Manage Google Calendar Sync Frequency?

[jsushi]

Hi all, I have 2 questions in this post (sorry for being greedy )

1) Can you manage the frequency Google calendar syncs? I ask because I'm travelling in China and I notice that the sync is keeping my phone awake until I open a VPN connection to cross the Great Wall here

2) In settings --> account --> Google app data sync, what does that actually sync? What is App data...?

 

[PaulQ]

I was in China in May and behind the "great wall" - I can address #1 - I turned off all syncing when I was off WIFi and not running the VPN (actually, I think I killed my data connection altogether). It was wasting my data and, like you said, keeping all sorts of things running. As you know, China blocks all things Google and a host of other sites - pointless to leave data or syncing on for me.

 

[jsushi]

Thanks for the input PualQ! So did you just manually sync once in a while or something? I'm actually thinking about:

- installing iCal Import/Export CalDAV, and creating an "in-phone calendar" since Google Calendar is obviously the stock calendar for Nexus 6P.
- I'm using Today Calendar Pro so whenever I create an event it will go into the newly created "in-phone calendar"
- If I'm able to export .ics files from the "in-phone calendar" i think im just going to stick with it.

I'm in China for half a year so.......yea i guess that's a solution. Thoughts?

 

[PaulQ]

It might be helpful to let you know that I was using Gmail but not Google Calendar so I'm not sure how far my help is going to go. My work email, calendar, contacts was all running through an Exchange server and using the app Nine. That Exchange server was (luckily) not on China's block list so it worked even before I ran my VPN. As soon as I activated sync and data, I would just go into Nine and force a sync. From that point forward, it would restart its regular push email/calendar functions.

I would think that you could run Today Calendar Pro, enter your appointments etc. while offline, then sync it all up when you are back online with the VPN. This is essentially your idea of creating an in-phone calendar. Most calendar apps have a force sync option, doesn't Today calendar?

Or - maybe I'm missing what you are trying to do? The big picture.

 

[jsushi]

No you're right on point apart from the fact that when I create an event with Today calendar pro, it HAS to create the event in the stock calendar (it doesn't run on its own you see). Therefore the force sync still comes from Google calendar. Basically Today Calendar NEEDS a stock calendar to properly function.

What the CalDAV will provide me is with a dummy/basic android calendar that wlil activate Today calendar. This way I can just disable Google calendar completely! And when I need to switch phones or get back to states, I can enable google calendar, export all my .ics files from calDAV dummy calendar ,and import them into google calendar! hahaha did I confuse you xD

 

[PaulQ]

Ah! So you are saying you are going to "save up" all your calendar activity in an "in phone" calendar and then dump it back into the Google calendar when you get back to the states. Right?

I'm not sure. Sounds like something you are going to have to experiment with by creating some dummy events and see if you can execute your plan successfully. My biggest question is can you export a whole lot of .ics files in bulk and import them in bulk. It would suck to do them all individually.

China is so frustrating. You must be there now given the current time - it's about 1am where I am - must be afternoon in China.

 

[jsushi]

Yes I'm here now and IT IS FRUSTRATING. Especially when I have an AMAZING phone with me

Yes I have tried and I can export and import in bulk! Apps such as Jorte Calendar does all that automatically actually but the layout for that calendar is not pleasing to the eye (no offence if you use it) so now I'm stuck with this course of action.

 

[PaulQ]

Sounds like you've come up with a good workaround and that's great you can do the transfers in bulk! That was my main concern but that's gone!

I don't know if you've been before or how long... you probably need to have a few VPN apps. When I was there - only 12 days - they seemed to catch on to the VPN I was using and ti would just stop working for a while. I don't know if that was because of my data connection or China catching on.

Good luck! I'm off to bed... enjoy your dinner!

 

[jsushi]

Night man, thanks for the inputs!