New updates are being added at the bottom of this story…….
Original story (published on February 25, 2021) follows:
Not every Apple user is completely dependent on Apple services and this is pretty apparent from the number of users that prefer to use their Google account to keep their Apple Calendar in sync.
Unfortunately, Google Calendar isn’t available as a standalone app on both Windows and macOS even after being present on mobile devices for years now.
Therefore, users are forced to use Google Calendar on the built-in macOS Calendar by logging in with their Google account. However, this too has recently stopped working well for several users.
As clear from above, users bump into a range of errors like “Your calendar couldn’t be refreshed”, “The server responded with an error”, or a simple ‘Error 403’, when trying to refresh or sync their macOS Calendar app with a Google account logged in.
Due to this, certain elements added in Google Calendar like events refuse to sync and show up.
Now, the HTTP 403 is a status response code which indicates that the server understood the request but refuses to authorize it. From this, the problem does seem to actually be at Google’s end.
Moreover, the fact that the issue is persistent across almost all macOS versions be it Big Sur, Catalina, or even Mojave only strengthens this conclusion. Oddly though, iOS/iPadOS is unaffected.
Sadly, there is no official acknowledgment from either side. A complainant did state though that Apple claimed the issue being at Google’s end. But one can’t be too sure of anything at this point.
Thus, contacting support is seemingly fruitless. After all, most of them recommend clearing the Calendar app’s cache which doesn’t really help, as per many. And even if it does, the effect is temporary.
Thankfully, we have come across a few workarounds shared by users themselves that can be of help until Apple/Google actually sorts this mess out.
- Adjust Calendar preferences:
Workarounds for Google Calendar sync issues on macOS
Change Gmail to default calendar:
Last resort: If nothing else works, then your best bet would be to simply use the Google Calendar web app for the time being. Or you can also try clearing the Calendar app’s cache and see if it helps.
According to a product expert in the Google Calendar forums, the issue has been escalated to Google developers and it’s already being looked into.
Update (March 01)
Users are reporting that Google may have fixed this annoying Calendar issue with a server-side update since none of them has picked up any OTA update to the app.
Update 2 (March 26)
A product expert in the Google Calendar support forum had the following to say:
Granted, if the fix hasn’t hit your Calendar app just yet, it’s on the way. Hang in there!
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