called iTunesHelper.exe that I had disabled from the Startup menu. File location is C:\Program Files\iTunes. Enabling this .exe at Startup corrected my issue. I suppose though, if you did not want it enabled at startup, you can simply execute it before each sync.

#2 worked for me! Thanks for saving me a lot of legwork!