INTEGRATE THUNDERBIRD AND GMAIL CALENDAR EVENTS

One of the features of Apple’s OSX Operating System is its integration of mail and calendar applications. However this feature does not warrant one spending a small fortune on a new machine, so for those that use Gmail and Thunderbird, you are in luck (This may work for other Email Providers but I have only tested it with Gmail).

I personally don’t input my friends and associates birthdays into my calendar, I leave that to Facebook. However I would still like access to this information direct from my Thunderbird client and that’s exactly what I set out to do. Now this will work with other events, not just birthdays, but they too will have to be exported from Facebook.

Facebook:

Firstly go to your Facebook page and click on Events on the left hand side

events

Now in the right side click on the Magnifying glass and select Birthdays, followed by export

Export birthdays

You will now see something like this

Export Link

Right click on the URL and select “Save Link Location”.

Gmail

Now head over to your Gmail account and click the Calendar Option

Cal

On the left hand side, where  it says “Other calendars” click on the drop down arrow and select “Add by URL”

Adding to Gmail

Paste in the URL that we got from Facebook.

This will now transfer your Facebook “friends” birthdays to your Gmail account.

Before closing Gmail under “Other calendars” you should now see “Friend’s Birthdays”. Click on the drop down arrow and select “Calendar Settings”

Calendar Settings

You can change the name of this Calendar from here if you wish, however the part we are interested in is at the bottom called “Calendar Address”. Click on the Orange “XML” button and copy the URL that pops up in the window. (Right Click > Copy Link Address).

XML

Google Calendar URL

Paste this URL into notepad, so we have it for later on.

You can now close your Gmail (if you changed the name of your Calendar, don’t forget to hit Save).

 Thunderbird

In order to integrate our calendar with thunderbird we need two plugins which are called “Lightning”  and“Provider for Google Calendar” (A mouthful, I know).

Download both of these and save them somewhere easy to find

Open up Thunderbird and go to Tools > Add Ons

Click the Cog in the top right corner and Select “Install Add on from File”

Install Add-on

Navigate to the Lightning plugin and install it (after waiting for the prompt)

Waiting to Install

Do not restart Thunderbird yet.

Repeat this process for the “Provider for Google Calendar” plugin.

Now you can restart Thunderbird.

When you do you should be greeted with something similar to this on the right hand side.

Empty Calendar

Now press Ctrl + Shift + C (Or Navigate to Events and Tasks > Calendar)

On the left you will see a heading called “Calendar”.

Right click on the entry below “Home” in my case and select “New Calendar”.

Upon doing so you will be greeted with the following screen. Click “On the Network” followed by next

Network Install

Remember that link from earlier? Click the Google Calendar option and then paste in the URL from earlier. Hit “Next”, give your Calendar a name (“Birthdays” maybe) and a colour. Hit “Next” then “Finished”

Your contacts birthdays should now be shown in the Calendar. You can now close this window and you should still be able to see the next few birthdays on the “Today Pane”

Birthdays in Calendar

Hope you enjoyed this tutorial. Leave any comments or suggestions you have below