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Thursday, July 30, 2009
Birthday Calendar for Google Contacts
Google has recently added a birthday field in Google Contacts and many people asked for an integration with Google Calendar. Creating a birthday calendar shouldn't be very difficult: Google created one for orkut friends, even if the calendar has a lot of limitations.

Until Google adds this feature to Google Calendar, you can try a third-party application that generates a public calendar for the birthdays associated with your contacts. The application uses Google App Engine and Google Contacts API, so your password is safe. Another good thing is that the calendar is updated automatically when you add new birthdays or you edit the existing ones. Add notifications if you want to receive an email or an SMS one day before each birthday.

The major downside is that the calendar generated by the service is public, so anyone who knows its URL can see it. To use the service, you need to grant it access to your address book and Google recommends to do only if you trust the site. It's always a good idea to export your Gmail contacts before using an application that is allowed to has write access to your data.

Update: Google Calendar added the same feature. Go to the Settings page, select the Calendars tab and click on "Browse public calendars", then add the calendar "Contacts' birthdays and events". Unfortunately, Google's built-in calendar doesn't support notifications.



For some of your contacts, you'll see their birthdate even if you didn't add it to Google Contacts. It's likely that the information is obtained from Google Profiles.

{ Thanks, WebSonic.nl. }

Labels: Gmail, Google Calendar
Birthday Calendar for Google Contacts by Alex Chitu
20 comments ( Post a comment )
#
Anonymous Royi Avital said on July 30, 2009 11:22 AM PDT:
Hopefully it's something we'll see in Google Calendar soon.
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Anonymous StareClips.com said on July 30, 2009 12:20 PM PDT:
This has existed for quite a while in Google Calendar... notifications would be nice, though.
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Anonymous Alexa said on July 30, 2009 1:15 PM PDT:
I don't understand : how could I do to NOT show my birthdays. I do not want the birthdays in "public" but in "private" !
I don't want that anyone can see my contacts' name :o.
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Anonymous Alexa said on July 30, 2009 1:29 PM PDT:
I was talking about Google's built-in calendar of course.
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Blogger markild said on July 30, 2009 2:13 PM PDT:
Great post! This is a sweet addition to my Android phone :D
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Anonymous Anonymous said on July 30, 2009 3:28 PM PDT:
anyone know how you can import birthdays into your google contacts from facebook?
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Blogger Timmy said on July 30, 2009 3:28 PM PDT:
Love it. Really need notifications though -- contact specific. I definitely do not want to be notified of all of my contacts' dates.

It says "Birthdays and Events" ... but I'm not seeing Anniversaries and stuff on there...is this coming?
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Anonymous Alexa said on July 30, 2009 3:47 PM PDT:
Aren't you not uppset about the "public" issue ? Why don't they let the choice to choose to make this calendar "public" or "private" ?
I don't whant that my boss could see my wedding date or any of my contacts' name :o :o :o !?
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Blogger Alex Chitu said on July 30, 2009 3:52 PM PDT:
@Alexa:

Maybe you should clarify your issue, because I don't understand it. Your birthday is not public, but you can share it with some of your contacts, as explained here. Your contacts list is also private and so is the birthday calendar.
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Anonymous Alexa said on July 30, 2009 4:49 PM PDT:
Wow okay.
So, no one could see this calendar by any way ?
I tough so because we pick it in "public calendars" ("other calendars") and not in "My Calendars". But now I realize that http://www.google.com/calendar/embed?src=%23contacts%40group.v.calendar.google.com&ctz=Europe/Paris show an empty calendar if you aren't logged in. So the feed links and iframe (for websites) are totaly uselesse ???? (they put me in the wrong).
And there is noway to make the calendar public/shared or private, so I think it was public/shared by default ("browse public calendar")
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Blogger मिलिंद / Milind said on July 30, 2009 6:16 PM PDT:
Does this work in reverse too? I have plenty of birthdays entered in Google Calendar with reminders set up, but haven't got around to entering them in Google Contacts. Is there a way to export them from Calendar to Contacts?
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Blogger Mike said on July 31, 2009 2:04 AM PDT:
I think there is a problem with this birthday field and Google Sync to my iphone. I've just edited the Birthday field on many of my Google Contacts and some minutes later the field is wiped.
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Blogger Alex Chitu said on July 31, 2009 2:06 AM PDT:
@Timmy:

Here's how to add anniversaries: when you edit a contact, click on "Add" and select "Date".
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Anonymous Anonymous said on July 31, 2009 8:47 AM PDT:
@anonymous there doesn't appear to be any easy way to sync facebook and google contacts information unless you use a mobile phone as a go-between. For instance, the latest version of Facebook for blackberry will export certain information (although I don't offhand recall if birthday is included, although pictures are) to your blakberry contacts, which you can sync to google contacts (using google's blackberry sync program). Works pretty much flawlessly even though it's a bit convoluted, and all of the apps involved are official, native, supported and free of obvious bugs. I assume similar solutions exist for all the major smartphone platforms, but I can't speak to any other than blackberry's solution.
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Anonymous Anonymous said on July 31, 2009 11:55 AM PDT:
@Alex Chitu

That will add the anniversary to the contact but it will not export it to the calendar as of yet.
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Anonymous Lance McCord said on August 3, 2009 1:03 PM PDT:
I was starting to worry nothing surreal would happen today.
#
Blogger morais said on August 4, 2009 3:26 AM PDT:
About http://contact-birthdays.appspot.com:
"The major downside is that the calendar generated by the service is public, so anyone who knows its URL can see it."

Yes, but each user gets a crypto-safe random token assigned - so you can't access a user's calendar without finding out the secret token. So, your birthdays should be safe.
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Anonymous Anonymous said on August 4, 2009 11:11 AM PDT:
Awesome idea not to include the birthays as reoccuring events. Hated this in Outlook....
Would be perfect if you could add the actual age to the event: e.g
"John Doe's 66th birthday" or better just "John Doe (66)"
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Blogger DC Steve said on August 4, 2009 1:04 PM PDT:
This is wonderful! Just a few more things to make it better. Display the person's birthday (e.g. John Doe's 20th Birthday). Also add a link to your contact in the contact editor. How about notifications configurable on a per person basis? Also, showing anniversaries / other person specific dates?
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Anonymous Anonymous said on August 6, 2009 5:54 PM PDT:
Agree with DC Steve. This feature is incredibly lame until then.
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