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Q: Calendar not importing .ics

Calendar is not accepting .ics invites. Here's the scenario:

 

I receive an email invite to a meeting (they use outlook exchange). I quicklook the .ics file to check the date/time/etc... It's all correct. I then double-click the .ics file and iCal (now Calendar) opens. Nothing happens: it doesn't add the file, move to the day of the event, etc...

 

This only happens occasionally and it's driving me nuts. Most of the time meeting invites work, but every so often they won't. Or they will but then any updates won't be accepted.

 

Any thoughts?

 

(I'm on a MacBook Pro 15'' that's a few years old, running 10.8)

Posted on Aug 1, 2012 8:51 AM

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Q: Calendar not importing .ics

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  • by BugsNelson,

    BugsNelson BugsNelson Mar 11, 2015 9:18 AM in response to rpmca
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Mar 11, 2015 9:18 AM in response to rpmca

    If you are clicking on the .ics file in an email and the event does not load into Calendar, try dragging the icon onto the Calendar window.

  • by james_frankham,

    james_frankham james_frankham Mar 14, 2015 2:51 PM in response to rpmca
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Mar 14, 2015 2:51 PM in response to rpmca

    Hi All

     

    Nothing in any of the above posts solved my problem. In the end I ran the *.ics through an online validation tool which scored it 99/100. The single non-critical warning was that the version needs to be the first property in the file. I opened it in a text editor, moved the first line to the top, saved it, imported it, and all is perfect.

     

    It's a little alarming that iCal syntax isn't flexible enough to accommodate this minor discrepancy (the ical appointment was originally created in a PC version of Outlook, as I expect most are) by there you go. Now to find a way of importing these without line-editing each!

     

    J

  • by Snowy31,

    Snowy31 Snowy31 Mar 18, 2015 4:10 AM in response to james_frankham
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Mar 18, 2015 4:10 AM in response to james_frankham

    I tried this workaround and it seems to solve it for me.  It may not solve it for anyone else and admittedly it's a bit of a faf!

     

    1. In mail, select the email with the invitation in it

    2. Select View>Message>Raw Source

    3. Press cmd+A (to select all the content from the raw source window)

    4. Select File>Save As (save it somewhere you can find it easily for the next step)

    5. Double click the file you've just saved (it will open as an email with the attachment)

    6. Open the .ics file and it should now appear in calendar as an invite

    7. Accept the invite

  • by fastasleep,

    fastasleep fastasleep Mar 18, 2015 4:07 AM in response to BugsNelson
    Level 1 (47 points)
    Mar 18, 2015 4:07 AM in response to BugsNelson

    Dragging the attached ics to Calendar and dropping it on a calendar in the sidebar works consistently for me as well.

  • by minion003,

    minion003 minion003 Apr 27, 2015 7:20 AM in response to BugsNelson
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Apr 27, 2015 7:20 AM in response to BugsNelson

    Since upgraded to 10.10.3 OSX Yosemite over the weekend, the ics calendar events are not opening in the calendar App any longer.

    Interestingly enough I see the notice added to the Calendar notice bar, and when I press <OK>, it does not add the event to the calendar, it simply disappear.

    We have tested it with different senders, and it behaves the same.

    We have tried drag and drops, saving the message and then importing, nothing has worked so far.

    Yosemite has been very challenging to deal with as we gradually updating our company computers, there have one problem after another.

     

    Advice is greatly appreciated. 

     

    /Oliver

  • by imacination,

    imacination imacination May 28, 2015 2:08 PM in response to minion003
    Level 1 (8 points)
    Desktops
    May 28, 2015 2:08 PM in response to minion003

    Agreed. 10.10.3 killed ics invites for me. None of the above suggestions seem to work. For now it's manual add or-gasp-use Outlook Calendar temporarily until this is fixed.

  • by Don Hutcheson,

    Don Hutcheson Don Hutcheson May 28, 2015 3:34 PM in response to imacination
    Level 1 (4 points)
    May 28, 2015 3:34 PM in response to imacination

    I'm on 10.9.5 and .ics files won't open for me either.

    Snowy31's workaround works.  But not the way Mr. J would have wanted.

    Apple has certainly lost their way when "it just works" applies more to Windows 8 than Mac OS.

    So sad.

  • by ZCoach,

    ZCoach ZCoach Jun 2, 2015 3:17 PM in response to rpmca
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jun 2, 2015 3:17 PM in response to rpmca

    I've been searching for 2 years trying to find the answer to this dilema; how to import an .ics calendar invite into the Apple Calendar. Obviously Apple doesn't respect business customers or this would have been solved long ago. Extremely frustrated...

  • by JohnnyDeLuxe,

    JohnnyDeLuxe JohnnyDeLuxe Jun 2, 2015 10:55 PM in response to ZCoach
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jun 2, 2015 10:55 PM in response to ZCoach

    Hi ZCoach - and others here,

     

    I understand your frustration.

     

    I have a suggestions that have worked for me in the past:

     

    First, the calendar invitation could be clicked on, but I could not se the invitation in my Mac Calendar.

     

    When opening the ics file (cmd + i) I noticed that the "Open with" was set to "CalandarFileHandler" - but that I could also select (use drop down menu window) to set it to "Calendar". So I changed the setting to Open With "Calendar (default)" and selected "Change all".

     

    That did the trick for me. I assume that the ics for some reason was set to import to the Outlook/MS calendar that comes with the Office package I use for Word.

  • by imacination,

    imacination imacination Jun 3, 2015 10:59 AM in response to JohnnyDeLuxe
    Level 1 (8 points)
    Desktops
    Jun 3, 2015 10:59 AM in response to JohnnyDeLuxe

    JohnnyDeluxe,

     

    That was helpful. I am not familiar with the command-i shortcut but was able to achieve the same with ctrl- when clicking on the file. You are right about the CalendarFilerHandler setting. Though I didn't see an option to change for all, I was able to accept the one request I had in front of me. I will poke around with it some more when I have the time.

     

    I still think it is funny how this all worked fine for me until the last update.

     

    Anyway, cheers.

     

    Update: I figured out what you meant. I was originally accessing the file in the email itself. Once I dragged the file to the desktop I could access the 'Get Info' dialogue and do exactly as you suggested.

  • by sswallace,Helpful

    sswallace sswallace Jul 28, 2015 11:42 AM in response to imacination
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Jul 28, 2015 11:42 AM in response to imacination

    I have tried *everything*. Nothing worked, however I have found something that does.

     

    If I change an ics from METHOD:REQUST to METHOD:PUBLISH it works.

  • by sswallace,

    sswallace sswallace Jul 28, 2015 12:19 PM in response to sswallace
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Jul 28, 2015 12:19 PM in response to sswallace

    BTW, I've decided to use Outlook. I just works.

  • by LaROSEngineer,

    LaROSEngineer LaROSEngineer Aug 5, 2015 1:05 AM in response to rpmca
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Aug 5, 2015 1:05 AM in response to rpmca

    I got the same Problem OSX 10.9.5 Calendar 7.0.  Solved the Problem through opening the .ics in TextEdit and changed "Method = Request" to "Method = PUBLISH".

  • by joshfromkarabar,

    joshfromkarabar joshfromkarabar Aug 25, 2015 4:39 AM in response to LaROSEngineer
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Aug 25, 2015 4:39 AM in response to LaROSEngineer

    +1 changing the METHOD:REQUEST line to METHOD:PUBLISH

     

    Is this something someone can engineer a simple script for to re-tag files accordingly? Maybe as a Mail plugin or something? I'm no software engineer so this is a bit beyond me...

  • by Jo Darwin,

    Jo Darwin Jo Darwin Aug 26, 2015 2:29 AM in response to rpmca
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Aug 26, 2015 2:29 AM in response to rpmca

    iCal seems to have problems to update when .ics are changed - for example time of the meeting.

     

    Sometimes it worked for me to delete the invitation and import it again - but sometimes it did not work.

    Now I found a ugly hack: Open the ics in an editor and modify the UID:xxx. Save, delete old entry of invitation and import hacked invitation.

     

    This is not the way thing should work. Otherwise it is not an option to miss important meetings ...

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