How to Use Exchange to Sync Calendars Across Your Phone, Computer, and Email

How to Use Exchange to Sync Calendars Across Your Phone, Computer, and Email

At work, electronic calendars are increasingly replacing paper planners. On the one hand, they are more convenient; on the other, once set up, electronic calendars can remind you automatically, keep records for a long time, and make it much easier to look things up later.

Before smartphones became widespread, I also tried using Outlook’s calendar feature. But since a computer is not something you can check anytime, anywhere, it still could not fully replace a paper planner. Smartphones solved that problem, but at the same time introduced a new inconvenience.

The biggest issue I ran into when using calendar features was syncing calendars across my phone, computer, and email account. Of course, if you are an Apple user with an iPhone, a Mac, and an iCloud email account, you probably never run into this awkward situation. But for people who are used to using Windows on their computers (I recently upgraded to Windows 10), an iPhone or Android phone, and Tencent Mail for email, the gap between these three platforms can feel almost impossible to bridge.

When I am on my computer and need to schedule something, I naturally jot it down in the Windows Calendar. Since QQ Mail offers what feels like virtually unlimited storage, I have all my email accounts set to forward automatically to QQ Mail. Whenever I need to mark an event, I also add it to the QQ Mail calendar. And when my phone is nearby, I may casually enter it into the phone calendar instead. This made it very necessary to have one unified way to collect and manage all the calendar entries I was recording in different places. Since native Android and Google Calendar syncing are not an option for everyone, I will not go into that here.

setupemailonaniphone

Windows seems to have supported Microsoft account sign-in since Windows 8. Because I had not used Hotmail in a very long time, I registered a new Outlook email account for signing into Windows. When you log in with that account, calendar data is automatically synced to the Outlook mailbox.

So if you want to sync your Windows calendar to an iPhone, you only need to go to Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars on the iPhone and add an Outlook.com account. Then, in the sync options, enable Calendars. Of course, you can also choose to sync Mail, Contacts, Reminders, and Notes at the same time. If you are not using an Outlook mailbox, then you can try adding an Exchange account instead, enter your Microsoft account information, and configure it that way. I have not personally tested this, but in theory it should work.

QQ Mail Calendar

Syncing the QQ Mail calendar is slightly different. Although iOS already includes a QQ Mail option when adding a mail account, if you choose QQ Mail there, the system uses IMAP by default. That means it can sync email only, but not the calendar.

So you still need to choose Exchange as the account type. In the Email and Username fields, enter your full QQ Mail address and password. On the next step, when asked for the server name, enter http://ex.qq.com. Then, in the sync options, enable Mail, Contacts, and Calendars.

This way, whether the calendar entry was created on your computer or in QQ Mail, it can be synced to your iPhone and viewed or edited together in the built-in Calendar app. In the Calendar interface, tap Calendars to choose which calendars to show or hide.

That completes unified calendar synchronization and management across several different devices. This method also applies to any other account that supports Exchange services.