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
    2014-04-19T00:01:48+00:00

    This was very helpful.  Thanks!

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  2. Anonymous
    2014-05-29T01:47:31+00:00

    I did get it to work. I wish that I could add items to Thunderbird and have them upload to Outlook.com, but at least this way I can "download" my calendar and actually print the items. I have an aversion to Google, so I'm glad I got this to work, thanks to your very understandable instructions.

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  3. Anonymous
    2014-06-06T22:12:47+00:00

    Will MS ever allow non-MS product writes to a calendar? I would honestly rather use Thunderbird than Outlook if possible especially considering that I can pretty much keep Thunderbird across multiple platforms vs MS and its Windows Only approach (although they do have apps for the mobile platforms).

    If this never happens then hopefully the Ubuntu phone isn't vaporware and I can swap off the MS eco-system to something a bit easier to decentralize from MS. I do like MS products but these sorts of things can drive you up the wall. I went MS in a big way but I also use Linux based workstations a lot and would rather use clients than browsers on non-supported platforms. At home I use nearly all Linux for my laptops and desktops (with a Surface RT around here somewhere).

    I can understand MS' desire to keep everything in-house but this seriously does alienate a huge base who simply want to connect a client and do their own thing instead of being spoon fed.

    Other than little niche issues like this tho MS has done a decent job. I'm just hoping they at the very least allow mozilla to use some sort of outlook.com connector. Right now I'm finding myself preparing my own at home server to get off these larger services just because of these types of issues in hopes that the Ubuntu phone pans out. Even if it doesn't I think i'll just find a way to do it anyways if I can find the right mobile device.

    Guess we all know why MS, Apple, and Google went in so big on that mobile market huh? ;)

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  4. Anonymous
    2014-06-08T05:37:27+00:00

    Hi, 

    We understand your concern and our product group would want to hear your thoughts on how we could have done things better whether it be through communication, delivering of resolution, product feature requests and the like. 

    Our product group appreciates constructive feedback. You may drop them a line or two about what you think can help us improve our products and services. Below is the feedback link: 

    https://feedback.live.com 

    Thank you.

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