Walking through Google Sync for BlackBerry

As an avid user of Google products, I’ve covered plenty of matters regarding Google Sync for BlackBerry. I was ecstatic when they released contacts syncing, and even wrote about how to use the new Google Sync with your Thunderbird contacts. Today, though, we’re going back to the calendar. There are a few options you can play with in your settings to get your calendar synced perfectly.

To sync contacts or not?

First, a realization from experimenting with the contacts sync. I’m not a fan. Yeah, it can make things a bit easier. But when you have a Gmail contact list full of people you’ve talked to just once or twice, it creates too much clutter on the BlackBerry. Some people might be fine with that, but for the purposes of this walk-through I’m turning contacts sync off.

Tasks or no tasks?

Many of the items entered into your Google Calendar might amount to tasks. You might not think of them as tasks, but yes, that’s how Google handles them. When I first used calendar sync back when it first came out, I noticed that these Google Calendar items would appear when I opened the calendar on my BB, but not on the main screen of my Today Plus theme. It wasn’t until later that I found out about the task issue.

The fix is simple. Go to your calendar and hit the Menu button. Go to Options, then click General Options. The very last one will says Show Tasks. Click that to Yes. There you have it. Now your tasks will appear on your main calendar view. I know some might not care for this, but the way I have events in my calendar, this works out for the best.

Manual or Automatic sync?

The first option offered in Google Sync is whether to do this automatically or manually. I prefer the manual. Sometimes I make a mistake and don’t catch it until later. I don’t want that mistake creeping on to my Berry, even if temporarily. Automatic sync goes once every two hours or so, as you can see from the dialog boxes below. The choice is yours, of course. Whichever works better for you.

       

Which calendars to sync?

Here’s another issue I had before. I have three calendars, one for each of the projects I work on, and one main one. Previously, I only synced the main one, because it basically encompassed the three projects. Then I noticed, though, that some of the tasks and events were missing from my main (JoeP) calendar, and were only on the individual project calendars. To remedy this, go to your Google Sync Options and scroll down to the bottom where it says Other Calendars. Make sure to check all relevant ones.

Hope this helps for anyone looking for a little guidance through the nuances of Google Sync.

About the Author

Joe Pawlikowski is the Senior Editor at MobileMoo.com and has been covering the mobile industry full time since 2007. When he's not writing about the tech scene, he can be found discussing his personal love - baseball (and more specifically the New York Yankees) as well as writing on his personal blog.