20

It seems that the various methods of calendar integration have not been working well. The tutorial on worg is outdated and the function is now called org-icalender-export-to-ics. However running this function on an .org file gives me an .ics file which does not have any entry:

BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
X-WR-CALNAME:Personal
PRODID:-//Xiang Ji//Emacs with Org mode//EN
X-WR-TIMEZONE:HKT
X-WR-CALDESC:
CALSCALE:GREGORIAN
END:VCALENDAR

I used to use mobileorg to directly sync with Google Calendar on Android. However the project has long been out of maintenance and recently I haven't been able to sync any of my org files with mobileorg at all, with various undecipherable errors occuring.

All I need is to sync those entries with SCHEDULED and DEADLINE to my calendar so that I can also check on them when I'm on my cellphone.

There has been a similar question on Reddit but none of the solutions mentioned there have been able to achieve this end.

Improve this question

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
9

Turns out the reason why the exported ics files was empty was because I didn't customize the variables related to ical export. I had to run customize-group on org-export-icalender and change quite a few parameters. I changed org-icalendar-use-scheduled, org-icalendar-use-deadline, org-icalendar-include-body org-icalendar-timezone, org-icalendar-store-UID. It seems that Google Calendar would only recognize type VEVENT in ics files. VTODO will not get recognized, so I had to make sure that the export generates VEVENT from SCHEDULED and DEADLINE entries. I'd say the default options were a bit not user-friendly though. And those customizations seem to not be mentioned in the worg guide.

Improve this answer
4
  • 1
    If you 1) export the ICS, 2) import into GCal, 3) reschedule an event, 4) reexport the ICS, 5) import into GCal, will that result in duplicating the rescheduled event?
    – user3871
    Commented Aug 23, 2015 at 19:40
  • 1
    @blujay No. org-icalendar-store-UID is there to ensure the same events get the same UID. Also there's no need to re-import. I think Google Calendar automatically checks once in a while to see whether the file is updated and thus new events are added. I store the ics file in Dropbox's Public folder.
    – xji
    Commented Aug 24, 2015 at 3:58
  • 1
    Thank you. I will have to give this a try. If only it were bi-directional! :D
    – user3871
    Commented Aug 24, 2015 at 22:09
  • What values do you use to setq org-icalendar-use-scheduled, org-icalendar-use-deadline, org-icalendar-include-body org-icalendar-timezone, and org-icalendar-store-UID? Thanks.
    – Adelita
    Commented Sep 9 at 14:52
3

If you want a two-way sync with google calender, perhaps you should try org-caldav (https://github.com/dengste/org-caldav)? I have been using it for some time with mixed, mostly positive, results.

Improve this answer

Your Answer

By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service and acknowledge you have read our privacy policy.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.