Sync outlook.com calendar with Lightning in Thunderbird

Anonymous
2013-04-15T10:20:24+00:00

Hi.

I am looking to sync the calendar in Outlook.com with that available in Lightning, a calendar add-on available for Thunderbird.

Can anyone help?

Thanks in advance.

Outlook | Web | Outlook.com | Calendar

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Anonymous
2014-04-11T06:28:55+00:00

Hi JeffRusk,

first of all: I think we all hear you but MS doesn't seem to hear us. In today's TechWorld it just must be clear that the chances of someone having a Windows Phone while having a Mac at home and a Windows PC at work are not that slim. Still no one agrees on any standard and just keeps doing their own stuff.

But the initial question for this thread was how to get the Outlook.com calendar into Thunderbird's Lightning add-on.

I'm not quite sure that's what you're trying to figure out here.

However I hear you: I used Outlook 2010 with shared calendars.

So maybe I can give you some more insight.

First of all: saving an ics-File and importing it is NEVER any solution when you're trying to share calendars that you want to sync.

The ics file is just one file that contains all your calendar entries from the moment you created that file. The file only updates when you manually create a new file and import it again.

So the way to go is definitely the "link" option. This way your program or interface connects automatically to the file on the Outlook servers were the file is kept up to date.

As I've written before: out of 3 attempts, 2 worked when I pasted the link from the "Get a link" page on Outlook.com and substituted the webcals-prefix with https. The second time I faced the same problem as you: for no reason it just wouldn't work until my Thunderbird erased all account information and I tried again.

And still, there's always the issue of not being able to write data to the calendar if it's shared. It's always read-only.

But when you're using Outlook 2010 or 2013 there shouldn't be any problem with viewing and modifying your own Outlook.com calendar. In 2010 you must download the Hotmail Connector from

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook-help/microsoft-office-outlook-hotmail-connector-overview-HA010222518.aspx

From what you're writing I assume you use a not synchronized, offline, profile-based Outlook 2010 calendar. You should then definitely switch to using the Outlook.com one in Outlook 2010 with the above mentioned tool since from what you write MS seems to have canceled the feature that would allow you to share internal calendars (publish option).

The connector tool adds full Hotmail/Outlook.com support to Outlook 2010. I just upgraded my Outlook to 2013 so I'm not sure about specifics but in my opinion full support is included in 2013 without the need for the addon.

As for your colleagues I'm sorry but I have no other idea than trying that ics-LINK thing.

Good luck to you..

Andy

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  1. Anonymous
    2013-11-18T07:14:56+00:00

    Hi RobWu,

    Thank you for posting to Microsoft Community. I apologize that it took us more time than usual to reply to your question. Let me assist you on this matter.

    We would like to thank you that you understand this is not fully a Microsoft problem. As the other moderators said, for issues about synching your Outlook.com calendar to Thunderbird, please contact their support for better assistance.

    We apologize for the inconvenience.

    Thank you.

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  2. Anonymous
    2013-11-19T13:07:49+00:00

    Hi DavidBurdess,

     

    We understand your frustration not being able to import your calendar from Outlook.com to Mozilla Thunderbird. Your query is already beyond our scope of support. We request you to post this in the Mozilla Thunderbird forum for better assistance.

    Thanks!

    Dear Microsoft representative,

    Background: We have a shared family calendar on Outlook.com. I have a MS Surface Pro and use Office 365 (hurray) at work. However, "Outlook 2013" doesn't perform very well and in particular bad on MS Surface Pro where the window management (=bug?) just sucks and make it unusable for me. THEREFORE I had to look for alternatives and I have for a while used Mozilla Thunderbird 24 with Lightning calendar add on (that works very well in every other respect!). On your Outlook.com/Calendar help you actually give TB+Lightning as an example where you can use the calendar (.ics) feed. However, as the thread starter also has noticed, this doesn't work! Of course, the ultimate would be a two way calendar sync but a one way sync is better than none. (If this isn't solved very soon we will have to move our family calendar to another webservice.)

    Now I wonder;

    Can you clarify that Outlook.com actually produces a verified and correct .ics feed according to current standard?

    Best regards/Carl

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  3. Anonymous
    2013-11-19T18:20:34+00:00

    I'm just an end user of outlook/lumia/thunderbird/lightning. The one way syncing of the calendar from outlook to lightning appears to work for me i.e I can read the up to date outlook calendar from Lightning. If I want to modify calendar entries, I can only do that in the phone or outlook, but when I sync in lightning, the entries are updated. I just can't edit or delete entries on the outlook calendar from lightning.

    My method was as follows:

    In outlook (the web version), on the calendar, click the "Share" link. In the pop-up that appears, click "Get a link" and then "Create". You will see three links. The middle one is "Import into other calendar applications (ICS)". Select all of this link and copy it.

    In Lightning, you need to create a new calendar (this is the one that will hold your outlook entries).  Choose the option "on the network", next , choose iCalendar and then in the location box paste the address you copied from Outlook. Select any other options you feel appropriate, but you should now have a new calendar that is the entries from Outlook. Remember this one is read only. Anytime you "sync" the calendar from Lightning, it will get the latest entries from Outlook.

    In my case, any changes I make to the calendar on the Lumia seem to sync almost immediately to the web, and if I click sync in Lightning, those changes appear straight away in Lightning.

    It will be great if we get two way syncronisation, but for the moment, I can live with editing outlook entries from the lumia.

    Hope that helps. I can't guarantee to reply to any questions. Sorry.

    Ray

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  4. Anonymous
    2013-11-19T22:16:57+00:00

    Thank you for your help and instructions Ray! However, your suggested procedure is exactly the procedure I've followed. And have retested a few times... I think I have up to date versions of all components, i.e. TB 24.x + Lightning 2.6.2. (Could it be a collision on my client with my O365 account, or some other account?) I really had to solve this now so we've decided to move our family calendar to Yahoo instead. So far, so good! They seem to follow a much more open sync standard in this respect - easy to sync (2-way) with a number of different clients...

    However, I still want a clarifying answer from MS if they follow current .ics standard. Outlook.com might be handy for other calendar applications of mine.

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