FAQs about address books and calendars
Colored calendars
When working with mailbox Office, you can assign individual colors to calendars to make your view clearer and more organized.
To do this, select the desired color from the calendar’s context menu.
If you then display all appointments (All my appointments), they will appear in the colors you have assigned.
This makes it easy to keep track even when managing multiple calendars.
iCal import: holidays, public holidays, waste collection
A common standard for calendar content in file format is the iCal file. These files allow you to create a local backup of your calendar or import calendar data from other sources into your own calendar.
If you would like to include current school holidays in your calendar without entering them manually, you can use services such as https://www.schulferien.org.
This site provides up-to-date school holiday dates for download. At https://www.schulferien.org/deutschland/ical/, you will always find correct and current school holiday data in iCal format, which can easily be imported into your calendar.
Many public holiday calendars for different federal states, as well as files provided by private organizations, are also freely available. For example, regional waste management companies often provide iCal files containing waste collection schedules.
Simply download the appropriate iCal file – for example from schulferien.org – and open your mailbox account.
In the Calendar tab, select the calendar into which you want to import the iCal file.
In the calendar settings menu (three horizontal lines), select Import.
In the following dialog, choose the downloaded iCal file – your mailbox calendar will then display the new appointments.
Note: Please create a new calendar for the import and do not use the main calendar.
Global address book
The global address book automatically contains all contacts from your context, for example from a family account.
This address book cannot be edited. However, you can copy individual contacts into your personal address books and edit them there.
Loss of phone numbers on smartphones using CardDAV
If contact data is modified in the mailbox Web interface before a change made on your smartphone has been uploaded, phone numbers may be lost.
The cause lies in different implementations of technical standards by various manufacturers – particularly concerning how many phone numbers a CardDAV entry may contain.
We have reported this issue to our software vendor and are working closely with them to find a solution.
Data loss on mobile devices
Under certain circumstances, when using CardDAV (the synchronization protocol for contact data), phone numbers may be synchronized incompletely or incorrectly.
In some cases, this may result in data loss.
When you add phone numbers to your address book on an Android smartphone, you must define one default number per contact before synchronization can occur.
This default number remains associated with the contact.
If you then add additional numbers for the same contact on your smartphone, these will initially be stored locally but may not be synchronized immediately with the server.
If you also add phone numbers for the same contact in the Web interface, the numbers stored on your smartphone may be overwritten during the next synchronization, because the Web interface entry is considered the most recent version.
Why are calendars and address books not encrypted?
Encryption of calendar and address book data is technically limited.
For the Web client to display these data, they must be stored in an unencrypted form.
Therefore, a user cannot rely on the provider being technically excluded from access.
Many mailbox accounts are connected as family accounts or business accounts.
One advantage of this structure is that calendars and address books can be shared between accounts.
These functions would not be possible if the data were only readable by the original owner.
In the long term, we are planning additional features for calendars and contacts – for example, reminder services – which would not function if these areas were fully encrypted.
