Embed Calendar Subscribe Button

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Embed Calendar Subscribe Button

Google has a place to generate a button to subscribe to a calendar any user has created in Google Calendar. It's an easy way to publicly share/subscribe to a calendar and it works on an Android phone or on the computer with your Google account. You can easily generate the button here:

http://support.google.com/calendar/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1186917#public

Why in the world doesn't iCal do this? Instead, I have to work around the fact that clicking on .ics link on my iphone (or on my computer) does not generate a prompt asking me if I'd like to subscribe. Here are the instructions I've given people on the website I manage:

Google or Android Users: Just click on the Google button of the calendar you'd like to subscribe to.

iPhone users:

Copy the link below the Google button of the calendar you'd like to subscribe to.
Email it to yourself.
Open the email on your phone and click the link to subscribe.

iCal Users:

Copy the link below the Google button of the calendar you'd like to subscribe to.
In iCal, click on the "Calendar" menu then click "Subscribe...".
Paste the link in the field and click "Subscribe".

See how much more difficult it is for the Apple products in this scenario? Can you please do something like Google has done at the link I provided above? It seems like it would be an easy fix and would only promote the use of iCal. If I'm missing something, please let me know. I'd fix the problem myself but I'm not a programmer.

Thanks,

Botonium

P.S. I'd like to add I'm a big advocate of Mac products and their ease of use so it surprised me when I couldn't do this.

iCal-OTHER

Posted on May 18, 2012 10:45 AM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Austin Kinsella1

Level 6

11,535 points

May 18, 2012 4:02 PM in response to botonium

Umm, botonium, however good your suggestion might be, you're just wasting your sweetness on the desert air here, as we denizens of the communities have no more power to change things than you have. If you want to talk to Apple, try their iCal feedback page.

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Answer 2

botonium Author

Level 1

0 points

May 21, 2012 7:52 AM in response to Austin Kinsella1

Ahh gotcha. Sorry about that. I thought Apple's Support team answered questions in the community too. I'll go to the feedback page. Thanks for the heads up.

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Answer 3

gidpor

Level 1

20 points

May 24, 2012 8:18 AM in response to botonium

Hi

I am having trouble subscribing calendars to my ical ( in icloud) have heard many others have the same issue,so I thought botonium's solution - using google calendars - sounds brilliant. Still ical not happy though and I keep getting a box saying the server will not allow / or invalid url, etc.

Could you kindly give the uneducated ( me) an example of how you were able to trick ical, or the Mac system to make this work for you.

thanks

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Answer 4

botonium Author

Level 1

0 points

May 24, 2012 9:24 AM in response to gidpor

I'm not sure what all you're dealing with but basically, if you have a calendar that is in Google Calendar, you can click the drop down arrow beside the name of the calendar to reveal the menu.

Then, go to Calendar Settings.

Once there, Scroll down and under the "Calendar Address" section, click the "iCal" button and copy that link.

Then, in iCal, go to the menu at the top entitled "Calendar" and click the "Subscribe..." option.

Paste the link you copied into the "Calendar URL:" field and click Subscribe.

You should should then be subscribed to that Google Calendar and will see updates in your iCal.

If you're looking to actually edit the Google Calendar from your iCal, you need to use CalDAV instead. There are instructions here: http://support.google.com/calendar/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=99358#ical

I hope that helps.

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Answer 5

gidpor

Level 1

20 points

May 24, 2012 10:09 AM in response to botonium

Frankly, I'm not sure either what I am dealing with - I've followed your lead, gone and copy/pasted into ical from Google - can see the "new " subscribed calendar in the ical (icloud) dropdown menu , but none of the events (from the subscribed calendar) are showing in ical. Neither on my Mac or on the iphone.

I had thought that perhaps I was doing something wrong along the way, which is why I asked for specific details.

So perhaps there is a bug in my system or something. Thanks again

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Answer 6

botonium Author

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May 24, 2012 10:30 AM in response to gidpor

if you want it on your iphone, you need to email yourself that ical link and then open it on your phone and click on the link... it'll ask you if you want to subscribe to the calendar.

it may take a minute for the events to load but i'm assuming you have the calendar selected/checked in order to view it on your ical?

if you see the calendar on the left side of your menu, you're close. just make sure you copied the iCal link for the Google Calendar that actually has the events on it.

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Answer 7

gidpor

Level 1

20 points

May 27, 2012 6:38 AM in response to botonium

This is so frustrating.

My original intention was to subscribe various calendars to my ical. I do not need to edit them , Just want them to load and show on ical, as simple as they do on my Google Calendar.

I went to Google to try my luck - when subscribing to Calendars from Apple’s own site did not work.

When in Google I chose random calendars from their offerings just to see if subscribing would work ( I.E sunrise & sunset, soccer games, Irish Holidays ).

After following botonium’s import route for the Google calendars, I do see these new calendars on the drop down menu on the left side of the iCal window ,

Yet Events from these subscribed calendars do not load, or show on my Mac (or iPhone’s ical). They are there, but effectively not there.

Another thing I tried was exporting a google calendar - and then importing to iCal. Again it seems to be there and and even tells me it is importing the data - but it goes nowhere and spins forever.

Any thoughts ?

Again, my iCal is on iCloud.

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Answer 8

Feb 11, 2017 7:40 PM in response to botonium

When you make the .ics link, preface the URL with webcal:// instead of http://

This will open up the "subscribe" dialog box in your Calendar program.

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