How to Sync Google Calendar With iPhone Calendar

Screenshot of Google Calendar in Google Chrome
Month View in Google Calendar. © Google
by
Heinz Tschabitscher
Updated September 16, 2018

Early in the history of the iPhone, adding a Google Account calendar into the stock iOS Calendar app required jumping through a few extra hoops and manual account setup. Now, however, modern iPhones running currently supported versions of iOS support Google Accounts without any extra fiddling. Adding your Google Account calendar into your iOS Calendar app and enjoying two-way syncing requires just a handful of taps.

Ready, Set, Sync

Apple's iOS operating system supports connections to Google Accounts.

  1. Open Settings.

  2. Select Accounts & Passwords.

  3. Select Add Account from the bottom of the list.

  4. In the list of officially supported options, select Google.

  5. Enter your Google Account email address and password. If you've set up two-factor authentication, you'll need to log into your account to set up an app password and use that as your password when you set up the account in iOS.

  6. Tap Next. You'll see sliders for Mail, Calendar, Contacts, and Notes. If you only want to sync the calendar, de-select everything except Calendar.

  7. Wait for your calendars to sync with your iPhone – depending on the size of your calendars and the speed of your connection, this process can take several minutes.

  8. Open the Calendar app.

  9. At the bottom of the screen, tap the Calendars icon to display a list of all calendars to which your iPhone has access. It'll include all of your private, shared, and public calendars linked to your Google Account.

  10. Select or deselect the individual calendars you want to appear when you're accessing the iOS calendar app. You can adjust the list and change the default color associated with each calendar within the app by clicking the circled red i on the right side of the calendar name; in the new window, select a different color and even rename the calendar, then tap Done at the top of the screen.

Limitations

Google Calendar supports several features that do not work on Apple calendar, including the room scheduling tool, the creation of new Google calendars, and the transmission of email notifications for events.

Several Calendars Okay

Got more than one Google Account? You can add as many Google Accounts as you want to your iPhone. The calendars from each account will be visible in the iOS Calendar app.

Bidirectionality

When you sync your Google Account, any information you add to it using Apple's Calendar app will flow back to the Google Calendar. Even if you disconnect your Google Account from your iPhone, the appointments you created will remain in your Google Calendar. 

Because each calendar is separate on your iPhone, with different security requirements, you cannot see your non-Google calendars loaded on your iPhone in Gmail on your desktop anywhere else in your Google Account. 

Neither Apple nor Google support the merging of calendars, although merging calendars is possible using some workarounds.

Alternatives

Google does not offer a calendar-only app for iOS. Several other developers do offer apps, however. For example, the Microsoft Outlook app for iOS integrates with Gmail and Google Calendar and may be a good choice for people who want to access their Google Calendar but prefer to avoid the stock iOS Calendar app.

Tips

Only sync the calendars you know you'll need on your phone. Although calendar items generally don't hog space (unless you've got a ton of attachments in your appointments), the more devices that sync to a calendar, the more likely it is that you'll run across some sort of syncing collision. Limiting your iPhone to just the necessities reduces the risk that other calendars will incur a sync error because of the phone's setting.