HTC Incredible :: Sync Contact's Birthday's To Calendar

I've seen quite a few people wondering how to get the birthday's from their contacts (either google, facebook or both) into their calendars. Here is how to do it.

First, Facebook limits the way you can view their data (phone numbers, birthday's, etc.). They will allow you to view it, but not to scrape the data to transfer to another app (which is why there is no way to sync your google and facebook addressbooks). I remember a while back somebody wrote a facebook app that would sync with Plaxo and facebook shut down the users account within a day of him starting to use the program. Because of this limitation, you will need to add 2 calendars to get all your birthdays and if you have a birthday in both facebook and google, that birthday will appear twice. That being said, here is what you can do.

To add Birthdays from Google contacts to your Google Calendar.
1. Using a computer go to calendar.google.com
2. Top Right corner, click on settings/calendar settings.
3. Under Calendar settings click Calendars
4. By Other Calendars, click Browse Interesting Calendars
5. Under Interesting Calendars, select More
6. Subscribe to the Contacts' Birthdays and Events calendar.
7. Return to Calendar, your Contacts' Birthdays should now be appearing.
8. On your phone open the calendar app and go to menu/more/refresh
9. Go to menu/more/calendars and make sure the new CBE calendar is checked.
10. Back to Calendar. The birthdays should now be showing.
11. If they do not appear, try menu/refresh.
12. If they still do not appear go to menu/more/calendars/remove and remove the CBE calendar then menu/more/calendars/add and readd the CBE calendar (this is what I had to do).

*Google does not currently have a way to add reminders to this calendar. You can add a reminder to any individual birthday, one at a time, from your phone, but the reminders will not sync back to the web version of Gcal and will only work on the phone.

To add Birthdays from Facebook to your Google Calendar
1. Go to fbCal.com - Facebook Calendar Generator, and click Get your calendars now
2. In facebook click Allow/Allow/Allow
3. Under "Subscribe to Friends Birthdays" click the Google Calendar icon
4. In Google Calendar, Select Yes add this Calendar
5. In Google Calendar go to Settings/Calendars, double click the calendar with the really long complicated name, and rename to fbCal or something else you will remember, Save. Facebook birthdays should now be showing in Gcal.
6. In your phone calendar, menu/more/refresh
7. Menu/more/calendars/ and put a checkmark next to the fbCal calendar.
8. Menu/more/refresh
9. Everything should be working now.

*If you go back to the fbCal page in facebook, you can follow the same process to create a calendar for Facebook events. You CAN create regular Google notifications for both facebook calendars.