Changelog

Color rules for Google and Outlook calendars

Until now a sync gave every copy the same color. Now you decide the color of each copy with rules. Meetings with a client's name in the title, meetings with guests, events with a video link, or everything from your work calendar can each get their own color on Google Calendar, Outlook and CalDAV. On Outlook, SYNCDATE also keeps your own categories and can use the ones you already have.

What you get

  • Color rules (Plus and above). Choose Custom under color and press + If. A rule can check the title, description, location, meeting link, guests, guest count, privacy, free or busy, and which account or calendar the event comes from. Give each rule a color and use Otherwise for everything else. The first rule that matches wins.
  • One rule, every calendar. The same rule colors the copy wherever it lands. A Google calendar gets the closest of Google's eleven event colors. An Outlook calendar gets a category. A CalDAV calendar gets the color sent to it. On Pro and Team you can choose a different color for each destination calendar.
  • See it before you save. A preview shows which color each destination calendar will get for one of your real upcoming events. Anyone can build and preview a rule. Saving it takes Plus.
  • Hands off when you want it. Tick Do not change colors or categories on copies and SYNCDATE stops touching colors and categories while titles, times and details keep syncing. It works on every plan, and Pro and Team can set it for one destination calendar only. If you recolor a copy yourself, on Google or Outlook, your choice stays.

For Outlook, your categories come first

  • Your categories stay put. SYNCDATE adds one category of its own to a copy and leaves everything else you added. Change the sync's color and only SYNCDATE's category changes. Clear it and only SYNCDATE's category goes. Repeating events get the same care, down to a single meeting in a series.
  • Colors from your own categories. Switch on Read Outlook categories (optional) and SYNCDATE lists your real categories with their real colors. When it colors a copy, it picks the category of yours that is closest to the color you chose. Without that permission it uses Outlook's six built-in categories.
  • Create a category without leaving SYNCDATE (Pro and Team). The + button in the Outlook color picker adds a category with a name and a color. On Pro and Team you can also pick a specific category for each destination calendar. SYNCDATE only adds categories. It never renames, recolors or deletes one of yours.

Teams stay in control

Team admins decide how far members can go. A Team can choose how copies are colored, fix the color so it shows "Set by your Team" and cannot be changed, or switch color rules off. Where rules are off, copies use the sync color.

What it means for you

  • Client work in one color, internal meetings in another, and every copy arrives already sorted, in Google, Outlook and CalDAV.
  • Build a rule like "client meetings in blue" once instead of coloring by hand in each calendar.
  • If your plan drops below Plus, your saved color rules are kept and paused until you upgrade again.

Good to know

  • Outlook shows each category in the color your mailbox gives it.
  • Some CalDAV servers and apps ignore the color SYNCDATE sends. Read-only iCal feeds cannot receive colors.
  • The Outlook category permission does not let SYNCDATE read or send your email, and your calendar access stays the same.

Open a sync, choose Custom under color, press + If and watch the preview.