Sync Your Google Calendar with Apple’s Open Source iCal

Google Calendar now supports the CalDAV protocol, which allows a client to access scheduling information on a remote server. It extends WebDAV specification (HTTP-based protocol for data manipulation) and uses iCalendar format for the data. The protocol allows multiple client access to the same information thus allowing cooperative planning and information sharing.

“You can now use Apple iCal with your Google Calendar, so you can work even when you’re offline, sync almost instantly, respond to invitations from others and see the free/busy data of your friends and coworkers,” reported Google’s Engineer, David Besbris, via Google Mac Blog.

“We launched CalDAV support to our developers last July for feedback, and since that time a few of us whipped up a nifty setup program for iCal. This tool makes it a breeze to get iCal working with your Google account. We’ve released this as open source and the program is available for download at our Google Code site,” he noted.

To set up CalDAV support for Google Calendar in Apple’s iCal, download the set-up tool here, Open the tool and enter your Google Account username and password to sign in, and then select the calendars you’d like to add to iCal and click Add to iCal. Only Apple iCal 3.x (on Mac OS X v10.5+) supports CalDAV sync.