mikrohelen.com

iCal is a really handy Mac OS application. One of the features I love most, is that it can detect events from your Mail application and automatically import them to a calendar. It saves so much time. Recently I integrated my Google calendar into my iCal application so that it can be automatically updated with new events that pop into my email.

The latest version of iCal in Snow Leopard has the option to add a google calendar account. This is also described here. In brief the steps are:

1. Go to iCal application

2. Select from the iCal menu the Preferences…

3. Select the Accounts

4. on the left panel press the ‘+’ button to add a new account

5. For Account Type select Google from the drop down menu

6. Insert your google mail address and password and press the ‘Create’ button

7. Go to the Delegation tab of the created account and select which calendars you can access (in case you have more than one Google calendars)

iCal is automatically refreshed and now you can see any event from the Google calendar. You can also erase, create and edit an event. However, sometimes there might be some problems when iCal is trying to communicate with the Google server and update the calendars. But most times it works smoothly.

In your Mail application when iCal finds a new event, it surrounds it with a box and a drop down menu giving the option to create an iCal event.

If you select it, a new window pops up with the details of event that were detected in the email. In this window you can edit these event details and you can also select in which of your calendars the new event should be added.

Among the other calendars, the Google calendar also appears. So, the Google calendar was automatically updated through iCal. And that’s awesome .