How to Sync Multiple Shared Google Calendars On Windows 8

By Brian Voo. in Desktop. Updated on March 5, 2020.

Windows 8 now syncs with a Microsoft account (Outlook, Hotmail, MSN) and retrieves all your contacts, email and also your calendar information from it. If, however, you have most of your schedules and calendar information on a Google account, you can opt to add that account to the Calendar app instead.

If you have more than one Google account, particularly those that are shared, after adding your Google calendar to Windows 8, you might notice that only the main account calendar is synced, while the shared ones are not.

If the nature of your work depends on all your calendars being updated, you need to get that fixed. In this quicktip, we’ll run you through the basics, how to add your Google account to the Calendar app on the Modern UI, set your calendars to sync automatically and how to enable shared Calendars.

1. Add Google Account To Calendar App

Launch the Calendar app and open the ‘Charms’ menu ( Windows Key + C ). Then, click on Settings > Accounts > Add an account > Google then login with your Google account email and password.

Once the account is added, open the ‘Charms’ menu again and click on Settings > Options. You’ll notice only one option present for your Google account, while you’re not able to find any sort of shared or synced calendars you have on Google Calendar on a web browser.

2. Download User Agent Switcher

‘User Agent Switcher’ is an extension for both Chrome and Firefox web browsers. It makes the browser trick a website to make it think it’s being viewed through a different device. In this case, we will use this to trick your Google Calendar into thinking it’s being viewed from an iPhone, not a Windows 8 laptop.

Download and install either web extension. Then, click the User Agent Switcher icon on your browser, and select iPhone.

3. Temporarily Disable JavaScript

Next you’ll have to disable JavaScript on your browser.

For Google Chrome, go to Settings and click on Show advance settings. Under the header ‘Privacy’, click on the Content settings button. Under the header ‘JavaScript’, select ‘Do not allow any site to run JavaScript’ and click on OK.

For Firefox, go to Options and under the Content tab, uncheck ‘Enable JavaScript ‘and click OK.

4. Change Google Calendar Sync Settings

With ‘iPhone’ selected for User Agent Switcher and JavaScript turned off on your web browser, go to m.google.com/sync/settings/.

You’ll be able to see ‘WindowsMail’, click on it.

On your address bar, at the end of the URL, you’ll see "...MultiCalendars=false". Replace the word ‘false’ with ‘true’ to turn it into "...MultiCalendars=true".

Then press Enter on your keyboard.

Once the page refreshes, you’ll be able to see the Calendars that you’ve created, as well as shared Calendars. Check the ones you want synced with the Windows 8 Calendar app and click on Save.

5. Enable Shared Calendars

If the Calendar app was running in the background while you were going through the steps above, close ( Alt + F4 ) and reopen it to ensure the changes you’ve made are available.

In the Calendar app, open the Charms menu and click on Settings then Options. You should now be able to show shared or your own calendars from Google Calendar. You can also change the highlight color for each calendar here.

6. Revert Default Browser Settings

Finally, revert the settings on your browser. Disable or uninstall User Agent Switcher if you’re not going to use it again and re-enable JavaScript to ensure your browser is working correctly.

That’s all, we hope this is helpful for you!