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Sync entire Google calendar to phone - a solution

GiggityGiggity

Android Enthusiast
Dec 3, 2011
288
45
NW London, UK
Hey all. I've just replaced my Galaxy S2 with a Note. I have posted in the S2 forum about not being able to sync more than 30 days of Google calendar to the phone, and was looking for a solution. I want my entire Google calendar on my phone (mine has 5 years worth of appointments and entries that I need to refer to regularly). Google only allows it to sync the past 30 days of non-repeating entries, and there is no way around it (because Google aren't interested in fixing the problem that they've known about since early 2009).

Anyway, I've finally found a solution. To cut a very long story short I used the free version of SyncMate. It's an app for the phone and a pc/mac program. The free version will only sync contacts and calendars (which is fine for me). The pro version will sync just about everything - iTunes music, pics, vids etc.

Here's where it's really handy; you can sync the entire Google calendar that's in iCal (I use a Mac) back out to the phone. Kies can't do this (and it was a joke with repeating some random entries 500 times), and Google calendar only directly syncs the previous 30 days of non-repeating events to the phone. You run the app on the phone after putting it into USB debug mode then plug it into the Mac/PC, then run the prog on the Mac/PC.

I then sync'd the iCal Google calendar back to the phone. It still means you have two calendars running but at least you have access to your entire Google calendar. I still make all my entries into Google calendar and keep the second calendar hidden unless I need to check an entry older than 30 days. The other great thing is if you sync again in the same way it only adds the new entries. This sounds obvious but Kies couldn't do that either; it copied everything over creating duplicates. So, all you have to do is sync once a week and you've always got your entire up to date Google calendar available on your phone. \o/

I hope someone else finds this useful. And no, I'm nothing to do with SyncMate. :)
 
It doesn't seem that way to me? In SPlanner my Gcalendar is exactly the same as in any other calendar - it has all of my entries for Feb but nothing prior to that, and I only sync'd for the first time on Friday. I normally use an app called Business Calendar though I'm trying out Jorte at the moment (I like the look and feel of it).

I'm not sure how yours has sync'd that far back but mine definitely won't. Maybe you're just lucky! ;) I'm just glad I've found a workaround for the problem.
 
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I've got Jorte running at the moment alomgside the splanner. My life (sad I know) is on google calender but somehow, it appears that everything is synced. I've not looked into it all properly yet, there's too much learning to be done as it is lol. I Don't know what I've done but for me, at least for now, it's business as usual :D
 
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SyncMate - I will give it a try. Thanks for posting this!!!
My wife is a psychologist, and it would really be convenient for her if she could keep the last seven years of patient's appointments on her phone.
About every 18 months the calendar gets so corrupted I have to start over.
I have had this problem with the PC and TREO 755P and 755W, PC-HTC running Windows, PC - iphone, and now I am hoping Android will be able to handle the calendar.
What happens for us is a patient will be entered into the calendar with a repeat 6 visits. Then maybe on the third visit, they either change their appointment time, or cancel the appointment, "breaking" the repeat.
Upon sync, Google either does not pick up the change, or there will be two of the same patient, with both appointment times. Multiply that by 30 patients changing every few weeks, and everything gets messed up.
Or sometimes an appointment time will be entered on the phone and it will NOT update on Google. The last time it happened, I had to put the phone next to the computer, update Google directly, delete Google from the phone, then reload the calendar back to the phone.
One time I did that, and missed putting a whole bunch of appointments on Google, so when I did the fix, we lost a bunch of appointments, and double booked a lot of patients. It got so screwed up, we went back to a paper calendar for a month until we got everything sorted out.
I have had this problem with the Palm desktop, MS Outlook, Google, and MobileMe.
I have not tried the Yahoo calendar, so I do not know what it's capabilities are.
Ideally, all data is entered on the wife's phone - no changes are made in Google - all data flows in one direction only - from the phone to Google, and it still gets messed up. Along with the sync, I wish Google would have an OVER WRITE option, to force all items from the calendar onto Google.
GRRR!!! Sorry for the rant, I am excited to see how SyncMate behaves..

Best,
NickleJim
 
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>>Ideally, all data is entered on the wife's phone - no changes are made in Google - all data flows in one direction only - from the phone to Google, and it still gets messed up. Along with the sync, I wish Google would have an OVER WRITE option, to force all items from the calendar onto Google.
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Hi NickleJim

This may not be much help to you but Nokia's 'PC Suite' gives you exactly the features you require (+ others as well) when syncing the phone to M$'s Outlook. At least it does on my Nokia E90 phone which is a series 60 device.

I don't know how their synch software works on their latest phones - though you could ask them of course.

PiscesCloud
 
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I got excited when I read about SyncMate here, but then I wasn't sure it will work with PC's, i.e. does it only work with Macs? I installed SyncMate on my Android tablet, and at the bottom of the screen, it says "...install SyncMate on your Mac from http:...".

So maybe I'm missing something, or maybe you just assumed it worked with PC's also?

On another topic...about the 30 day issue, I don't know if what I'll say next explains anything, but I'll throw it out there. I read somewhere that once you "Clear Data" of the "Calendar Storage" app, the sync'ing will then only be for the past 30 days. I think you're only supposed to do that clear in some unusual situations. But if it causes the "30-day problem", they sure should be more careful about advising people to do it! I don't think I understand this at all...why should the sync care about whether you have cleared the calendar storage? Can't it just sync whatever it has?

Anyway, I'm glad you found a solution. If you think I can use SyncMate with a PC, please let me know. Thanks.
 
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It looks like SyncMate is only for Macs unfortunately. I misread it when it said 'sync with a windows pc'. It meant sync the mac with a windows pc not sync the phone with a windows pc.

Regarding the 'clear data' issue, I'd read the same thing when trying to find a solution to the sync problem. It may well be the case that it can cause the problem but even when I switched from the Galaxy S2 to the Note the very first sync I did on the brand new phone only sync'd 30 days of Google calendar data. It's bizarre, some people get the entire calendar when they sync and have never had a problem with it and some just get the 30 days worth. My work-around solution still works for me even after the ICS update on the phone so I'm still happy with it. :)
 
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I've had an HTC Magic, HTC Hero, HTC Desire, Galaxy S2 and now Note and NOT ONE of them sync'd calendar entries past thirty days. On the day that the phone was first sync'd, I got the past thirty days. If I ever re-formatted or re-flashed the phone, then I'd lose the calendar and only get the most recent thirty days again.

I've had all kinds of people say that it seems to work properly on their handset - which is (a) frustrating and (b) amazing as Google have stated that there is a limit on syncing of calendar items and it seems that they have no intention of fixing this - a problem which would ALWAYS stop me using an Android device for a business right now.
 
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My new Note would only sync back 30 days with the exception of recently modified events lending support to the theory that sync'ing with google calendar looks at the last modified date and syncs present and future events as well as past events modified within the past 30 days.

<disclaimer> ... while the following works just fine for me it couldn't possibly be considered "best practice" and who knows what can of worms it could open ... follow my solution at your own peril (though I truly doubt there is much peril) </disclaimer>

Go to google calendar and export your calendar(s) to your local drive. If necessary, unzip the download. Edit any appropriate .ics file(s) in a simple text editor with replace capabilities (in windows for example you can use notepad). Do a global replace of "LAST-MODIFIED:20XX" for each year you have events you wish to sync ... i.e. 2006, 2007 ... 2012 with "LAST-MODIFIED:2013". Then save the .ics file(s), import them into google calendar, then sync your android.

There is without doubt a more elegant way to do this with scripting, awk, nawk, sed or some such tools to replace the last modified date with the current date rather than a future date but it's been a while and this seems to work and it's not like I'll need this again. The potential hazard is that your last modified date for these events is in the future and I have no idea how that value is used in google calendar and splanner. Nonetheless this is an easy fix and seems to work fine "so far"!

For anyone wanting to sync past events without major time spent entering them or modifying them manually this might be just the ticket. Feedback, positive or constructively negative, always appreciated!

cheers
 
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travla ...

In importing my calendars I inadvertently imported an ics file into the wrong calendar and then could not get rid of those events even after deleting that calendar and resyncing so to get around that I ended up removing my entire gmail account and readding it. I did not get my old events. I exported my calendars again and then looked at the ics files and all of my modified dates were not 2013, rather they were all the day I was doing my above procedure (in my case june 30). Perhaps the import function changed future (invalid) dates to the current date. Now that I am a few days past that, when I did a sync I did not get the old entries. Once again I exported, edited, and imported the calendar files and once again they showed up.

Did you wait any length of time between editing the ics file, importing it, and syncing (perhaps over midnight). Maybe the sync only syncs old events (> 1 month) if the modified date is the current date??

At any rate I did end up with events modified on June 30th NOT syncing on Jul 3 (system time) but once I jimmied the modifed dates again (using 2013 but which google calendar seems to change to todays date) and then imported and did a sync in rapid sequence I once again was able to restore those old events onto my Note in splanner.

I'd be interested to hear your comments if you try again!
 
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Help please! You good folk seem to have some grasp of this. I am wanting to back up splanner on my pc and dont know how to do it as Kies does not work - dont mind what I sync it with except I am going to need to be able to access it when away from base and without note.
Please can someone do the idiots guide? I would be very grateful
best wishes to all!
 
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A partial solution for me came from the link above so thanks, whalemonster. I use Pimlical as my calendar and that doesn't sync back very far. Usually that's not a problem as, if I need to check back on a certain day I look on my PC. But I downloaded Google Calendar and found that it syncs my entire calendar. I couldn't use it as my usual calendar as I find the interface horrible but at least I have my entire calendar on my phone.
 
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My new Note would only sync back 30 days with the exception of recently modified events lending support to the theory that sync'ing with google calendar looks at the last modified date and syncs present and future events as well as past events modified within the past 30 days.

<disclaimer> ... while the following works just fine for me it couldn't possibly be considered "best practice" and who knows what can of worms it could open ... follow my solution at your own peril (though I truly doubt there is much peril) </disclaimer>

Go to google calendar and export your calendar(s) to your local drive. If necessary, unzip the download. Edit any appropriate .ics file(s) in a simple text editor with replace capabilities (in windows for example you can use notepad). Do a global replace of "LAST-MODIFIED:20XX" for each year you have events you wish to sync ... i.e. 2006, 2007 ... 2012 with "LAST-MODIFIED:2013". Then save the .ics file(s), import them into google calendar, then sync your android.

I looked at my Google Calendar on my desktop for the oldest event and noted the date and description. I went to settings and exported the Calender to my pc. Using notepad, I used edit to find the event "summary" with that title in the .ics file. I changed the event title in the summary by adding a word (any word or character will do.) I saved the modified .ics file and imported the modified .ics back into Google Calender on the desktop. When I resynced the phone, the event dates went all the way back to 2009.
 
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