How do I import my iCal calendar to Google Calendar?

I've been using iCal for quite a while, but finally need to share my calendar with some others on my team but I don't have a ".mac" account, so... so I think I'm going to switch to Google Calendar and live in the Web 2.0 world. My question: how do I export my iCal calendar events and import them all into Google Calendar?

Dave's Answer:

This process is pretty darn easy, actually, as Google has paid a lot of attention to letting people transfer their existing calendars into the Google Calendar system. Similarly, Apple has made it pretty easy to convert iCal calendars into a different system too, perhaps unusually so for a company that likes to import your data into proprietary data formats.

Let's get started!

Go to iCal and choose File --> Export and without much explanation you'll be asked for an output file:

Choose one, press "Export" and you're done with iCal and can quit the program.

Now you'll want to log in to Google Calendar and find the tiny little "manage calendars" at the bottom of the left Calendars box (you might need to click on the little triangle to the left of the word "Calendar" to display this entire area):

You can see the link you need, even though it's fairly well hidden on the Calendar...

Click on it and you'll get the Calendar Settings view:

Note along the top one of the tab options is "Import Calendar". Click on that and you'll see the import window:

Google Calendar: Import Calendar from Apple iCal

It's pretty easy to figure out what to do at this point: choose the file you just exported from iCal, pick a calendar to use (I'll use my own) and click "Import". It'll take a few seconds up to a minute or longer, depending on how many events you have, then you'll finally get a status update:

I had a few errors, but note that even though it says "Failed to import events" right above it is confirmation that "Successfully imported 3648 events". Good! Now when I view my calendar main window, I can see all my events properly imported from iCal:

That's all there is. Enjoy Google Calendar!

Categorized: Mac OS X Help (Article 6791, Written by Dave Taylor)
Tagged: google calendar, ical, online calendar, web 2.0
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Comments

Hi, this is good information, but this is not the same as linking the calendars together....that is updates/adds/changes do not flow back and forth....do they? Is there a way to setup this sort of thing? Thanks, Jim

Posted by: Jim Scolman at September 1, 2006 10:23 AM

the frustrating thing is that if your ical file is more than 1MB gcal can't handle it. gcal's help suggests telling ical to save it in smaller chunks, but I can't figure out how to get it to do this. any idea?

Posted by: Sara Koopman at March 18, 2008 1:55 PM

Hi - the "Import calendar" link has dissapeared from google calender, and as the man says - that's a one off import. Can't google hook into Apple's publish system?

Posted by: Tom at August 5, 2008 12:30 PM

Thank for this! It really did help me out. Kind of you to take the time to post it.

Posted by: Andra at September 2, 2008 7:46 PM

Hi. Can I import my address book into Google (have an app for that?)?

Also, my Parallells has two arrows (pointers)! Very confusion. Can you advise?
Font size in XP/IE waaay to small--even when adjusted.

Posted by: Eck at March 17, 2009 6:58 PM

I ran into something that these instructions don't cover.

I kept running the import over and over and getting "zero events imported". After bringing the file up in Textedit, I found that it was indeed empty. After scratching my head, I noticed that iCal was defaulting it's calendar selection to one of the color-coded calendars that I had never used. Instead of exporting everything, it was only exporting the entries from that empty calendar. After selecting the proper calendar and trying your directions again, everything worked perfectly. I hope this helps someone else out who might run into this problem.

Posted by: David at May 24, 2009 3:32 PM

@ David - buddy thanx a heap for your comment. I was facing the same problem and your comment helped me zero in on the problem. So your comment actually did help some one :)

Posted by: Vishal Agarwal at June 7, 2009 2:12 PM

Hi David. I was having the same problem and followed your advice. It didn't work the first 12 times because of a specific thing I missed. To select the proper calender I had to do more then uncheck the boxes for the calenders I did not want. I had to have the exact calender highlighted/clicked on, when I pushed "export". That way it did the right calender. A small but important watch out. Thanks for your help and hopefully my tip will help others.

Posted by: Steve at December 7, 2009 9:42 PM

Thank you so much...helped me to upgrade to DROID wo losing any info!!! Even I could follow advice!

Posted by: ollie brody at March 28, 2010 11:03 AM

This worked great - only difference I found is that rather than a line that says 'manage' if found my way there under 'settings' - located in the same area. Maybe this is an update from earlier google calendar versions. Thanks!

Posted by: Kay at April 7, 2010 12:22 PM

Hi There.
When I enter new events into my I cal it is not updating in my google cal. I tried refresh and nothing is happening. Any thoughts?

Posted by: Marissa at January 2, 2011 4:15 AM

Marissa, the problem is that the tutorial shows you how to do a one-time import and it sounds like you want to have an active subscription that constantly sync's between iCal and Google Calendar. That's possible, but quite a bit more tricky to set up. Google "sync ical google calendar mac" and see what you find. Good luck!

Posted by: Dave Taylor at January 2, 2011 8:14 AM

I have something to say, now that you mention it, but ...

I do have a lot to say, and questions of my own for that matter, but first I'd like to say thank you for all your efforts on this Web site by buying you a cup of coffee!

I do have a comment, now that you mention it!