(The short story is: if you want to convert Google Calendar iCal v2 files to vCal v1 files for import into your Palm Desktop, use this web application I made last night. Please leave a comment on this posting if you use it!)
It’s amazing how just when you really do need to put all your time into some deadline, you find the perfect WAB, better known as Work Avoidance Behaviour.
In any case, last night I was planning to work on two proposals with rapidly approaching deadlines, instead I somehow was convinced that it should be easy to import some of those neat iCal v2 files available on the web (for example as exported from Google Calendar) into my trusty Palm Desktop 4.1, which I use on my laptop to manage my life and synchronise with my Palm Tungsten C.
It turns out that this is far more complicated than necessary. Google Calendar only outputs iCal version 2, Palm Desktop, even the latest version, only imports vCalendar version 1. There are a number of websites that state that simply renaming the .ics file to .vcs, and changing the version tag to 1.0 does the trick. WRONG. Google Calendar iCal files actually use iCal version 2.0 features, so this idiot workaround does not, well, work around.
By now it was almost time for bed, and I’d tried Sunbird (exports ical v2), Evolution (the windows version is the worst POS software I’ve ever come across) and bunches of other things. No go. Finally I stumbled on vcal.py by Mark Bucciarelli. This almost worked, except for a few bugs (empty field handling, a.o.) which I fixed, and the fact that it doesn’t handle RRULEs at all. After reading the vcal standard, I implemented a really ugly RRULE transformation that seems to do the trick, mostly.
I’ve packaged all of this ugliness in a simple CGI that you can now use to convert Google Calendar iCal version 2.0 files to vCal version 1.0 files for consumption by your Palm Desktop. Use this entirely at your own risk of course, but let me know in a comment on this post (see below) if it works, or if it doesn’t.
(if you’re interested in the patch source, I’ve made a tarball that you can download by clicking here)
114 Comments to “Google Calendar to Palm Desktop conversion”
April 29, 2007
Yo Charl, neat - but can this approach also work for the nokia E61 ? I’m sure finishing the 2 deadlines is easy now, after having solved this one, right. Ant
April 29, 2007
Haha Anton!
The Nokia sync software probably has better options for importing iCal files (or perhaps even subscribing to an online iCal). If you’re syncing via Outlook, there are even more options.
April 30, 2007
Yo charl, who wants to sync via outlook ….horrible - the thought alone , not even thinking about the possibility that it might work. But the nokia is cool.
May 4, 2007
Cool! Works like a charm. People sent calendar invites to me in .ics format and now I can use your tool to import them into my Palm.
Thx!
May 4, 2007
how about taking info in palm desktop to google calendar? can this program help update both?
-m
ps i don’t know understand most of what you are talking about, but thanks for avoiding work and doing this!
May 12, 2007
i just bought my treo today and needed a google calendar conversion badly - thanks so much! it works perfect!
May 13, 2007
Thank you so much. works great. the most effective method out there
May 15, 2007
Excellent Job. Works Nicelly.
They always want more….
Maybe a direct VCS Generator in the next version???
May 17, 2007
Strange, just tried converting another ical file to goocal to .vcs and it doesn’t seem to work
It says that an error has occurred while importing and that the vcal file may not be a valid one 
May 22, 2007
It looks like under the license terms of the original script, you should publish the source code — you game?
Thanks,
Kevin
May 22, 2007
Of course.
It was merely a question of 1. ugliness of patch and 2. lack of time (remember, this was a WAB to begin with). I’ll put it up somewhere soonest…
May 23, 2007
I’m probably uneducated, but I couldn’t figure out how to save my “resulatant text file” as a .vcs file. Any suggestions?
May 25, 2007
Hi, that worked great! Thanks!
May 28, 2007
@10: Please send me the file so I can have a look at it.
@deares: When you’ve selected a file and clicked on the “Convert to VCAL” button, you’ll see a large amount of text in your browser. Now select “Save Page As” from your browser’s “File” menu and save as a .vcs file. Let me know if you need any more help.
June 1, 2007
Hi!
This again is one of the building blocks for an entirely open source solution for syncing Palm Desktop to Google Calendar. I think it should be possible to achieve fully automated, two-way synchronisation if you combine this script with GCALDaemon (see http://gcaldaemon.sourceforge.net/). Please let me know if I can help with this, I’m a Java programmer…
June 1, 2007
A great little utility.
As you say in your intro, a lot of people don’t seem to realise there are subtle differences between the formats.
Thank you!
June 4, 2007
Worked great the first time. But then when I moved a calendar item and then went through the process again, I ended up with double entries for everything. And if I do it again, I’m sure I’ll end up with triple entries.
It looks like the solution is first to erase the calendar in the Palm? I can delete using Tools > Categories IFF the entries are categorized as Business, Personal, etc. But the conversion seems to bring them in as Unfiled, and that cannot be deleted.
I’m guessing I’m missing something here. But what?
Thanks.
June 4, 2007
After fooling around a bit, I find that the answer is easy in the desktop-based program. Just close the program, delete …\datebook\datebook.dat, and then reopen. A new empty file is created.
But the data in the Palm Pilot itself remains, and that leads to duplicate entries when the desktop program is updated and then synced with PP.
June 15, 2007
You rock! This worked perfectly. (I just bookmarked it). Thanks so much for writing this and sharing your work on the subject.
Best regards,
-Nick
June 23, 2007
Didn’t work for me - here is what I got.
Error parsing your upload: vCal Parse Error: No BEGIN:VCALENDAR–invalid vcal file (at character 0)
June 24, 2007
@Epizoic:
This could mean that you have an invalid ical file… if you mail me the file, I could have a look at it to see what’s going wrong.
June 29, 2007
hi,
your CGI program saved me lots and lots of trouble.
i’m a Outlook Treo user. i loathe Palm Desktop, so i use the PocketMirror Outlook combo, but my university’s timetable system only supports iCalendar, so my upcoming year schedule is only available in the darn *.ics format.
i scoured the ‘net trying to find an iCal to vCalendar converter: nothing. then i came across your converter. it worked extremely well. for some reason, it didn’t recognise any reoccuring events (which there are), but that didn’t really matter too much as long as the first event (to be repeated) is fine.
i give it a good 8.5 out of 10. dock a point for the reoccurance glitch, and half a point for hiding in such a small corner of the internet. great job!
June 29, 2007
when importing to palm desktop for mac i lost all the times of appointments. any suggestions?
June 29, 2007
Wow! This seems to work with Windows Calendar in Vista too! Thanks so much!
June 30, 2007
@george: (and anybody else with problems)
It’s impossible for me to see what went wrong if you don’t send me a sample ical file to test on. If you send an ical file that causes problems on your side, I can try and reproduce the problem and perhaps even fix it.
July 1, 2007
Charl,
I love the app, but can’t seem to get it to work. i’ll send you my files (before and after) if you like. palm gives me the ‘not a valid vCal file” error message when trying to import, although the code coming out of the cgi looks alright. the only thing i can think is that it may be a lot of reoccurring entries that is goofing it up.
need your email address. mine is sfshawATrunbox.com
Cheers,
Stephen
July 18, 2007
I would love to use this tool. I keep getting this error :Error parsing your upload: vCal Parse Error: Missing END:VEVENT–invalid vcal file (at character 719544)
I have used the tool in IE, Firefox and Safari on both my Win PC and on My Mac G4. Any suggestions? I would be happy to mail the file if it helps.
Thanks!
Mark
July 19, 2007
@Mark:
I’m currently debugging Stephen’s example vcal file (when time permits). If you could send me the vcal file that’s causing the error that you report, I can try to reproduce it on my side and hopefully fix it (or tell you where the vcal file is broken :).
You could also check the vcal file at byte position 719544 to see if there’s anything strange at that point.
July 22, 2007
It works but not by selecting “Save Page As”. When I opened the resultant vcs file in notepad, it was filled with HTML garbage. After I copied and pasted the text from the webpage and resaved, it worked fine.
July 22, 2007
@Reuben Cummings:
“Save Page As” does work if you set the type to “Text Files”. Cutting and pasting is of course also an effective method.
July 23, 2007
Yo, dude, it, like, told me that my dates were, like, “out of range” man. Hella peanuts, brah. Way to harsh my palm buzz.
July 31, 2007
This looks fantastic–is there a way to run it backwards?
August 2, 2007
Bingo dude! Works just like you said. I had to copy the resultant text file and paste it into notepad to save as a .vcs file, but once I got through that, imported just fine. Thanks!
August 17, 2007
I use companionlink to sync Act!, Palm, and Google calendar. It’s not free but it’s worth every penny
August 21, 2007
Greetings.
Nice job on the conversion script.
Have you made the source available? If so, where? If not, do you intend to do so? If so, when? If not, why?
August 21, 2007
Real Soon Now. ™ It’s a time problem… however, if you mail me, I can send it to you directly.
August 28, 2007
Hi,
You said you could send a copy of the calendar conversion source directly. Would you pleases
forward me a copy?
Thanks and enjoyed the script.
Jim
August 29, 2007
Hi again,
Turns out I have several ics files with RRULES that when they get translated, and I import them into palm desktop, I get the message “Import can not handle repeat rule”. In one case it just repeats the appointment every day.
One is:
ics file:
PRODID:Microsoft CDO for Microsoft Exchange RRULE:FREQ=WEEKLY;UNTIL=20071231T200000Z;INTERVAL=1;BYDAY=WE;WKST=SU
vcs file:
RRULE:WP1 WE 20071231T200000Z
While it give the error message, it seems to repeat ok.
The other is:
ics:
PRODID:-//Mozilla.org/NONSGML Mozilla Calendar V1.1//EN
RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;INTERVAL=1;BYDAY=2SU;BYMONTH=3
vcs:
RRULE:D1 20311231
and this just repeats daily
September 2, 2007
Hmmmmmmm …
Error parsing your upload: vCal Parse Error: vcal.duration2seconds: invalid duration “3″ (at character 0)
But at all: very useful!
(A “Standalone” would be my favorite!)
Guy B.
September 7, 2007
Hi,
I could convert my ics file into a vcs file. But I couldn’t import the vcs file to my Palm. It says that it’s an invalid file.
I would like to send you a copy of my file. Plz e-mail me with ur add. (I suppose you can see my e-mail add, right?)
September 18, 2007
Hey,
used this and it works well. Thanks!
However when I import it all my repeating appointments are ignored. Saying ‘import can not handle the Repeat Rule.’
Just FYI.
Thanks!
JT
September 29, 2007
Thanks for doing this. Worked for me. Please send the source code.
Tyler, As for converting vcs to ics, it shouldn’t be necessary. Most progs which can import ics will also be able to import vcs.
I would suggest some simple stuff:
Allow pasting the calendar text into a box (instead of having to create a file) as an option. This is simpler for text in messages and might be easy for you.
Indicate when the file is empty or non-existent. This was my first error… You could also show the first dozen characters where the file was the wrong one.
Ideally, it should be a stand alone program which converts a file (or pasted text) and passes it to a program or the default vcs handler.
September 29, 2007
@Tom Trottier:
Whoops, I’d made this available a while back but forgot to post the link. Here it is: http://visualisation.tudelft.nl/~cpbotha/files/ical2vcal-0.1.tar.gz
September 30, 2007
Thank you!! I did get the message about a problem with Repeat rules, but it all imported. I had duplicates, but since I could delete all occurrences of one or the other, it wasn’t a huge job to clean that up. It will be a bit more tedious to remove all the Palm birthdays which are now duplicated as Repeating Events from Google because I have to go into each Palm contact to remove the birthday. Thanks again; this was a great help!
October 1, 2007
Wonderful; worked like a charm!
I’ve spent the last hour trying to convert this file. Four clicks on your app and I’m finally done! WOOHOO!
Thanks a ton!
October 3, 2007
I tried it and got this error.
Error parsing your upload: mktime argument out of range
My calendar is here
http://www.google.com/calendar/ical/neum2p5u5mf1ehgo5r1nssvujk@group.calendar.google.com/private-5d7e9e8030010c2e815848930e5e0110/basic.ics
Thanks for you help
Bob
October 13, 2007
Thanks
This works!
October 14, 2007
I have error message come up after saving file to vcs could I send you the file for help
October 14, 2007
@JB: What error message are you getting?
October 14, 2007
an error occurred while importing the vcal file. The file may not be a valid Vcal file. After converting and getting text file I saved as .vcs but notes type file as text file so not sure if I am doing this right?
October 14, 2007
@JB: Are you getting the error message when converting your ical file to vcal with the script, or when you try to import the resulting vcal file into your Palm Desktop?
October 14, 2007
when trying to import the file into palm desktop
November 1, 2007
When I convert the file and then use File>>Save Page As…..I don’t seen an option to save as vcs. Just Text Document or All Files .
Do I use Text Document but name the file #####.vcs??
Can someone help me please?
…Lisa
November 1, 2007
@Lisa: Yes, you have to select “Text Document” and name the file as something.vcs. HTH, Charl.
November 7, 2007
Hi ,,
Could you suggest as to, how can I save a text file in timestable - in Java Programming ??
December 28, 2007
Nice work on the conversion program….However, I also had to cut and paste into Notepad to get it to work.
I am a pilot and some of my flying can be over 1 to 4 days. The single dayers are inputed fine into palm (ie 8am to 5 pm flt)…but if I have a pairing that goes for 2 days or more…..it only inputs the name of the pairing without any blocking time info in palm.
Any suggestions?
Thanks a miliion
December 29, 2007
@Jake:
This is a limitation of the Palm Desktop as far as I can see. See this Palm Knowledge Base article under the topic “Cannot handle multi-day events. Converted to Untimed event.”
So there’s not much the ical2vcal converter can do about this.
What you could try is to turn multi-day events into single-day events that repeat for that number of days. That should work, but is perhaps too much effort for what you gain.
January 2, 2008
hmmm…I get the same error that many others have reported: “An error occurred while importing the vCal file. The file may not be a valid vCal file.”
I’ve tried it with firefox and explorer, saving as a text file then renaming it to .vcs, saving as a .vcs outright and copying and pasting into notepad.
Actually, copying and pasting into notepad allowed for it to be imported, but there’s lots of gobbledygook, especially lots of “/n/n/n/n/n” everywhere…
January 2, 2008
@dankrebs: I still have to diagnose that error given the sample files that helpful users have submitted. Are you seeing “/n/n/n” or “\n\n\n” ?
January 3, 2008
thanks for the reply.
Sorry, you’re right, it’s “\n”, and not “/n”.
In the meantime, do you know of any other way for me to easily convert this file?
Thanks!
January 6, 2008
I’m getting the error message “An error occurred while importing the vCal file. The file may not be a valid vCal file.” as well. I’m using explorer but haven’t tried Firefox yet. Is there something I’m not doing correctly? Or should I check back at a later time to see if there’s been a fix? THANK you so much for this!
January 6, 2008
@Lisa: I’m working on fixing some of the previous errors I got. As soon as I’ve updated the software, I’ll put an update message in the posting, and also as a comment. Try again (should be in a few days, I hope) and let me know!
January 6, 2008
BTW, I’d be happy to send you the file, but I’m not sure how…
January 6, 2008
@Lisa: send it to me at cpbotha at-sign-thingy cpbotha dot net, thanks.
January 21, 2008
Hi - neat tool!
I am glad a colleague sent me a link to your website. He has written a nice tool to convert my work schedule (in pdf) to ics. And as you know that won’t work with Palm.
Anyway, I have a question too. Is it possible to import categories into Palm using vcalendar? I end up having to manually change the categories for each event in Palm Desktop. It’s a bit tedious…
Greetings
Fillip
January 22, 2008
lovely program. between toodledo’s exported task list and your wondrous calendar transformer, I have a brute force way to keep all my admin sort of in sync. just went through and cleaned up dupes from the past year (generally no more than 3-4 per event) - now I will see how long it takes them to build back up again. perhaps I will try the datebook file delete option recommended in the comments above. much more effective than the pricey pay version avail through the SW site…
January 25, 2008
Thanks, this is a big help.
Works well-enough with MSLookOut’s .ics files
& Palm Desktop 4.1.4 picks up the .vcs
For folks who want to run the python script locally
(after you get Python), add these line to the .py file:
Disclaimer: This is *day-one-level* python hacking,
and I’m not a coder. But I had some fun/success.
icalfilein = raw_input(”What’s the ical filename? “)
import vcal
calendar = vcal.parse(icalfilein)
f=open(’yyy.vcs’, ‘w’)
f.write(calendar.as_vcal())
f.close()
You might not want to pump some “corporate” meeting details
across the net..
Peace
January 31, 2008
It worked first time - thank you.
Is there any way of selecting in which Category it will appear in Palm desktop, rather than Unfiled?
February 24, 2008
Used it again for my annual conversion from ics to a vcal calendar needs - worked 100%. Thanks.
March 1, 2008
Just tried this and received the same error message mentioned by others when trying the import “An error occurred while importing the vCal file. The file may not be a valid vCal file.”
Any suggestions - has something changed with the code yet?
I am using Palm Desktop version 4.2
thanks.
March 4, 2008
thank youuuuu!
March 15, 2008
I got this to work using python and this sequence:
>>> import vcal
>>> calendar = vcal.parse(“unfiled.ics”)
>>> f=open(‘unfiled.vcs’,’w’)
>>> f.write (calendar.as_vcal())
>>> f.close()
But when I try to import into Palm Desktop, all the events show up without a time, until I edit the .vcs file manually to put the DTSTART tag before the DTEND tag.
Any idea why the tags should show up in the wrong order? (The .ics file comes from an Apple iCal export)
March 21, 2008
Thanks, it’s a very useful script. I am using it to convert exported ics files from Sunbird for import into Palm Desktop 4.1.4. I made a small change to the cgi script to allow the browser to download the generated vcs file instead of displaying it in the browser as plain text, using the same basename as the ics file being uploaded. (No more need to copy/paste the results to a file.) So for example, if you upload a file named ‘mycalendar.ics’, your browser should prompt you to save the generated vcs file named ‘mycalendar.vcs’. I used Firefox 2.0.0.12 to test it.
diff ical2vcal.cgi ical2vcal.cgi.orig
60,70d59
< icsfilename = fileitem.filename
< if icsfilename.endswith(”.ics”):
< vcsfilename = icsfilename[0:len(icsfilename)-4] + “.vcs”
< else:
< “”"the name of the file being posted does not end with .ics
< so just add .vcs as the file extension. or we could
< warn the user that this may not be a valid ics file
< and return False…
< “”"
< vcsfilename = icsfilename + “.vcs”
<
84,85c73
< print “Content-Type: text/x-vCalendar”
print “content-type: text/plain\n”
Thanks again.
March 21, 2008
Dear M. Graves,
Great, thanks for the patch! Could you perhaps mail it to me as a unified diff, with the direction correct? I.e. do “diff -u ical2vcal.cgi.orig ical2vcal.cgi”
I’ll integrate it (and put your credit on the CGI page of course!)
Thanks,
Charl
March 22, 2008
No problem, the email is on the way. I’ve used the content-disposition header before, but I found the mime type to use here:
http://www.phpbuilder.com/columns/chow20021007.php3?page=4
The article also has some useful links for iCal and vCal in the resources section at the end.
April 2, 2008
Thank you very much for this application. Unfortunately, as for some others, for me it did not work–Palm Desktop thinks the resultant file isn’t vcal.
I’ve sent both files, and hopefully it will be of help.
Best,
Jonah
April 29, 2008
With Palm Desktop 6.2.2 and a .ics v2 file this converter worked super! I am defiantly bookmarking this site. :->
May 1, 2008
Thank youuu
I have been looking for days on how to do this. Finally.
1) Export from outlook csv file
2) Import into Google Calander
3) Export from google calender into an ics file
4) use this utility to convert to vcs file
5) THEN cut an paste into text file change the extension to vcs and save ( I tried saving the output as is in changing it to vcs and it did not work)
6) import to Palm
May 22, 2008
Will your convertor work on a 4.5mb file. I got an internal server error. said to contact you. thanks.
June 3, 2008
Thanks! Works perfectly for my needs.
June 3, 2008
OK, one more thing to make it absolutely perfect for my needs: A wrapper that reads the contents of an ics file from standard input and writes to standard output, so you can do something like this:
ics2vcs meeting.vcs
Python programmers can figure this out themselves and do a better job of it than I can, but for anyone else who like this sort of behavior, here’s my “day one python” (as Al said above) code:
import vcal
import sys
sys.stdout.write(vcal.parse(sys.stdin.read()).as_vcal())
Or if you don’t like the terse “functional programming” style code in the last line, the following does exactly the same thing and is (I admit) more readable (but for perverse taste like mine less elegant):
import vcal
import sys
calendar = vcal.parse(sys.stdin.read())
sys.stdout.write(calendar.as_vcal())
In a Unixey system, you can stick “#!/usr/bin/python” or something like that at the beginning of the file and make sure that vcal.py is in the same directory or a directory listed in PYTHONPATHS. In Windows, if you want to run it in a CMD window, you could probably put “python ics2vcs” or something like that in a batch file.
Thanks CPBotha!
-Mars
June 3, 2008
Sorry, that line where I demonstrate running the script came out wrong. It’s not:
ics2vcs meeting.vcs
but rather:
ics2vcs lessthansymbol meeting.ics greaterthansymbol meeting.vcs
Another try:
ics2vcs < meeting.ics > meeting.vcs
June 3, 2008
Does not work with Palm Desktop 6 and the current googlecalander.
Am I doing something wrong?
June 3, 2008
“Nice work on the conversion program….However, I also had to cut and paste into Notepad to get it to work.”
I read that, did that, and it worked.
Odd that simply saving the page as a *.vcs didn’t work.
June 3, 2008
M. Graves sent a patch that i still need to integrate (hopefully I’ll have time sometime this century) that will allow you to download the generated file as vcs file.
June 12, 2008
I just used this to convert and it worked nicely. I did notice one bug - on google calendar, I create events that span multiple days (all-day event like a vacation). In Palm Desktop, I’m hoping to see that become a day event, marked as an all-day (no time), with a repeat of X number of days till then end.
Instead, I get an import error from palm desktop, that it can’t import an event that spans multiple days, and it puts it in as the first day only.
For my case, that was fairly easily to correct by hand, though I did have 8-10 entries that happened for. However it would be nice if the event data would be converted automatically to a repeat-day type palm calendar event, so it came in right. If my description is awkward, I can create some sample data files for you that show the issue.
June 25, 2008
Thank you very much! I am considering replacing the palm - but until then, this is so helpful.
July 7, 2008
Can you help a real neophyte? I just switched to Mac and HATE how palm calendar looks and functions on a mac. I like the look and operation of ical, but have no experience with any other calendar programs. What is my best option, short of entering everything twice (on Treo and into ICAL)?
July 8, 2008
Hi there C Hagley,
I’m sorry, but I can’t help you on a Mac. Surely there must be a solution to sync between ICAL and the Treo?
July 16, 2008
Hi, I’m trying to see if you code can work for me. I am trying to import my calendar from Essential PIM to my phone’s software to sync my calendars. I can export my cal from EPIM in ical but can only import vcal in Samsung’s software. I tried your code but when I import the resulting file I get an error “Invalid Recurrence YM1 23011231.”
Do you have any idea what might be happening? Only the first appointment shows up in Samsung’s calendar.
Thanks
July 18, 2008
Great app!
If I convert my Google Calendar to vcal and import it into my Palm Desktop, does that overwrite the calendar and events on my Palm or does it just add my Google Calendar events to my Palm?
July 19, 2008
@Lisa:
Thanks!
As far as I know, Palm Desktop should just add the events to your existing events. I’m not sure what’ll happen if ALL event details are identical though (same description, date, time, etc etc).
July 20, 2008
I got this error when converting…can someone help me please? Does it matter that the Google calendar I am exporting for conversion is not my primary Google calendar?
July 20, 2008
Sorry, I forgot to put the error in my comment. It is:
“Error parsing your upload: vCal Parse Error: No BEGIN:VCALENDAR–invalid vcal file (at character 0)”
…Lisa
July 20, 2008
Thanks for the short-cut. It seems to work well, although a few of the end dates for “repeated” events didn’t work properly. They just kept repeating forever instead of stopping on the required date. I only had a few of these, so I fixed them manually.
July 21, 2008
Thank you - just what I needed.
Pardon my ignorance, but have you turned this into an App that I can run when I get an ical that works as some sort of Palm extension and just imports the calendar item directly into Palm desktop ?
Many thanks
Dennis
July 21, 2008
@Dennis Jennings:
No I have not made such an app.
August 1, 2008
Hi
“Click here to convert!” link doesn’t seem to open a web page??
Help.
Thanks
-Paul W
August 1, 2008
@Paul Williamson:
Seems the machine hosting the script has died during the night (GMT+2 time). It will be rebooted shortly…
(August 1, 9:50 GMT+2)
August 5, 2008
Didn’t work, I’m sorry. Using a Palm Treo
August 10, 2008
Thank you, works well.
I´ve worried a long time how to view my sunbird calendar files on palm.
Now I´m exporting to ics, and importing as vcs via the palm desktop.
All the best!
August 17, 2008
If you copy the output into Notepad, then save as a .vcs, it works for some reason.
August 26, 2008
I tried this just now using an ics I made from my google calendar and Palm Desktop version 4.1.2 (for my palm Tungsten T3) and it did not work. I also tried the “workaround” that you listed and as you said, it also did not work.
August 26, 2008
Never Mind … I got it to work ! I had saved the HTML source (which obviously didn’t work). I had to “select all” off of the web page and then past into notepad++ and that worked. Good Job ! I’ll post about this on my blog.
September 1, 2008
Abe posted this:
3) Export from google calender into an ics file
4) use this utility to convert to vcs file
5) THEN cut an paste into text file change the extension to vcs and save ( I tried saving the output as is in changing it to vcs and it did not work)
6) import to Palm
How do I do #3??
…Lisa
September 1, 2008
I figured out how to Export from google calender into an ics file. (right click, save link as)
I cut and paste the resulting text file into Notepad, saved it with a vcs extension then tried to import it into Palm Desktop…3 lone events out of 80 imported
My file starts like this:
BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:1.0
BEGIN:VEVENT
CREATED:20080719T000203Z
DTEND:20080923
DTSTAMP:20080901T205214Z
DTSTART:20080922
DURATION_SECONDS:86400
CLASS:PUBLIC
LAST-MODIFIED:20080722T144544Z
SEQUENCE:0
STATUS:CONFIRMED
SUMMARY:Pre-season
TRANSP:TRANSPARENT
UID:otavpjslqlf48iu5i4od6d5aq4@google.com
Any suggestions?
…Lisa
September 1, 2008
@Lisa:
Under “My calendars” on the left, click on “Settings”, then click on the calendar you want to export, then click on the little “ICAL” button right at the bottom under “Private address”.
September 1, 2008
Thanks cpbotha.
The 2 calendars I am trying to import to my Palm are public sports calendars. They don’t have a Private Address. I right-clicked on the ICAL button under Calendar Address and then Save As to save the calendar to my Desktop and then did the conversion.
Will Calendar Address not work? Does the calendar need a Private Address in order to save, do the conversion and import?
September 2, 2008
@Lisa:
Calendar address works just fine. It does not need a Private Address.
September 3, 2008
It is not working for me and I am not sure why.
I saved, converted and imported.
Palm Desktop says `reading file`and then just 1 or a few items get imported out of 80.
I am using PD 6.2.1 and Vista
…Lisa
September 5, 2008
Thanks for the app, it works great with the exception on one thing. Maybe you have an idea…
Repeatable events do not seem to show up in the palm calendar.
Let me know your thoughts please. Thanks again, this saved me a lot of manual editing.
September 11, 2008
Tres cute!
Using this to convert Rainlander csv to palm desktop. Usual issue re repeating events but that is ok. Can now continue to use Rainlander - vastly better than Outlook - while syncing with the T3.
Ta muchly.
September 14, 2008
Thank you!!
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