Sync a Shared Google Calendar with macOS, OS X, iOS (iPhone, iPad), or CalDav

2018 Update: Sadly, this is still the correct way to get syncing working.
2019 Update: Still true.
2020 Update: Sigh.
2021 Update: Yup, still relevant.
2022 Update: Another year, still relevant.
2023 Update: Still works
2024 Update: How is it possible Google still hasn't fixed this?

Someone shared a Google Calendar with me recently, and it showed up at calendar.google.com just fine. However, I could not see the shared events on my Mac (using Calendar) or on my iPhone or iPad (using the Calendar app).

To fix this, I had to visit https://www.google.com/calendar/syncselect directly, and check the shared calendar, then save the settings.

I'm posting this here because after spending an hour or so digging around all the Google Calendar settings online and settings on my Mac and iPhone, I finally found that link in some random forum post (nowhere to be found in Google's help docs!), and I don't want to forget how to manage shared calendar sync! Even using the iCal feed for the shared calendar didn't work.

Further reading

calendar
google calendar
shared calendars
ical
sync
mac
iphone

Comments

This also greatly helped me after hours of unproductive searching.

Thanks Jeff, I knew this link existed but didn't bookmark it, why its still not on Google's page I'll never know. Cheers

Amazing. Thank you.
I had already tried for an hour and could not find it.

Thanks so much - I have been trying to figure this out for so long. Blessing to you!!!!

Thanks! Saved me after only 20 min of trying to figure out what was going on!

Thanks a lot ... I spent hours doing it myself ... your post helped me in minutes :)

Just found this and was extremely helpful, but it only worked on my iPhone, not my desktop. Any ideas?

Awesome! Much better than using the clunky Delegates in Calendars > Preferences > Accounts

Thank you - I could not get this to work and did hours of searching. This did the trick!

Thanks I've looked longer than hour and finally found this! I don't know why Google doesn't make this more readily visible. (Google and Apple war most likely)

Jeff, Thank You. Your advice was the only action on my Google search that fixed the problem . Thanks again

Thank you! Easy as can be thanks to your help.

It doesn't work for me ! My calendar that I want doesn't appear in: agendas partagés, it appears only in : mes agendas! I don't know what to do, please help me !

You just saved me hours of time and about 10,000 headaches. Thank you!

Huge time saver, and so super easy to make the updates to my shared calendars.

Duuuuuuuuuuude! I was trying to figure this out for so long. Thanks! Stupid Google.

Great stuff. Super helpful.
Have you had the problem of "calendar agent" on your MAC using tons of CPU too? I was trying to solve that problem by integrating a shared calendar into one of my google calendars instead of having it sync directly in Ical as a subscription but calendar agent is still sucking CPU cycles making my fan run continuously, battery drain and charge slowly. I've read a ton of posts but none has worked.

THANK YOU! I was just about to fall into a search hole with different keywords when I found your solution.

Thanks very much. I've been trying for days to add an external calendar and with your help done it in two clicks! Brilliant! Thanks again.

Thanks you so much! Have been trying to figure this out for hours.

Life saver!! Thank you! Was going crazy adding it over and over again..

This is awesome! Why I had to search until I found this post I don't know but I'm glad I did - this info was nowhere else!

Thanks man! I spent way too long trying to find out how to do this myself.

Good god you saved me an hour and a splitting headache. Is there any better example of the lenghts to which boneheads at Apple and Google will go to make it difficult to cross platforms?

Thanks so much. Helped with my problem on OS Sierra (Calendar lost after upgrade from Yosemite).

Jeff! Miss you buddy! Got a new computer and still couldn't figure out how to sync the Flocknote calendar and low and behold who's blog came up in google :) Hope you and the family are doing well.

Kait

BLESS YOU! I was searching for this answer for hours. Thank you so much!

More than three years after the original post, this is still highly relevant. Why this isn't easily accessible is a mystery to me. You've saved me a HUGE headache. Thank you!

you are a life saver!!! when i found this I thought it wouldnt work because it was so old but ti still did!! thank so much

I can see others have said it as well, but I just have to say as well... God bless you. I was getting frustrated until I found this.

THANK YOU! You saved me hours of searching! Quick click and fixed!!

Thank you! So glad I found your post before spending hours searching Google help for something that wasn’t there! Worked perfectly :-)

Thank you! Your comment is still helping people out of a frustrating situation. I'm very grateful!

That's the same link in the blog post above—but which help page did you find this on? I still am not seeing it these many years later :(

The link you shared says “google.com/calendar.” The new link is “calendar.google.com/calendar.” Just a slight difference.

When you’re in Google calendar, go to Settings, then Help. Under Popular Articles there’s one titled “How to see Google events on Apple calendar.”

One thing I’m still trying to figure out is how to see “Other Calendars” from Google on the Apple calendar iPhone app. The sync select thing only works on the desktop app.

Thank you so much!! This helped me out by getting my work calendar synced to my iPhone! I really appreciate this.

Brilliant! You're a genius! Hours/days of searching for solution. I will save that link for the future. Cheers!!

Mahalo plenty Jeff! Quick, to the point & EFFECTIVE! Thank goodness for people like you to show others how technology can benefit us rather than just make life difficult ;)

Aloha,
Laycie

Jeff, you are a lifesaver, we have had our team searching for hours and could not find anywhere online that would show us how to merge 2 google calendars in mac mail, thank you!!!

Thank you so much - you have no idea how much this bugged me!!!!!!!!!!

Thank you thank you thank you I just got a new computer and couldn't work out how to do this

Thank you so much! I recently upgraded MacOS and thought it was the source of the issue. Tanks!!!

Thanks. I'm sure it saved me 30min or more to find it.

Awesome - this was exactly what I needed. Thanks so much.

Thank you so much for sharing. Such an easy fix after hours of trying to figure it out myself.

I NEVER would have figured this out, THANK YOU!

Thank you so much, you saved a soul from frustration.