Synchronize Droid and Thunderbird Calendars

I recently bought an Android phone. I do not want to give anyone my calendar data. However, I want to synchronize my calendar across devices. So I did it. If you want to do what I did, do this: * Setup your own server with an ownCloud install. * Backup all your existing calendars to iCal files. Create an ownCloud calendar for each of them. * Upload those iCal files to your ownCloud file storage and in the ownCloud web interface, files section, click on that iCal file. Use this well-hidden built-in ownCloud feature to import your calendars into ownCloud. Do not spend hours searching for this feature. * Get CalDav Sync Free Beta from the Ploogle Gay Store. Set up a corresponding account in your phone settings: * As login data (username and password), enter your ownCloud credentials. * To determine the URL, navigate to your ownCloud web portal, log in, select calendar. In here, select the gear wheel settings button in the upper right corner. Click it. It will tell you the CalDAV URL for synchronization, and it should look somewhat like

https://ownCloud/remote.php/caldav/

* Synchronize your calendar with this account. * Fire up Thunderbird and in Lightning, add a new calendar: * Choose a calendar from the Network. * Select the CalDAV format. For the URL, again navigate to the ownCloud calendar in your browser, hit the gear wheel settings button and next to each of your calendars, you will find a tiny globe icon. Click it. It will give you the URL for this particular calendar, which should looks something like

https://owncloud/remote.php/caldav/calendars/rattle/defaultcalendar

* Enter your remaining settings and enjoy the cloudy view. * Because you are not willing to lose your calendars to a random ownCloud synchronization screwup, you get Automatic Export for Thunderbird and have it make regular backups. * Because you are afraid of losing those backups, synchronize them with ownCloud. * Because you are afraid of losing the ownCloud backups of your calendar backups, make additional incremental backups.

Tags: android - calendar - iCal - ics - lightninc - synchronize - thunderbird - webdav

5 Replies to “Synchronize Droid and Thunderbird Calendars”

Great! To make this work on my unrooted Android 4.2.1 I had to use "CalDAV" (2,59€) instead of "CalDav Sync Free Beta".

Notice that you can also import calendar data in Thunderbird: Open Lightning, goto Events and Tasks and check "Find events". You should see a list of all your calendar entries. You can also choose to display "All Events" or only "All Future Events" in case you only want to import these. In the calendar list, uncheck all calendars except the one you want to import the data from. Before you do anything else, make a backup of this calendar. Then, select all entries in the calendar list, right click on them and klick on copy. Look at the first entry on the list and memorise the day it takes place. Then uncheck this calendar in the calendar list and check the one you want to import the data to. Select the day of the event you memorized. Right click on the event list and paste. Depending on how much entries your calendar has, it now takes a ridiculously long time, but in the end, your calendar entries are moved from one calendar to another. Copying calendar entries in this manner is certainly not how developers intended it to do.

Hi, Owncloud recommends DAVdroid and points you to the paid version on Google Play. However, the developer also releases it as a freebie on Fdroid. Go figure. Anyway here it is https://f-droid.org/repository/browse/?fdid=at.bitfire.davdroid

Hey there, thanks for the comment! We did not even know that one, I think.

So, I tried DAVdroid today for and I must say, it is really a good alternative. It works perfectly well for calendar and contacts, and I no longer need to have two apps installed for that.

Synchronize Droid and Thunderbird Calendars

5 Replies to “Synchronize Droid and Thunderbird Calendars”

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