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
    2013-11-21T00:33:49+00:00

    Hi Carl and cmala,

    Welcome to Microsoft Community. We understand that you want to have a two way sync between Mozilla Thunderbird and the Outlook.com.

    Outlook.com is using the correct and standard .ics format. However there are some features that Outlook.com is not supported just like the two way sync between Mozilla Thunderbird. You can send us your feedback thru this link for suggestions of features that you would like us to add to our Microsoft services.

    You can also read the articles below for more information regarding Outlook.com Calendar:

    Import or subscribe to a calendar in Outlook.com

    Some of the Hotmail Calendar features are not available on Outlook.com.

    Feel free to post back if you have further questions.

    Thank you.

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  2. Anonymous
    2013-11-21T12:33:36+00:00

    Thank you for the clarification regarding the .ics file format Judith_C! Then it's clearly something on my client side that not work as it should if the objective is to have a one-way sync.

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  3. Anonymous
    2013-11-22T22:36:27+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.

    Unfortunately, as everyone here has discovered, Microsoft, true to their 'closed' view of the world, does not support a bi-directional sync between the Outlook.com (formerly Hotmail) Calendar with any other software other than their own (such as Outlook desktop or the Windows 8 Calendar.)

    One option would be to migrate everyone to Google Calendar, as most of us know, DOES support bi-directional sync with Lightning and other clients.

    But, I am like you.  I put all my family on Outlook.com for e-mail and calendar.  It's just an easier interface for them and they all use MS Office (like 90% of everyone else in the world - this and Xbox are all that are keeping Microsoft's profits from plummeting IMHO) combined with SkyDrive, so for the novice user it's best to keep them in one ecosystem.  I personally use both Google and MS WebApps and Cloud Storage.

    So here's the best solution I've found.  Download and install the WebApp Tabs add-on for Thunderbird available here: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/thunderbird/addon/webapp-tabs/?src=search

    Then go into the options for the add-on and remove/add whatever tabs you want.  Add a tab, call it 'Outlook Calendar' or whatever.  Paste in the URL of your Outlook Calendar.  Now you can easily access your Outlook Calendar from within Thunderbird.  I still do the one-way read only sync from Outlook.com to Thunderbird Lightning just so I have one master calendar where I can see ALL my calendars.

    You can go into Outlook.com and 'subscribe' to your Google calendars and then you can see them (read only) in your Outlook.com calendar so when you are adding things to your Outlook.com calendar you can make sure it doesn't conflict with your other calendars.  Strangely though, although the same ICS URL allows bi-directional sync in Lightning with Google Calendars, the Outlook.com Calendar client is too 'stupid' to take advantage of it.  The main reason is if Microsoft built-in too many features into their free software, there would be less incentive to purchase their for-fee software and also, obviously they don't want to give incentive to use Google software.

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  4. Anonymous
    2013-11-25T19:34:50+00:00

    This comment made my day. Don't be a moderator if you can't wake up. LOL.

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