If you’re a Google Calendar user like myself you might want to check out this really simple add-on for Thunderbird, which should be available as an official add-on for the coming Thunderbird 3 release.
The Google Calendar Tab
As simple as it sounds, this adds the Google Calendar web interface as a new tab directly into Thunderbird. Creating and viewing events works just as it would in a browser like Firefox. 
If your calendar is setup to show popup alerts you’ll continue to see them from the calendar tab while in other, mail, tabs.
Here’s my family Pinochle game reminder alert showing.
There is no official release of this extension yet, however you could grab the latest XPI, download and install it into the latest (at least rc1) Shredder release.
More Extensions
It’s easy to get started integrating a web application like Twitter, Remember the Milk, and other sites into Thunderbird. Once you get the initial pieces you can start working on better integration into your email conversations.
If you’re interested in creating an extension similar to this one, here are a couple links you probably want to check out:
- Google Calendar Tab source code
- bug 516776 – Make it possible for browser elements to navigate through links/pages
- Thunderbird 3 for Developers – Content Browsing
- Thunderbird Content Tabs
Lightning
This calendar extension only handles a single url for Google Calendar. If you’re looking for actual calendar integration with different calendars, including google calendar, you’ll want to check out the Lightning Calendar extension which also runs inside Thunderbird tabs.
Does anyone know how to get the Google Reader favicon to show up on its tab? Cheers
Hi,
I was very excited to try to have this work with TB 3.0.4 and google calendar in google apps for domains (it works fine with gmail). A hack as suggested by Ryan Paul is just not working for me. As soon as I put in the URI for my hosted app domain “http://www.google.com/calendar/mydomainname.com/” and try to start TB – either it hangs/doesnt show mail or the menu item Tools – Google Calendar disappears. I tried it with a new profile – same thing. I am editing googlecalendartab.jar file in chrome sub folder of extension. Could you please detail what I could be doing wrong or at least whatyou did to make it work…thanks
Wow this is great and it only took me about 5 minutes to make my own. So now I more or less have auto speed dial in Thunderbird with one click. Thank you so much you are credit to team.
I have encountered a problem: when trying to opening the calendar tab, google calendar wants to verify access. After entering email and address, nothing happens and it message does not go away.
Meanwhile on firefox, google accounts are fine and happy with the password.
Any suggestions? I have removed and reinstalled the addon twice already without good results.
I’m having the same issues as Paul just reported yesterday. Has anyone figured out a way around this yet?
I’m also having the same problem as Paul and Kevin. It just cropped up after Thunderbird updated itself a day or two ago.
After posting my last comment, I tried clicking on “Sign in as a different user” on the “verify” screen. Then, I just entered the same account info it had been asking me to verify and I was able to access my Google calendar. I’m not sure if this is a permanent solution or if it’ll work for others, but it’s worth a try.
My guess is that there was some type of cookie issue that was not resolved by uninstalling and reinstalling the add-on; however, clicking the “sign in as a different user” clears out the offending cookie. Clearing the cookies manually through Tools -> Options -> Security -> Web Content might also work. This is just a guess, though. The problem may have nothing to do with cookies.
Thanks Colin! That totally works for me too!
After instaling Calendar the extensions tab in the add-ons
window says that ‘provider for google calendar 0.7 requires
additional items’.
There is a picture of a jigsaw piece with a red exclamation mark.
And the ‘option’ button is disabled.
What additional items do I need?
Simon
Firstly… I absolutely LOVE this add-on. Genius idea. Much easier than working with Lightning and Provider-for-G-C. However, I have come across what appears to be a bug. When adding a new event, if you type in a time in to the quick entry bar, it changes from an “all day” event, to a time specific event. This is normal. BUT… if you then go in to edit the event, and select “All Day Event” check-box, it will change the completion date to the previous day! Everything gets screwy after that. Changing the date back doesn’t work, and Google Calendar refuses to accept the entry. Deselecting and reselecting “all day event” too quickly also messes up the date/time entry boxes. I have checked with the normal web interface, and that is fine. Fingers crossed that you can replicate this, and fix.
Thanks in advance.
This is a great extension, I love it. Previously I used the Google calendar provider for lightning, so many problems, especially with notifications and repeating events. This is so simple but so functional…
One request I have. Is it possible that the extension logs into the calendar if you have selected to remember your password. If not logged in, one might miss alerts. Thank you again
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This add-on is great. How hard would it be to update it so that tasks can be edited as well as calendar from within Thunderbird?
Ryan,
There is no easy way to add a standalone version for tasks. I have been trying to debug why tasks don’t show up in the calendar extension. As a workaround you can use the GMail extension (that basically opens Gmail into a separate tab) and call tasks from there:
http://electronsoftware.altervista.org/extensions/
Love this extension. MUCH better than Lightning so far. How can I get it to remember me so I don’t have to log in every time I restart Thunderbird. Is there anyway you could hook into the password manager?
George,
In the login page for Google Calendar, make sure you select the “remember me” checkbutton… That should do the trick.
NickF …
It doesn’t say “Remember me”. It says “Stay signed in”. That’s a vastly different thing.
Thanks.
Sorry, I was playing by memory. At least I hope it pointed in the right direction. If not, you are on your own.
I installed the Google Calendar extension into TB 3.1.4 and I see the icon on the tab bar.
When I click it I get a tab named Google Calendar but its window is blank.
How do I tell it where my Google Calendar page is? (I do not have any Google Apps.)
Thanks.
I need this extension for “Remember The Milk”, please … (and “Evernote”). The complete desktop-organitation. ¿How i can obtain this?
Google Calender looks pretty interesting. I know it’s been out for a while but and I haven’t had a chance to use it yet but I will soon. Thanks for the interesting info.
We use a .com.au domain name with google apps (no website attached, just google email/calendar).
I’ve installed your google calendar tab and under options, listed the *******.com.au domain, however it just opens up a page saying that domain name is parked. If I just tick the “google calender” box under preferences, the username (me@******.com.au) and password doesn’t match)
Any ideas? This tab was exactly what I’ve been searching for.
@Sinyaev Valera
See here:
http://electronsoftware.altervista.org/extensions/
Hi,
I love the simplicity of this addon design but have an issue when using it with Google Apps. The ‘Hide this calendar from the list’ option doesn’t work. I can add calendars but can’t hide them. I’ve tried uninstalling and reinstalling and I’m on the latest Thunderbird release (3.17) on XP.
Thanks.
Hi,
Thanks for this usefull addon. I tried it to see and manage my Google Tasks in Thunderbird. But it doesn’t show it: the calendar is shown, the tasks list is deployed but remains empty (however I can see and manage it with my Firefox browser at the Google Calendar url and also on my Android phone with Gtasks).
Did I miss something?
Thanks for your help.
Tane
On my desktop PC I can open Google Reader in a Thunderbird tab just by clicking the “Reader” link on the top left of the Google Calendar tab. It doesn’t work on my laptop though. The reader opens in a browser window. Not sure what I did to make it work on the one PC, but it would be nice to it figure out so I can set it up on my laptop that way too. Any ideas?
I have tried to use the google tab for thunderbird. when i click on the icon, it takes me to my google login and when i login it says wrong login or password which i know in fact is correct because i can login. so, how do i fix this. i really like the google calendar view. thanks. cbq.
Hi there and thanks for your Thunderbird extension. However, I cannot get it to work
It says: “Your browser’s cookie functionality is turned off. Please turn it on.” after logging into my Google account in the Thunderbird/Google Calendar tab.
Can you tell me how I can work around this?
Best regards,
-Torstein
Thunderbird (Icedove) version: 3.1.9-2
Hi again, I got it working, turning on cookie support in Edit > Preferences > Security > Web Content did the trick.
-Torstein
I have tried to use the google tab for thunderbird. when i click on the icon, it takes me to my google login and when i login it says wrong login or password which i know in fact is correct because i can login.
Google Calendar has stopped working for me, like some others I just get
“Loading…”. Torstein;s suggestion did not work for me. This is with Windows 7, 64 bit, Thunderbird 3.1.10 and Google Calendar Tab 3.5. I have tried uninstalling and reinstalling, but still no luck.
It does work for me under Linux Mint 10 with the same versions of Thunderbird and the Calendar Tab.
Any suggestions would be welcome, because I really like this when it works.
I’ve had the problem too where I get a blank “Loading…” screen in the Thunderbird Calendar Tab but the calendar never loads. Emptying out the Firefox cache works for me every time. (I use the free CCleaner to do the emptying, since the Clear Recent History dialog box on the FF tools menu doesn’t seem to be thorough enough to clear up the problem.)
A cool \extra\ of Calendar Tab I discovered by accident is if I close TB with the tab loaded (though not necessarily the active tab), next time I open TB the Calendar Tab loads automatically.
Not in itself a big deal, but if I then click the link for Google Reader from the upper left Google menu within the tab, the Reader will open in a TB tab as well. If I close TB with both the Calendar Tab and Reader tab loaded, they will both load into their respective tabs automatically next time I open TB.
I love that! Each morning, then, I just have to open TB and I’ll have my email, calendar, and reader right there in one place.
Many thanks to PJF, clearing the Firefox cache worked for me.
Hello Bryan,
google has just released an api for their tasks. Can you please try to implement something in your extension to solve the problem of “empty” tasks-bubbles?
Any news about the tasks bug?
I know this has been asked before, but haven’t seen any kind of answer.
I frequently get meeting invitations from Outlook users. Is there a way to directly add the meeting to my google calendar? As it currently works, I need to forward the invitation to my google account, open the invitation in gmail, then accept the meeting.
I’d like to be able to accept the meeting directly. Any idea on how to do this?
Thanks!
Hey Bryan,
I’m using your Google Calendar Tab add-on and it’s great. I was wondering if you were going to be adding a very specific piece of functionality.
That functionality would be when someone gets a Google Calendar event invite emailed to them and they click on one of the RSVP links instead of opening it in a browser it will either open it within the Google Calendar Tab or it just adds the event to their calendar without opening it in the browser or within the Google Calendar Tab?
We are getting ready to deploy Google Apps for business within our company and about half of our employees use Thunderbird for their email and want their calendars accessible within their email client.
We are working on choosing the add-on we want to use for Thunderbird and Google Calendar Tab is one of our top contenders because it can use the resources (conference rooms) that Google Apps for business can use if you are in the web interface.
One of the only annoyances is that when you RSVP it opens a new browser or opens a tab in an already open browser.
Thanks for your time and I will look forward to hearing from you!
Cheers,
Hunter
Does this work with Thunderbird 5? I know the version coding says it should, but just wanted to check to see if anyone is actually using it with v5…
thanks!
I have been using the Google Calendar tab for a while no but recently it stopped working except in display only mode. When I click the tab it displays a white screen and this information:
“Loading…
For slow connections, load read-only view”
And it never loads until I click on the slow connection link. I have reloaded the add on and nothing has changed. Did the API change on us?
Richard
As Richard’s mail, I used the Google Calendar Tab add-on and it is an essential tool, but it stopped working last week. The only way to reach the calendar is through the slow connection link,
I use Thunderbird 5
Still working on the tasks bug, I wish I could get this fixed but it’s a problem inside Thunderbird and they are pretty busy with other things right now.
Had the same problem. Just stopped working when I added an meeting this morning.
I’m bummed. But will wait for an update.
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Hooray! I just reloaded a freshly downloaded copy and IT WORKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I had even gone back to using Lightening for a bit but maintaining multiple calendars is a pain. It’s nice to have one of the MOST useful add ons back again.
Richard
Great Add-on! I have one little question – is there a way to hide the small icon? I’m using the big icon in a customized toolbar, so I’d like the little one to go away.
Thanks for addon.
Dosent work on new update 7.0 PLEASE fix
Please help to update this valuable add-on for thunderbird 7.0
Thanks for addon.
But it doesn’t work on TB7.