Synchronization examples

Please note that iCal must be closed on both computers before starting any synchronization task, otherwise the new data can't be saved to the calendar files and data loss may occur. iSynCal will automatically close iCal only on the local computer (the one where iSynCal is running) when a synchronization is started, therefore you must be sure that iCal is not running on the remote computer before any synchronization is started!. If you want iSynCal to automatically quit iCal also on the remote Mac please follow this link.


Example 1: synchronize a new Mac without calendars with other pre-existing calendars.

Let's suppose that you need to synchronize your calendars between a G5 with existing calendars and a new Powerbook. To accomplish this you need to do the steps below.

On the G5:

  1. if necessary, share the disk where your Home folder is located (usually it's in the startup disk) by activating Personal File Sharing in the System Preferences' Sharing panel.
  2. all will work fine and nothing will harm your calendars, but it's always good practice to backup your Calendars folder in a safe place before starting; it is located in your Library folder inside your Home folder.

On the Powerbook:

  1. install iSynCal copying it inside the /Applications folder or wherever you want.
  2. mount the G5's startup disk. Probably you already know how to do this but ... select in the Finder menu "Go > Connect to Server" and type the G5's computer name or IP address, when requested enter the username/password of the G5's user owning the calendars to synchronize and select the startup disk to mount it. If you are running Mac OS X Panther from 10.3.0 to 10.3.3 on the Powerbook you have instead to click the Network icon which appears on any Finder window's sidebar and browse the network until you find the G5 and mount the disk you need, still entering the username/password as specified above.
    Please note that you need to use a G5's administrative account to be allowed to mount its startup disk; such account must also be the owner of the G5's calendar files to synchronize, either the account must have read/write permissions for these files. You can even directly mount the Home folder of any G5's user account, even for the non-administrative accounts, and this will also work with iSynCal.
    Anyway, the final result of this step is to have on the Powerbook's desktop the icon of the network disk containing your calendar files on the G5.
  3. If you already have some calendars to synchronize on the Powerbook go to the next step, otherwise if you either have never run iCal on the Powerbook or the calendars to synchronize are not yet there you have two options (choose only one of them):
    a) run iCal now and create some new calendars with the same names of those already existing on your G5;
    b) run iSynCal and select the Smart Sync (only for registered users) or Calendar Copy synchronization method with Right to Left direction to copy the calendars from the G5 (right side) to the Powerbook (left side). Take care to select one by one the calendars to be copied from the list of your G5's calendars in the Calendars popup button, then click the Start Current button in the iSynCal toolbar for each calendar file to copy.
  4. run iSynCal; on the left side you should see the Powerbook's calendars, on the right side the G5's ones. Create and save a MultiSync document containing either a single Smart Sync item (only for registered users) or a full list of the calendars pairs to be synchronized and their synchronization options, then go to the AutoMount tab to specify the options needed by iSynCal to automatically mount the G5's disk when you start the MultiSync synchronization (in the AutoMount table you should already find a row automatically filled in by iSynCal with the proper setting to mount the network volume).
    If you had chosen the option 3a all items will be copied from the G5's calendars to the Powerbook, otherwise you will only hear the end-of-sync "beep" (either iSynCal will advice you, depending on how you have set the option Show dialog even if no synchronization needed in the iSynCal preferences) because nothing needs to be synchronized: this is correct, because the calendars are actually the same on both Macs if you have performed step 3b.

Now you have your calendars on both Macs synchronized and a MultiSync document to use for further synchronizations when needed. You can also add this MultiSync document to the iSynCal synchronization schedules to make it run automatically in unattended mode.

Example 2: synchronizing between 3 Macs with existing calendars

I use iSynCal to synchronize my iCal calendars between my 3 computers: a PowerMac G4 at work, an iMac G5 at home and a PowerBook anywhere I go.

Unless you have already done this, Personal File Sharing must be started on both the PowerMac and the iMac by opening System Preferences, clicking on the Sharing preference pane and starting Personal File Sharing from there. In addition, the iSynCal application must be copied on the PowerBook while it's not necessary to install it on the G4 nor on the iMac, neither to start the File Sharing service on the PowerBook.

On the PowerBook I mount now the network disk I need (the G4's or iMac's one) and start iSynCal: in its main window I found on the left side the calendars of my Home folder, while on the right side there are all the accessible Home folders found on all network disks actually mounted and the relative calendars, therefore it may be necessary to select here the appropriate path for my remote Home folder.

At this point I select all the calendars pairs I want to synchronize and eventually set as needed their synchronization method and options (see the pages relative to the synchronization's method, direction and behavior), saving all of these selections and settings into a MultiSync document.

It is even useful to set the appropriate AutoMount options to allow iSynCal to automatically mount the G4's hard disk (or the iMac's one, depending on which calendars I have to synchronize) before the synchronization is started and eventually unmount it when finished (see Automounting the remote disks).

Now I can click on the Sync Selected toolbar button if I want to synchronize only the calendars actually selected in the upper part of the iSynCal window, while the MultiSync button will start a synchronization of all the calendars pairs listed in the MultiSync table.

Example 3: synchronize multiple Macs with a master copy of the calendars stored on a network server

This scenario is the one that best suit the needs of any office where multiple employees, each with his/her Mac, need to have their iCal calendars in sync; other typical requirements are that the employees should not know the password of the other user accounts neither that of the administrator and that not all Macs are always on.

The best solution is to store the calendars into a central, network-shared location on an always-on "master" Mac with File Sharing enabled and with a specific user account created for this purpose, so that each employee can have easy access to the central calendars with read/write permissions without knowing the other clients' or master Mac's owner/admin password; moreover, the master calendars will be in a location not accessed by iCal, therefore you will not experience those issues that could occur in case iCal is running on the remote Mac while synchronizing.

From now on we will call the Mac sharing the master copy of the calendars with Apple File Sharing the "Master" Mac and the Macs that need to sync their iCal calendars with the master copy the "Client" Macs. A Mac can even act both as the Master and a Client: for such a Mac follow the instructions for the Master and then those for the Clients replacing step 3 with those in Setting up a Master and Client Mac.

First of all, you need to perform the following initial setup both on the Master and on all the Clients.

On the Master:

  1. collect or create the master calendars: if you are starting from scratch (no pre-existing calendars) just create some calendars with the proper names and export them from iCal, otherwise just export the existing calendars from the iCal's File > Export menu. Both iCal 1.x and iCal 2 save the exported calendar files using the "old" iCal 1.x format, where each calendar is stored into a plaint text file named CalendarName.ics.
    Since you will use another user account later, you should save such exported calendars into the /Users/Shared folder, because it is accessible from all user accounts. In case one or more of the existing calendars is not actually located on the Master Mac, export it from iCal on the Mac where it is located and then copy all the exported files into a common folder on the Master Mac.
    After exporting the calendars you must also remove them from iCal: this seems odd, but this is necessary because the exported calendars and their items will have UIDs different from those of the iCal original calendars, and this would result in all items being duplicated after the first iSynCal sync.
  2. create a new user account named CalSync, without administrative privileges and password isyncal (of course you may use an username/password of your choice).
  3. log in with the CalSync account, create a folder named Calendars (the folder name is mandatory) into its Home folder and place all the previously exported master calendars into the new Calendars folder.
  4. if necessary, start Personal File Sharing in System Preferences > Sharing

On the Clients:

  1. use iCal to create some empty calendars with the same names of the ones you exported from the master Mac and that you wish now to sync on the Clients
  2. install iSynCal
  3. use the Finder's "Connect to server" menu to connect to the Master Mac entering the CalSync's username and password and mount its Home folder
  4. run iSynCal and you will see the local (and actually empty) iCal calendars on the left side and the master calendars on the right side, then add the calendars selection and their sync options to a MultiSync document on each Mac, as explained in MultiSync documents

Setting up a Master and Client Mac

If you wish to have a Client Mac acting contemporary also as the Master (e.g. you have not a dedicated file server) you need to perform the following steps in place of the other client's step 3:

  1. you are not connecting to a network server, you are instead synchronizing the iCal calendars of the user running iSynCal on the Master Mac with the master copy of the calendars (stored into the CalSync user's Calendars folder), therefore you need to set up the permissions for the master Calendars folder as explained in synchronizing between users
  2. once the files and folder's permissions are properly set, you can list the master calendars by selecting This Mac in the List calendars found into iSynCal option: such calendars will be always on the right side of the iSynCal window because the left calendars are always the local iCal calendars. When you see the master calendars listed with the Master Mac's account that needs to sync its calendars with the master copy, you can proceed to set up a MultiSync document that is almost identical to those of the other clients except for the option above.

After the initial setup run iSynCal on all the clients and you will end up having all of the master calendars' items copied into the local copy of each client's iCal calendars.

Example 4: use your iPod or an external drive to synchronize multiple Macs

If you don't want (either don't have) a laptop to carry around to keep your Macs' calendars synchronized you can even use your iPod or an external USB/firewire drive to do it. You can simply use an USB key to keep and carry around your calendars and iSynCal will then sync them with your home/office/wife/etc Mac.

If you have to sync with your iPod, first read this page for some important info before proceeding further.

  1. Connect your iPod or external drive to your Mac. If you are using an iPod, first of all disable the iPod calendars synchronization in the iTunes' iPod preferences; if necessary, delete any calendar file that is still present into the iPod's Calendars folder. You need to do this just once because the iPod preferences are saved on the iPod itself.
    In case you have an external drive/USB key just create a folder named "Calendars" into its root.
  2. Now launch iSynCal, so that you can copy the calendars to sync from the Mac to the iPod (for the purpose of this example, from now on you can replace "iPod" with "external drive" or "USB key"). Open the iSynCal Options drawer and set List calendars found into... to This Mac: the iPod's path should appear in the right Calendars folder path and no calendar should be listed below, while your iCal calendars are listed on the left side as usual.
  3. Set the Synchronization method to Smart Sync if you want to copy all the Mac calendars to the iPod, either set it to Calendar Copy - Left to Right direction - and manually select from the Home calendars each single calendar to copy, then click on the Sync Selected toolbar button; if you have chosen Smart Sync you need to click on Sync Selected just once because a Smart Sync will copy all the Mac's calendars to the iPod, otherwise you have to manually sync each calendar.
  4. Connect the iPod to the other Macs and set the sync settings as in step 2) and 3); anyway, take into account that you have now to copy in the reverse direction - the iPod calendars are copied to the Mac - therefore you have to set the direction to Right to Left if you are using the Calendar Copy method; if you are instead running a Smart Sync it will automatically synchronize the calendars with a matching name and copy between the Mac and the iPod all the calendars not present on both sides. You may also want to enable Check and remove duplicates if you think that you could end up with duplicates because of matching calendar items on both sides.
  5. As usual, it's a good practice to set up and save a MultiSync document on each of your Macs to automate the synchronization process: see the MultiSync Documents section for further info.

One final note: another benefit of such a synchronization setup is that your iPod (if any) always has the latest version of your calendars.