How to Change Outlook 2016/2019/365 Desktop Calendar Download Interval

The Problem

So long story short, I’m quite frustrated with Mail & Calendar from Windows 10 UWP/WinUI. Why? Well, I’m running it on old 2nd gen Intel CPU, sandy bridge, and it’s just lag when I want to compose a new mail, and it will freeze about 2-3min until it’s ready, and it will happen only if I set my computer power profile to power safe, and if you stay from power plug, you will find that using power safe profile does save battery juice. I also have O365 subscription, which I paid yearly as family pack with several people because I can afford it, probably for 2 years already, but I never touch Outlook 365 that provided with the package. I remember when on power safe, I never encounter any lag/slowness on Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, so I think I give it a try.

The migration of all my e-mail account to Outlook 365 is successful, but I encounter one problem, I use Google Calendar as my daily planner on Phone, and on desktop using Mail & Calendar. As I tried to migrate my calendar to Outlook 365 Calendar I face a wall. There are differences between Mail & Calendar Desktop vs Outlook 365. The differences are you can’t interact with any 3rd party calendar that don’t use MS Exchange without 3rd party tools, and it’s not built in directly into Outlook 365, long story short, you can’t touch Google Calendar. There’re several 3rd party tools such OGCS, CalDavSync, or even paid one GSyncIt. I have used OGCS in the past, but it spike CPU when syncing, so I dismiss the idea. I think other way around. As Outlook 365 support of subscribing iCalendar protocol, I can download my Google Calendar Private ICS regularly, you can read it here, as I won’t discuss the step. But it won’t sync faster than it should, and I hit another wall. I tried to search on the internet, no avail, everything point to old Outlook 2007 and 2010 way of handling calendar sync interval like this, this, this. Until I bump into advance settings also on this thread on SO.

The Solution : How to Change the Outlook Desktop Calendar Sync Interval

The solution is simple! The old option isn’t there but it moved into advance settings, so here is the steps :

Step 1 you can open File > Options, it will show Option Window like on image 1

Step 1 Change Outlook Interval
Image 1

Step 2 go to Advance Option > scroll to Send and receive option > click the option button

Step 2 Change Outlook Interval
Image 2

Step 3 Change the Interval to any minute you desire, for me is 5 minute, so I put 5 minute there

Step 3 Change Outlook Interval
Image 3

Well after that you can try to sync your iCalendar from Google Calendar, your calendar will be automatically updated without waiting sooooo long… I don’t know why Outlook 365 make this kind of option like this, it’s quite dumb tbh, 30 minute sync.. come on.. 10 already slow enough. Well at least lesson learn, you can change it, but it’s on very very hidden place of the configuration.

How to Sync Back with Google Calendar from Outlook Without 3rd Party Tools?

Well the answer is pretty simple, you can use your Outlook 365 account, any Outlook account, and log it in to Outlook Desktop, and add new event there. Second step will be logging outlook account in into you portable device/smartphone, in this case, my Android can done it, so I have both calendar. Well this is the only way. If you want it 2 ways, you can use OGCS, but my Thinkpad X220 is quite struggling, so I left it be with this way. I hope this blog help you with your problem. If you like this article, you can click like button below. Thank you.

By ben

I'm a geeks. Just look at my website :)

Leave a Reply. I will come back and maybe we can have some conversation :)

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.