HowTo: Merge Google Calendars Together
Colin M | March 4, 2008 | 2:11 amHere’s a quick How-To on merging two Google Calendars together, since Googling with the obvious phrases did not get me very useful results.
The Problem: Merge Two (or more) Google Calendars Into One
Let’s suppose that you, like me, have more than one calendar in your Google Calendar, and decide at some point that you want to condense those into one. I was struggling to find a single click solution for this, and then just to find any solution, for quite a while. Then I stumbled on the “Import” feature, and realized that it actually solves all my problems. Here’s how it works.
The Solution: Import one Calendar into the other
Once you see how to do it, it’s a quick task to merge two calendars together. In fact, you can even use this to merge a Google calendar from one account into another.
- Log in to your Google Calendar account, and click on the drop-down menu next to your Source calendar. Pick “Calendar Settings” from the list:
- Now, scroll down to the bottom and find the Private ICAL address link. Right click on this link and save the file to your Desktop (or other handy temporary location):
- Next, return to your calendar and click on the “Add” dropdown menu at the top of your calendar list, then click Import Calendar:
- Select the file you just saved from your Source calendar, and choose the Destination calendar you want to import into:
Then click Import, and you will soon be greeted with the cheery success message:
- And that’s it! Here’s a before-and-after of me combining two calendars to show that it works. (Take a look at Tues, February 12, for example.):
Sorry, but didn’t get the happy message, instead ZERO ITEMS IMPORTED. Tried several times as per instructions.
YOU ROCK!!!!!!!!
I have tried to post this question on the Help Forum in Google Calendar but have no replies. Just wonder if the experts here know how to have the words of the events of the calendar appear as “wrapped text” when printed in 2-weeks view or monthly view. I only have the two first words of each item and sometimes I cannot guess what’s afterwards. I’m sure other people must have raised this question before, as it is such an important feature in printing google calendar.
Thanks for your help,
Syb.
Error says “unable to process file” Ideas?
Thank you if have any more tips like this please continue the good wk. I’m having trouble understanding google voice once again Thanks Lp3
Thank you so much for taking the time to share this information in such an understandable way. You answered my questions before I had the chance to ask them!
Ok, I have a second google calendar for mutual events for a friend and myself, and I want that second calendar to appear in my iphone. My first calendar events save in my iphone calendar, but the events in the second calendar don’t sync with my phone. They do sync with my personal calendar in google. I want this to by a live sync between the two calendar so when she updates events in the mutual calendar, they sync with iphone calendar. I have my main google calendar synched via exchange.
Thank you!
I’m having lots of trouble doing this…I’m getting the following error:
Processed 540 events.
Successfully imported 16 events.
Failed to import events: Could not upload your events because you do not have sufficient access on the target calendar..
I have one calendar under one gmail address & one calendar under another gmail address & I am the originator of them both but it’s not working. :( Please help ~ any suggestions would be appreciated! TIA
THANK YOU VERY MUCH!!! These clear instructions were exactly what I needed.
How do I maintain the integrated calendar in sync with the separate ones that comprise it? I.e., one Master calendar, then various sub-calendars that serve as components of the master calendar.
@Kalvin: You can sync multiple calendars to your iPod Touch or iPhone using the Google Sync application. Find more details (including setup directions and how to choose which calendars to sync) at Google’s site on syncing your iPhone with Google Sync
@James: This method is unfortunately a one-time only process. It is the equivalent of copying & pasting all of your calendar items from the source calendar to the destination calendar, rather than setting up a master calendar / sub-calendar type of relationship. You may be able to get the effect you want with some 3rd party tools (e.g., you could add all of your private ICAL feeds to some 3rd party calendar app, and then publish the combined calendar from that app back to the web, and then add it as a shared calendar in Google Calendar.) However, I am not familiar with which applications may actually have this support. Good luck, and please let us know if you find a solution that works!
I too only get a ” 0 items imported ” .
Any ideas ?
Thanks
Can you now if exist an automatic setting to merge more calendar into my calendar?
The procedure import describe don’t import the change after the importing.
My regards
Pietro.
AWESOME!!! THANK YOUUU!!
Worked like a charm. Thanks
you rule, seriously. smart guy great tip
I also get
Failed to import events: Could not upload your events because you do not have sufficient access on the target calendar.
I find myself wanting to shout at google “it’s my ***ing calendar, of course I have access”. Yet another example of how appauling google calendar is – meaningless unhelpful error messages. Getting data into google calendar feels like some kind of “dark art”. Shame it is nowhere near as reliable or easy to use as google mail.
@James, I’ve got the same problem.
Great Tip !!
I’ve been trying to figure out this for months!.
Thanks
same problem as Jackie…
Good Job! Works fine!
Very useful – thanks!
Is there a way to sync the different google calendars, but keep them in their separate colors? I followed your instructions (thanks!) and synced my three calendars, but now they’re all in the same color and it’s hard to tell apart my work calendar vs., for example, my appointments calendar.
Any advice? Thanks!
Thank you so much. Had trouble the first time since it saved it as a document scrap, just pasted in the url and it worked. It all comes in on my droid now with out a problem.
It will work with “statics” calendar, but if I make changes several times, every day, every time….???
For all those who are getting the response of…
- “Failed to import events: Could not upload your events because you do not have sufficient access on the target calendar.”
I figured out that this only seems to happen to me when I’m trying to import a calendar that has it’s timezone and location set to something different than My Main/Target Calendar.
ie My main Calendar is set to Eastern Time – Toronto while the default setting on many of my calendars is in the USA…
Try changing your time zone to match your original calendar, or your local destination otherwise, eliminate the timezone and location for the calendar.
This worked for one or two of my calendars. It didn’t work for every one but if you’re lucky it might help you on the bigger calendars that you don’t want to copy every event indivually from…
Good Luck!!
This is exactly what I was looking for. Thank you for putting this on your blog.
Make sure you use the private calender address below the public calender:http://www.screencast.com/users/mazdamx/folders/Jing/media/ef3ff1a1-a912-4314-9045-1974742d7cbe
Here is some information on the feed processing error:
If you receive a ‘Feed Processing Error’ message when exporting events, please make sure you’re using your calendar’s private iCalendar address (‘Private Address’). You can only use your calendar’s public iCalendar address (‘Calendar Address’) to export events when your calendar is publicly shared. Learn how to share your calendar with others.
This worked for me. Thank you!
I found a fix for “Failed to import events: ……” on google groups that works perfectly:
it seems you cannot merge a calendar into a non-empty main calendar (your 1st one, the one you cannot delete) but you can merge any calendar into a secondary calendar AND/OR merge a calendar into your EMPTY main calendar.
What you have to do is:
1/ export calendars
2/ delete all events in main calendar
3/ create a new “test” calendar
4/ import calendar 1 into “test”
5/ import calendar 2 (3, 4, 5, …) into “test” (merging)
6/ export calendars
7/ import “test” into main calendar
8/ delete “test”
hey it worked for me……………………..
thanks a lot
I also got an unhappy response. Any ideas?
Failed to import events: Could not upload your events because you do not have sufficient access on the target calendar..
great, simple, fast. the pictures helped a lot. thanks.
thanks! worked perfectly for me :)
Works well for a 1 time import. Does anyone know of a way to have events updated after the initial import?
worked great. Thanks!
I have a solution! So first you go to your “google calendar’s main homepage” and it should show your list of calendars. Next click “export calendars” and you should download a .zip file with all of your calendars. Extract it out. And go back and “Import Calendars” the one you want to merge and TA-DA!
GREAT!!
Thanks for the tip. Easy to understand, concise, accurate. I loved it!
Just stumbled on this top tip. Was worried it was going to get messy but this worked perfectly. Thanks!
Betty’s solution worked beautifully. Thank you!
Nice post, but it is of very limited use since it does not update automatically.