Syncing with Google Calendar

You can use the optional add-on "Remind-Me Google Sync" to synchronize your Remind-Me and Google calendars. You can then sync from your Google account to a variety of phones/tablets, including the iPhone, Android, Blackberry, Windows, iPad, etc. (more info). You can then make a change to your calendar on your phone, web, or in Remind-Me, and keep all platforms updated.

To get started syncing, download and install Remind-Me with Google Sync. From within Remind-Me specify your desired syncing options under the File/Options.../Sync dialog. The sync options allow automatic syncing every so many minutes, or you can initiate a sync at any time using the Edit/Sync with Google menu command.

Specific Syncing Details:

The following fields are synchronized between Remind-Me and Google Calendar:

Event Name

Comments: Maps to the "Description" field in Google Calendar

Event time if timed, or "all-day" property if not timed

Recurring frequency settings

Exceptions to recurring events

Alarms: The timed alarm (Notify At) is used to synchronize as a pop-up reminder on the Google Calendar. The "Notify At Startup" alarm in Remind-Me is not an available option on the Google Calendar. Only pop-up alarms are synchronized. E-mail reminders are independent between the two calendars.

Alarms for all-day (non-timed) events on Google Calendar are specified relative to 5pm the day prior to the event, so the latest you can be notified via Google Calendar for an all-day event is 5pm the prior day. Read more information about this 5pm notification time. For example, if you create an all-day event in Remind-Me with a "Notify At" alarm set to 9am, Google Calendar will notify you at 9am the day prior to the event.

Google calendar does not support categories, so category information is not synchronized between Remind-Me and your Google calendar.

Remind-Me syncs only to your primary calendar on Google. Any additional calendars you have on Google are ignored.

Advanced Sync Options:

Press the Advanced... button in the Google Syncing Options dialog to see these options.

Filter by Category Which Events to Sync

By default events in all categories are synced. Press the "Category Filter..." button to optionally control which events are synced based on category. You can pick to sync all events in all categories, or only events in selected categories, or all events except those belonging to selected categories. Events in categories not being synced will remain un-changed on your Remind-Me calendar, but not synced to your Google calendar. This option is also useful to include/exclude subscribed calendars when syncing, as each subscribed calendar get placed in its own category.

Skip syncing events with a repeat frequency that cannot be edited with Google
By default this option is checked. When selected, only events that you could enter into the web interface of Google's calendar will be synced. Google Calendar's web interface does not support entering all the repeat frequency options available in Remind-Me. However, the Google Calendar will display such events properly, when entered through Remind-Me. This advanced option is available because some devices (certain phones/tablets) that you may want to sync with your Google Calendar do not support these repeat frequencies, and can even display them on the wrong dates. If you find your device is doing this, you may want to turn on this option, and re-sync, so that only events with supported repeat frequencies will be synced/displayed. Events with repeat frequencies not supported will still be in Remind-Me, but just will not be synced to Google. The sync log will display warnings for any events that were not synced due to this option being enabled. The following repeat frequency options are not supported through Google, and will be skipped when this option is checked:

- Monthly with a "repeat every X months" where X is greater than 30

- Monthly with a "first/second/third/fourth/last X" where X is "day", "weekday", or "weekend day". (It is not skipped if you use a X value that is a specific day of the week, like "Sunday", "Monday", etc...)

- Yearly with any "first/second/third/fourth/last ..." type of repeat frequency. Only yearly repeat patterns that repeat on the same date each year are supported by Google. If necessary, you can change your event to a Monthly repeat frequency to use one of these repeat patterns, and set it to repeat every 12 months.

All Day Reminder Reference Time

According to Google's documentation, all day event reminders are supposed to be specified relative to 5pm. Many users however are experiencing event reminders going off relative to midnight. This option allows you to control the reference time for your case. The default value for this option is "5 PM", however if your reminders for all day events are going off 7 hours later than expected, you can change this to "Midnight".

See Also