iCal invites are not received by some people (I know why, but Apple won't fix it)

This worked for me!! I am so glad had enough determination to stick with it and find this post. It is horrible that Apple has not fixed this. I mainly only need to send invitations to my husband, who is not on icloud, so we can coordinate the family schedule. I went in and changed his apple ID (after trying about a dozen other "fixes" suggested elsewhere) and the email majically appeared in his inbox. This is so terrible for people who need to use calendar invites for business. I guess the only solution for them is to get off icloud.

I have exactely the same problem, and just tried it out with a friend who wanted to send me an invite from his iphone, it actually arrived as an email but not as a calendar entry at one person's iphone, but not on mine, whithout any error message, so you basically do not know if your invitee actually ever got the invitation. This is just incredible, how can Apple not fix that issue??

I just got off the phone with a senior support specialist from Apple who gave me a decent workaround. Create an event in the Calendar app BUT DO NOT ADD INVITEES. Instead, after creating the event, right click on it and select 'Mail Event'. The only downside to this workaround is that you will not be able to see the status of invitees (e.g. accepted, declined, ...).

This is a very poor design issue on Apple's part and they need to fix it.

Thanks for post pufflequeen. Can I ask a couple quick questions? My husband and I have found a way around our issue. He just created an iCloud calendar (which must be the manipulative plan the Apple creators conceived when they put this stupid rule in place). But it's not his main calendar and none of his employees can then see these events which are personal and conflict with work so they need to see them. We are willing to change the appleID but our whole family is connected to that ID and sadly to say, many AppleTVs, iPads, etc. Was it a nightmare to change? Did you run into any big problems? I am dreading doing that and having to spend hours changing our ID and losing all our purchased music/movies, etc. Thanks.

Thanks for the reply. I just tested that with my husband and it worked. But as you highlight, not a great fix. More than not seeing the status, if you change the invite they don't get those updates immediately. Not such a big deal for my husband but for any big invites I send I would have to it this way if I am worried 1% of the people might have their AppleID the same as their email and not have iCloud calendars. My understanding is that Apple doesn't actually read these posts. Anyone know how to get this issue to their attention and get a reply?

so i recently set up the icloud for my calendar only. when my wife would send me calendar invites to my main gmail address which is not my apple id, the events would not operate/function properly - i had to download the event to get it on my calendar and if my wife had to update the event, it wouldn't update but duplicate, etc.. the notifications tab also would not show up in the calander bar. after many hours on the phone with apple, i was told that the cause of the problem was that she was not sending the invites to my apple id email - account not being used in icloud either - only my calanders are. when she started sending invites to my apple id email, all worked fine. no where have i seen that this has to be the case for all this to work properly. i do not get invites from outside people, but if i do, i expected them to be able to use my main email address - not my apple id.

Not sure if this is related.....

I create a calendar event, invite my wife by entering her mail address xxxx@hotmail.co.uk which is also her Apple ID. She gets a notification with option to accept or decline and it goes straight into her calendar. All good so far.

However, not so when the other way round. Wife creates an event, invites me at xxxx@hotmail.com which is also my Apple ID. I receive the invitation in my hotmail inbox and have to open the mail, open the iCal attachment first and then accept. Not a big headache but the inconsistency is driving me mad.

Any thoughts?

Thanks.

I think this has to do with the way you have your icloud setup. Sign into your account at www.icloud.com and go to your Calendar. At the bottom left, click on gear icon and select Preferences. Go to the Advanced tab and check to see how you have your invitations set up. Obviously if it's set to In-app notifications, which I'm assuming is how your wife is getting her invites sent straight to her calendar. I'm guessing you have yours set to Email which is why you're only getting the email invite. It's too bad Apple can't have a radio button to activate both.

I think this also solves the original poster's issue as to why some people with a gmail account aren't getting the meeting invites if they're using their gmail address as their Apple ID but don't actively use icloud. I bet if they logged into their icloud account they would see all the meeting invites but never would have known about it because they have their preferences set to only show an in-app notification.

tictac1976 I think you have almost the solution for what's happening with my daughter's iPod.

tictac1976 wrote:

I think this has to do with the way you have your icloud setup. Sign into your account at www.icloud.com and go to your Calendar. At the bottom left, click ongear icon and select Preferences. Go to the Advanced tab and check to see how you have your invitations set up. Obviously if it's set to In-app notifications, which I'm assuming is how your wife is getting her invites sent straight to her calendar. I'm guessing you have yours set to Email which is why you're only getting the email invite. It's too bad Apple can't have a radio button to activate both.

I think this also solves the original poster's issue as to why some people with a gmail account aren't getting the meeting invites if they're using their gmail address as their Apple ID but don't actively use icloud. I bet if they logged into their icloud account they would see all the meeting invites but never would have known about it because they have their preferences set to only show an in-app notification.

Our problem is my husband's apple id is the apple id used on my daughter's iPod. Looks like the icloud calendar preferences allows you to enter one email address, not two. How is this done when an apple id is shared so that my daughter gets invites to her ipod calender, not in her gmail? She misses so many items. Sharing an apple id is what a parent of a tween should be doing to ensure that all is safe in this horrible society we have (preditors and the like).

Apple, I am sadly disappointed in you. Gmail's calender is superior. Get over it and just allow us people who have invested in your product to use it.

🙂

rach_s_mom wrote:

tictac1976 I think you have almost the solution for what's happening with my daughter's iPod.

tictac1976 wrote:

I think this has to do with the way you have your icloud setup. Sign into your account at www.icloud.com and go to your Calendar. At the bottom left, click ongear icon and select Preferences. Go to the Advanced tab and check to see how you have your invitations set up. Obviously if it's set to In-app notifications, which I'm assuming is how your wife is getting her invites sent straight to her calendar. I'm guessing you have yours set to Email which is why you're only getting the email invite. It's too bad Apple can't have a radio button to activate both.

I think this also solves the original poster's issue as to why some people with a gmail account aren't getting the meeting invites if they're using their gmail address as their Apple ID but don't actively use icloud. I bet if they logged into their icloud account they would see all the meeting invites but never would have known about it because they have their preferences set to only show an in-app notification.

Our problem is my husband's apple id is the apple id used on my daughter's iPod. Looks like the icloud calendar preferences allows you to enter one email address, not two. How is this done when an apple id is shared so that my daughter gets invites to her ipod calender, not in her gmail? She misses so many items. Sharing an apple id is what a parent of a tween should be doing to ensure that all is safe in this horrible society we have (preditors and the like).

Apple, I am sadly disappointed in you. Gmail's calender is superior. Get over it and just allow us people who have invested in your product to use it.

🙂

Your husband and your daughter are sharing an account? (How old is your daughter)

iCloud ID's are for single use, not shared use.

Use Google instead (Google is also a single user system unless you pay for multiple access accounts)

OK. My brother has been trying to send me iCal invites to my GMAIL address. My GMAIL address is different from my iCloud email address. It is still a problem. Any ideas?? Thank you.

Suggest:

1. Edit recipient's contact and add their iCloud email (xxxx@iclound.com) address as an alternate email (if they don't have one you can get one, but nearly everyone has one)
2. When creating iCal appointment, add invitees as normal, but both emails will come up for your recipient. Choose the iCloud email.

Should work then ...

Thank you Tictac1976! This fixed it for us. My husband went into his iCloud account and changed the setting in calendars so that notifications go to his gmail account. They now work as they did before. It appears that the issue exists for gmail users who also have an iCloud account on any other devices associated with that gmail address. But your fix resolved it.

I'm having a similar problem. My work email on an Outlook Exchange server. When I make personal appointments on my iPhone I invite my work email as an invitee so it's added to my work calendar. If my default email on my phone is Gmail everything works fine; the email is received, event accepted and confirmation email sent. If my default email on my phone is my iCloud my work email never receives the event. It disappears. Or so I thought. After much time spent chasing this down I remembered I used my work email as the Apple ID to set up a work iPad for a project and forgot about it. Those invites from my personal iCloud account were going to the work iCloud calendar which no one looks at. WHY is Apple diverting an email sent to an email address and sending it to iCloud?? This is asinine! I plan to call Apple this weekend and see if I can get an answer. It may be that I need to change the email address on the work iCloud account. However, that doesn't fix the underlying problem...event invites should go to the email address they are sent to NOT diverted and sent to a calendar that may not be used. This can cause all kinds of problems and I'm surprised it hasn't been addressed. At the very least the invite should be sent to both locations so the person it's intended to go to gets it.