- Download the aforementioned zip file
- Install Spanning Sync, which runs as a System Preference pane
- Enter your Google Account credentials, or go get one (they're free, and if you already have something like a Gmail address, you're good to go)
- Select which calendars from iCal you want to sync with Google Calendar (and if you haven't signed into Google Calendar at least once, do so now)
- Press "Sync Now"
- Sit back and marvel at the wonders of desktop + Google Calendar syncing
As of this writing, a price is yet to be announced, though there will be two plans. The first is an annual subscription rate, while the second is a one-time, lifetime purchase for those who want to get past all the riff-raff. Stay tuned for more details.
[Update: Woops - looks like servers fall down, go boom. Spanning Sync has temporarily closed the public beta to new users due to the veritable river of interest overrunning their servers. If you recall your 'Internets 101' lessons, water and server hardware don't mix well. However, users who got set up before they closed the beta are still in - the doors are simply closed to new users until Spanning Sync can add some equipment to handle the load. Their blog post announcing the bad news also states that they hope to re-open the public beta by Wednesday, so we'll keep our eye on things and let you know when new users can begin signing up again.]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
1-30-2007 @ 7:14PM
Ozmotear said...
The title is misleading, this is just an update to the private beta. Those of us that missed the sign-up still have to wait awhile.
BTW - Why no mention of the iTunes/Norway decision announced a few days ago? You'd think that would be big news on an Apple blog.
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1-30-2007 @ 7:17PM
Dave Chartier said...
#1: The title is actually *not* misleading; Charlie emailed me privately to let me know the public beta - meaning: *anyone can download and use the software* - is now available. Hence the word *public* instead of *private*. He let me know before they even announced it on their own blog to help get the word out.
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1-30-2007 @ 7:49PM
HT said...
Works for me, pretty sweet, thanks for the link.
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1-30-2007 @ 7:57PM
ossiejnr said...
I've been waiting for this for ages and now it's finally here....fantastic....or so I thought.
I've just installed the public beta and got it to sync to a new google calendar (after I backed up everything) and it doesn't understand the timezone differences. All day events I have scheduled for the 7th Feb show up in Google as all day events for the 6th Feb......then when the sync occurs again it moves everything in my iCal forward a day.
I can't believe they didn't pick this up during the beta.....anybody over at spanning sync want to comment?
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1-30-2007 @ 8:11PM
tim said...
doesn't work for me. too bad - I was really hoping to utilize this
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1-30-2007 @ 8:25PM
Charlie Wood said...
ossiejnr,
Please create a report by selecting "Reset...", then "Create report", and email the resulting file to beta@spanningsync.com. We'll get it straightened out ASAP.
Thanks!
Charlie
spanningsync.com
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1-30-2007 @ 8:29PM
Adam said...
It kept locking up on me... not so good.
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1-30-2007 @ 8:32PM
ossiejnr said...
Will do Charlie - thanks for the quick response
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1-30-2007 @ 9:06PM
Eric said...
I've synced my calendars and it works as advertised. Awesome! I've been waiting a long time for this service and it looks great. Nice work Spanning Sync. A lot of grumpy and hostile comments above. Before you guys start whining about stuff remember to make sure that its not user error; which often times it is.
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1-30-2007 @ 9:22PM
Doug said...
It took me a couple tries to get it to work, but now it works beautifully! Its everything I had hoped it would be. Very useful. Thanks!
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1-30-2007 @ 9:36PM
tim said...
hmmm... this seems to be a place to get some help. would love to get this to work. can someone tell me what to do when it simply says: "spanning sync encountered an error"?
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1-30-2007 @ 9:56PM
Larry Hendricks said...
Hi all,
We're still in beta and so yes, there's a bug here and there, but we're committed to getting all of these addressed by the time we declare 1.0. If you see any problems at all, PLEASE create a report and send it to beta@spanningsync.com. To create a report:
* Open the pref pane
* Click Reset...
* Click Create Report
* Attach the file that appears on your desktop to the email
Thanks!
Larry
spanningsync.com
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1-30-2007 @ 10:13PM
Tim said...
Glad you're in public beta - but one gripe. All along, you said the public beta would be announced on the SpanningSync blog, yet instead you announced it here. It's still not in the RSS feed for your blog at this writing...
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1-30-2007 @ 10:53PM
John Neff said...
I thought this was the answer to my problem, but apparently it's not. I was hoping that it would sync both ways, but it appears that it just copies my iCal events to the Google Calendar, but not the Google Calendar events to iCal. I had to switch to Google Calendar because I work in groups with people on PCs and it's easy for all of us to contribute to a calendar. I was hoping to switch back to iCal using this utility and be able to contribute to those calendards, but I can't get all the calendars I've built up on Google Calendar over to iCal in order to start the whole thing off. Am I misunderstanding something, or is it the case that this utility just syncs one way, from iCal to GCal?
Thanks!
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1-30-2007 @ 11:30PM
iMatt said...
You're missing something. Some calendars (e.g. birthdays plucked from address book) will only sync one way. When that happens, it will tell you. Otherwise it is a two-way sync. I've been using it for the past week, and it's worked fine.
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1-30-2007 @ 11:38PM
Greg Taylor said...
Must be getting very popular. I'm getting the following error when I enter in my username:
Due to overwhelming traffic, new user registration has been temporarily suspended. Please visit blog.spanningsync.com for more information.
Can't wait to use this!
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1-30-2007 @ 11:47PM
sean said...
Got this:
CFPropertyListCreateFromXMLData said: XML parser error:
Unexpected character W at line 2
Old-style plist parser error:
When I tried to launch the second time. It did sync tho :)
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1-30-2007 @ 11:49PM
John Neff said...
You're right! It suddenly worked after the second or third sync. It does sync both ways. Not it's definitely one of my favorite utilities, great job!
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1-31-2007 @ 12:00AM
Jesse Madway said...
If I use Google Calendars as my main calendaring program but do use iCal from time to time, what does this program do that cannot be achieved by simply subscribing to my Google Calendars in iCal? I also publish one iCal calendar and subscribe to that in Google Calendars for the times when I need to enter events in iCal.
I'm just trying to understand what this offers that I am not already getting. Thanks!
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1-31-2007 @ 12:09AM
Dave Chartier said...
#19: Synchronizing your calendars is a lot different from simply subscribing to published calendars. First, items are synchronized - changes made in one place are reflected in the other; no subscribing is involved. This can be a huge value to many calendar users. Second, a lot of people don't have the ability or the know-how to set up hosting and publish calendars on their own servers, and plenty of others don't want to pay .Mac's subscription fees to do it the super-simple Apple way.
I hope these ideas offer a better perspective on why Spanning Sync has such an appeal for so many users.
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