iCal allows you to subscribe to shared calendars, like holidays and sports schedules, but these calendar subscriptions don’t sync to MobileMe and the iPhone. This tutorial explains how you can overcome this limitation with a little help from BusySync.
Subscribing to calendars in iCal
iCal allows you to subscribe to calendars by selecting Find Shared Calendars from the Calendar menu.
This directs you to Apple’s web-site where you can choose from a wide variety of calendars to subscribe to.
When you subscribe to one of these calendars, you’re actually subscribing to a read-only “.ics” file on a WebDAV server.
Once subscribed to a WebDAV calendar, it shows up in iCal under the Subscriptions heading.
Subscriptions don’t sync to MobileMe and the iPhone
Unfortunately, iCal subscriptions do not sync to MobileMe. And, if you’re syncing your iPhone wirelessly through MobileMe, the subscriptions will not sync to your iPhone. iCal will only sync local calendars listed under the Calendars header, and will not sync any of the calendars listed under the Subscriptions header.
You can work around this limitation with BusySync. Following are step-by-step instructions on how to do it.
BusySync Publish and Subscribe
BusySync is a background app that allows you to sync iCal calendars with Google Calendar, and sync calendars with others on your LAN. It uses a publish and subscribe model similar to iCal, with a few key differences:
- Calendar subscriptions can be read-write, as well as read-only.
- BusySync calendar subscriptions appear as local calendars, not subscriptions.
Since BusySync calendar subscriptions are considered local calendars, iCal will sync them to MobileMe and the iPhone. So, the trick is to setup all of your WebDAV calendar subscriptions through BusySync.
Following are instructions on how to use BusySync to sync WebDAV calendars through Google Calendar. Similar instructions for using BusySync to sync WebDAV calendars over your LAN or with another user account on your Mac are at the end.
Subscribing to WebDAV calendars on Google Calendar
First, you need to subscribe to the WebDAV calendar on Google Calendar by entering the calendar URL. If you’re already subscribed to that calendar in iCal, right-click on the calendar name and choose Copy URL to Clipboard. Then delete the calendar from iCal.
Next, on Google Calendar, in the Other calendars section, click the Add link and choose Add by URL.
Then paste the URL in the Public Calendar Address field and click Add.
The calendar subscription will show up in the list of Other calendars in Google Calendar.
Once the calendar is subscribed to on Google Calendar, you can now sync it to iCal with BusySync.
Open the BusySync prefpane, and select the Google tab. A list of calendars that exist in iCal will appear on the left, and a list of calendars that exist on Google Calendar will appear on the right. Check the US Holidays calendar on the right to subscribe to it.
A few moments later, the calendar will appear in iCal under the Calendars header, as if it were a local read-write calendar.
And this calendar will sync to MobileMe and the iPhone.
If you don’t use Google Calendar, you can achieve the same results with BusySync on your LAN, or with another user account on the same Mac, as follows.
Subscribing to WebDAV calendars over the LAN
For this example, we have two users -- Mary and Fred. Mary is syncing with MobileMe, and Fred is not. Therefore, Fred will subscribe to the WebDAV calendars in iCal, and republish them on the LAN with BusySync. Mary will then subscribe to Fred’s calendars with BusySync, where they will show up as local calendars. Note: Fred and Mary can be on separate computers on the LAN, or separate user accounts on the same Mac. The process is the same in both scenarios.
In iCal, Fred subscribes to the US Holidays WebDAV calendar and it shows up under the Subscriptions header.
Next, Fred publishes this calendar over the LAN with BusySync by opening the BusySync prefpane, selecting the Publish tab, and clicking the US Holidays calendar.
Then, Mary subscribes to this calendar by opening the BusySync prefpane, selecting the Subscribe tab and clicking Fred’s US Holidays calendar.
A few moments later, the calendar will appear in Mary’s iCal under the Calendars header, as if it were a local read-write calendar.
And this calendar will sync to MobileMe and the iPhone.
