Google Calendar no longer imports alarms with iCalendar files

Question

I wrote a script that generates several events with alarms in an iCalendar file. I used to be able to import these into Google Calendar and the alarms would work as designed. At some point within the last week, when I import one of the iCalendar files, the event reminders no longer show up in Google Calendar. To diagnose this, I tried creating a test event with an alarm and then taking it out of the Google Calendar iCal link. Here are the results minus some header information between BEGIN:VCALENDAR and the first BEGIN:VEVENT:

BEGIN:VCALENDAR
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART:20130430T210000Z
DTEND:20130430T220000Z
DTSTAMP:20130430T143211Z
UID:cn0rdei9gdpbn0902jdvs0ltdkx1
CREATED:20130430T142949Z
DESCRIPTION:
LAST-MODIFIED:20130430T142949Z
LOCATION:
SEQUENCE:0
STATUS:CONFIRMED
SUMMARY:Test event
TRANSP:OPAQUE
BEGIN:VALARM
ACTION:DISPLAY
DESCRIPTION:This is an event reminder
TRIGGER:-P0DT0H10M0S
END:VALARM
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR

Changing the UID and re-importing it results in the event being imported correctly, except the reminder no longer exists. The same is true if I leave in the time zone information I elided above.

Has Google simply removed the ability to import alarms or is there some way to fix this?

user2931820 user2931820 · Accepted Answer · 2014-02-21T07:49:02

Setting a default reminder is not even a workaround because you still lose ALL your ics alarm entries.

I have tried every approach I can found on Internet and here and found a pretty good solution with iOS device, say iPhone. 1. Save your ics file 2. email this ics file as an attachment to your email which was set up in your iphone. 3. From iPhone, open that email and click on the attached ics file 4. At this point, your iPhone should ask you which calendar you want to import your icc. Select your Gmail calendar 5. The entries in the ics should appear in your Google calendar after sync (may take a few minutes, depending on your environment)

My iPhone is iOS7. I haven't tried on iPad or other iOS version but it should work on other iOS version or iPad, I think.

In case you doubt, you can try editing a single event ics and try it before importing big ics files. I personally tried it and check if the VALARM is set in Google calendar. It did work !!!!

Hope this help you all.

This problem has been there for such a long time ~ Shame on Google, anyway. ----- Some Background Notes ----- The reason why I am looking for such solution is : I import a holiday calendar file which will set alarm for each DAY!! and there's no way to roll back previous calendar (while Google Contacts let you roll back, Google Calendar don't have much capability!).

What I can do is 1. export this messed-up calendar to google.ics 2. write a script to get rid of those messy events (CREATED: Some Specific DATE/TIME) 3. Delete ALL events from your google calendar 4. Use above method to re-import the new ics files which contains your original events with correct alarm/reminders

Google Calendar no longer imports alarms with iCalendar files

2 Answers