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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:

Apple iCal Export Window

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):

Google Calendar: Nav View

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:

Google Calendar: Settings

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:

Google Calendar: Import from iCal Done

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:

Google August Calendar

That's all there is. Enjoy Google Calendar!



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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

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

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









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