Stop us if you've heard this one: we want to share our calendar with someone, but we don't want them to know precisely what we're doing. We need them to know we're a bit busy on Tuesday morning but, on balance, we'd rather they not be able to tell that it's our DUI court case. To be fair, they don't want to know either.
However, they need our availability, they need to be able to immediately see when a certain date definitely can't -- or maybe can be -- booked for something.
Unfortunately, they also use Google Calendar.
Now, that's not unfortunate, because there's anything wrong with Google Calendar, but right now we're firmly embedded in Apple Calendar. We might use Fantastical or BusyCal a lot, but the Apple Calendar engine powers it all, and we like it.
So the job of this Pointers is to scratch an itch and solve a problem we're having today. How to share our Apple Calendar such that a Google Calendar user can see when we're available, but not when our DUI is. Also, we need to do this in such a way that we can set it up and forget it: we're not going to move over to Google Calendar just for this one thing, but equally you cannot, just cannot afford to run two calendars. That way lies madness, and missed appointments.
Our solution was tested over late night beers plus OS X Yosemite, and the latest version of Google Calendar. Not that we can even figure out how to tell what version that is, it's just the one we got now when we tried it for the first time. Let's also warn you right now: this works but it is not ideal, it isn't even great. We really need Apple and Google to sit down over a coffee and sort this out, but in the meantime, this will get you what you need.
However, if your job means you have sensitive appointments, then don't do this at all, okay? If someone needs to know you're free next Thursday, let them phone you and ask. This is a workaround, and while we wouldn't say it to you if we weren't both willing to do it ourselves and actually now are using it ourselves, it's still a workaround and not 100 percent secure.
Google and iCloud accounts
Five'll get you ten you have both of these already: Apple and Google both push for you to sign up to their services, and both offer compelling reasons. If you don't have both, do get both.
In both cases, you get an email address -- Apple's one, ending in @icloud.com, and Google's in @gmail.com -- and those are your keys to the calendars. Actually, we have a Gmail one because we signed up fairly recently: if you still have an old-style @googlemail account, then that's fine. Similarly, we don't have the new @icloud.com, we have the ancient @mac.com, and you just try taking it away from us.
Can we just assume that you've already got Apple Calendar set up on your Mac? It's easy enough to do, but if we don't make some assumptions then we'll be here so long we'll miss that court date. Also, just to help us out here, have a Google Calendar set up too. In both cases, you really just sign in with your email address and you're away.
Start with Apple Calendar
A more obvious word was never spoken, at least not for us in this case: our working calendar is on Apple's system already. That is where we live now, that is where we add in DUI stuff, lunch dates with attorneys, nefarious trysts and occasionally even work. You may have multiple calendars set up, but -- regardless of whether you're going to share any of them or not -- do think about collapsing them down to one. We have a litany of abandoned calendars for work, home, holidays, birthdays and the rest, but now we have as few as we can, so that we can always be certain we are seeing everything that blocks out our time.
One thing we can't cover today because we don't yet have a clue how to fix it is when you need to have two calendars. We run a work one, fine, and that has absolutely everything in it -- except for events and appointments that either our partners or we create for all of us. If your partner pops in an all-day Disneyland event for March 1, and it appears on your shared calendar, it therefore isn't on your main one, yet it is seriously blocking out your time.
You could share everything with your partner in one single calendar, that would do it, but it would also drive you crazy. Both of you. Not only would you see every single meeting each of you is having at your work, every time you need to know if you're free, you have to check the calendar and then think: is that my orthodontist appointment or theirs? If it's theirs, do I need to go too?
The best solution for now is to keep your partner calendar separate, and just copy over events that are going to significantly affect your availability. It's not great.
Share your Apple Calendar
It gets a bit worse. Sharing that Apple Calendar of yours is easy. Launch Calendar -- even if you use Fantastical or BusyCal, both of which can share, you might as well do it from Apple's one. Find your main iCloud calendar, right-click on it and choose "Share Calendar..." from the menu that pops out.
You'll be prompted for an email address to invite someone to share your calendar, but don't bother. Instead, tick the box that says "Public Calendar" and then stop for a minute. This is where you need to think about privacy. What you're going to do is publish your personal calendar online: nobody will be able to find it with even a deliberate search -- it will never show up on Google, and nobody can guess the weirdly wonderful address, but it will be online. Given how it's not visible to searches and given the unpredictable address you'll get, we're okay with this as an unfortunate step toward what we want to do.
You need to be okay with it too. If not, just don't do it.
Seriously, be sure
Assuming you are sure, then just beneath and to the right of that Public Calendar tick box there is a Share icon. Choose that, and select Email Link to Calendar. This will copy the online calendar's address, and automatically open up a new email message with that URL in it. Don't bother to address the email to anyone, just select and copy the address, then delete the email.
Next, you're going over to Google Calendar -- but you're going there via a third party website. It's another security issue, but it's necessary until Apple and Google arrange that coffee date (do you think they've tried, and are just using different calendars?). Go to icaltogal.com, and paste in the public calendar link you just copied. Press "Continue."
This service takes that address, and turns it into something Google Calendar can handle. You then select and copy that new address, and you're away off to Google.
Open up Google Calendar
When you've got the blank month view ahead of you, choose Other calendars from the column on the left. There's a pop down menu next to it that includes the option Add by URL. Choose that. Paste the link into the box that appears.
Don't tick the "Make the calendar public accessible?" button that's on the same dialog box, just click on Add Calendar.
Nearly there
What you've got now is your main Apple Calendar replicated in Google Calendar. It's a permanent, continuing replication, too, in that everything you add or delete or change in Apple Calendar from now on will be done in Google Calendar too. That only works one way, though: you can't do the opposite, you can't add or change events on the Google side.
What you can do is make use of Google Calendar's sharing feature. If it seems weird to you that you've gone through all of this sharing from Apple Calendar just in order to then do sharing from Google's one, then you're not alone, it's weird to us to. However, it's necessary.
Google Calendar's sharing has one big advantage over Apple's: you can tell it to share only your availability. This is how you tell someone your time is blocked out on a certain day, this is how they know when you're around, and when you're not yet don't also know what you're doing.
This time when you share your calendar, Google prompts you for someone to invite to it, and you do enter their address. Off it goes to them, and hopefully after you've done all this work, they remember to accept. If they do, then from here on in they can check their own Google Calendar, and see that you are or aren't available for work.
Of all the Pointers articles on
MacNN, this is the least satisfying because it involves workarounds, but it's also pretty satisfying because it solved our problem. We can carry on using Apple Calendar -- actually Fantastical -- just as ever we did, but this particular company now can check when we're free. Which might be in 3-5 years, depending on how the DUI case goes.
-- William Gallagher (
@WGallagher)
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