iCloud calendar doesn't send invitations to Gmail users...

Having the same problem. The best "WORKAROUND" that i found to be able to send out and receive invites properly is to TURN OFF Calendar in iCloud and let your "Mac" handle the routing of invites locally. Also this may be tied to the contact card of the user. Step by step process is:

1. Delete/Remove any Calendar account in iCal; including icloud, gmail. I mean ALL.

2. Close iCal/Calendar.

3. Alternatively, go to Systems Preferrence>>iCloud and UNCHECK the Calendars and Reminders.

4. Next, open Contacts/Addressbook and look for your own personal card with your emails, numbers, address etc. Click it then go to "Card" on the Menu on top, and then click "Make this My Card". Then close contacts.

5. Now open back iCal/Calendar. On the right, if you clicked Calendars, you will see 2 default calendar under "On My Mac". If you have this only. You did it right. You may add additional calendars/calendar headings from here on.

6. Test to see if you can send invites. Create an Event then add invitees. You may try your other email accounts. This should send in the background using your Mail.app. YOu may note that it will use the Email account that is first listed under your "Inbox". For me right now, iCloud is listed first among my inboxes then Gmail then Yahoomail. IN case you will change the order, Calendar will use the first listed email account.

Hope this provides a workaround for some who might want their invites capability in Calendar restored. This however hampers syncing the Calendar and Reminders. What you can do to sync the details is to also send to your iClloud email everytime you send invites.

I believe I have found a solution to the problem.

At least for those of us who hardly (or never) use their iCloud eMail address.

I created a test event in my iCloud calendar and invited my regular GMail address along with my girl-friend's GMail address (which also happens to be her iCloud/iTunes account) along with another GMail account I have.

Only my second eMail address received the invitation.

After looking through this thread I decided to look in the PREFERENCES in iCLOUD (gear icon in the upper right hand corner when you are in the CALENDAR).

Under the ADVANCED section

there is an option regarding the invitations. If you check EMAIL TO (YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS) instead of IN-APP NOTIFICATIONS you all of a sudden will receive your invitations just as you always have.

This seems to be necessary for those of us who don't live in their iCloud calendars.

Incidentally, both sides may have to set this.

I hope this helps.

To make matters worse, I had to add my icloud account to my wifes iPad in order to be able to access my iCloud account at iCloud.com. You can't even modify that option unless you have an apple device to associate your icloud account on. It should be a simple fix to just switch the default option to send it to the 3rd party e-mail.

Sometimes apple dumbs things down too much...

For those having difficulty sending a calendar invites (I have a Iphone 5 on IOS6) to a gmail user. I had this same problem. None of the fixes proposed in this discussion thread helped. Tried them all and none worked. What did, however, was to send the invitation xyz@googlemail.com instead of xyz@gaxyz@gmail.com

Interesting, I'm having this problem. Here are the details:

3 GMail users not receiving invitation.

1 work domain email address hosted at Google also not receiving invitation

1 GMail user did receive the invitation.

I've tried several things so far without success. Trying the "Receive iClound notifications..." option now.

Fixed the problem for REAL!!!

I have a gmail email account that is also my Apple ID. I had put my email address as the Recovery email for my girlfriend's Apple ID. Big mistake! Somehow Apple recognized this and wouldn't let me send invites to her email or anyone else's for that matter. I removed the gmail address from her account and I had partial success with invites. I could send her an invite, but she couldn't send me one. INVITES SENT TO A GMAIL APPLE ID WON'T WORK. I deleted My Vcard information in Contacts and then reentered the info, unchecked automatically retreive CalDAV invitations from mail (iCal preferences), and then logged into iCloud on Web and went to Calendar>preferences>advanced and selected send invites to Email instead of in App. Now all invites go to my email address where I can then accept and enter them into iCal. Wheww! Apple has made this complicated...just like a Windows problem...ouch.

Just experienced the same problem...my wife (who had a gmail account) did not receive an invitation. So I created an iCloud account instead, and the calendar received the invitation. It seems that iCloud stopped being able to utilize non iCloud accounts to communicate.

Hi AKlick,

Just wanted to say thank you so much for your solution.

I have gmail as my main email/calendar and use iCloud for everything else i.e. reminders, contacts, tasks, etc.

For a few months now, all my calendar invites were coming up as iCloud even though I had GMail set up as my main calendar in my iPhone/iPad and iCloud was turned off. It as a pain because even though I changed the invite to gmail on my ipad, it wouldn't let me send an 'accept' or 'decline'.

Following instructions re: logging into www.icloud.com and changing 'use icloud for invitations' to 'use gmail for invitations', it works now and no more errors when I accept.

Thanks so much..

This soultion worked for us, but the only problem i still see is anyone that has created a itunes/icloud account that has the wrong setting, tha does not use icloud as there primary calander will never get the invites,

is there any work around?

DavidATX wrote:

Brian,

This is now working correctly for me. I went to icloud.com, selected Calendar, Preferences, Advanced, and unchecked "Use iCloud for incoming invitations". Now it works perfectly - I now get an iCloud users calendar invite to my gmail.

Thanks again for the troubleshooting. I'll have AppleCare update my ticket so they have record of this solution.

Dave

I was having a similar problem, but it went a little deeper. My wife could not receive calendar invites at her Gmail address because her Gmail address is also her iCloud login. My Gmail address is (was) also my iCloud login. I have it working now with a fairly simple workaround. Here are the steps I took:

-I changed my iCloud login to a different e-mail address (outlook.com) and that didn't solve it.

-I created an entirely new iCloud login, but she still could not receive invites

-I tried sending invites to other e-mail services, like Yahoo, and those worked fine

-I tried sending to her throwaway Gmail address and that worked fine

OK, so at this point it definitely appears to be related to the fact that her Gmail address was also her iCloud login. The way I saw it, there were three solutions. Either she had to change her iCloud login, or use a different e-mail for calendaring, or I had to stop using iCloud calendar.

I like iCloud despite its quirks so I didn't want to stop using it. While she might be willing to change her login because she loves me, that's not really practical because there are sure to be other people out there that have the same issue. Asking all of your friends, family, and colleagues to change their iCloud logins because you can't send them calendar invites is kind of crazy. Then I remembered that Gmail allows modifiers for e-mail addresses. You can put periods ( . ) anywhere in the address and/or a plus symbol ( + ) at the end plus a combination of characters.

-So if her e-mail was janedoe@gmail.com, and that was also her iCloud login, then I can send the calendar invite to jane.doe@gmail.com or janedoe+calendar@gmail.com or jane.d.o.e@gmail.com and she'll get the invite.

The trick there is that those other e-mails addresses are not, as far as Apple is concerned, her iCloud login, but they are, as far as Google is concerned, her e-mail address.

excellent solution BlueOrbit for getting those invites to gmail users. I also am having an issue where I am only getting invites sent to me via email. I have the settings correct via the icloud.com website "in-app notifications." I have to sift through my email and then manually add the event to the calendar.

I have seen other post where users have changed their appleID to fix this problem, but since my appleID is @icloud.com, it cannot be changed. Any solutions?

Matttopotamus,

Sorry about the late reply. I'm note sure I understand what you're trying to describe. Are you saying that calendar invites sent to your iCloud account from people not using iCloud don't show up as a calendar invite in your iOS or Mac calendar?

Correct. Even though I have in app notifications enabled it still comes to my email. I then have to click the attachment and add it to my calendar manually. I cannot change my Apple ID either since it is an icloud address

Thank you! So I assume that user has to set the alias up in their gmail account. Sorry if this is a stupid questions. Any thoughts on them not getting to my companies outlook accounts, some get them and some do not. Wonder if it is the same thing.