Connect a calendar link (ICS)

You need the published address of the calendar you want to read. It is a long URL, it starts with https:// or webcal://, and it ends in something like .ics. Where to get one is the next section.

Treat it like a password. Anyone holding this link can read that calendar, which is the trade that makes it work without a sign-in. Earkeep stores it in your system keychain for the same reason, rather than in a configuration file. Don't paste it into a chat or a ticket.

If your organization has turned calendar publishing off, this path is closed too, and the answer is to ask your IT administrator.

Outlook. Open outlook.office.com, then Settings → Calendar → Shared calendars → Publish a calendar. Pick the calendar you want, choose Can view all details, press Publish, and copy the ICS link. Choosing a less detailed option will publish times without titles, which leaves Earkeep able to mark the meeting but not to name it.

Google Calendar. Open calendar.google.com, then Settings, then your calendar under Settings for my calendars, then Integrate calendar. Copy the Secret address in iCal format. The word secret is doing real work there: that address is the credential.

Apple iCloud. A shared iCloud calendar has a public link you can copy from the Calendar app or from iCloud on the web. For your own calendars on a Mac, connecting Apple Calendar is simpler and needs no link at all.

Anything else. Room calendars, project calendars, conference schedules, a colleague's published availability: if it hands out an ICS address, Earkeep can read it.

1. Open Earkeep and press Settings, at the bottom of the left rail.
2. Go to Calendar.
3. On the Calendar link (ICS) row, press Connect.
4. Paste the address into the field and press Add.
5. Earkeep fetches the feed once to check it before saving it, so a typo is caught here rather than by silence tomorrow. The row then reads Connected, named after the feed itself where the feed says what it is called.
6. Turn on Create spans from events if you want each event to become a meeting on its own.

A webcal:// address is fine as it is: Earkeep rewrites it to https://, which is the same feed. A plain http:// address is refused, because the link is a credential and sending it unencrypted would hand it to the network.

It reads the feed, and that is the entire connection. There is no account, no sign-in and no token, because a published feed answers anyone who has its address. Earkeep is one more client asking for it.

Reading is all it can do. A feed is one-directional by construction: there is no way to write to a calendar through one, so read-only here is a property of the format rather than a promise about the app.

The address is in your system keychain. It is a credential, so it is stored where credentials go rather than in Earkeep's configuration file.

Repeating events are expanded on your device. A feed describes a weekly meeting as one entry plus a rule; Earkeep works out the actual occurrences locally, so a recurring standup becomes a meeting each day it happens.

All-day events, declined invitations and cancelled events never become spans, and neither does an event during which nobody said anything. Those rules are the same for every provider and are described on calendar connection.

"The calendar link must start with https:// or webcal://". The address is unencrypted or the wrong thing was pasted. Copy it again from the publishing page rather than from the browser's address bar, which is usually showing the calendar's web interface rather than its feed.

It won't connect at all. Open the address in a browser. You should get a download or a wall of text beginning BEGIN:VCALENDAR. A sign-in page or an error means the feed is not actually published, or was published and then revoked.

The row is named something odd. Earkeep names the connection after the feed, and falls back to the address's host when the feed doesn't say. That is cosmetic and does not affect what is read.

Meetings appear without titles. The feed was published with limited detail. Republish it choosing the option that shows all details.

An event you just added isn't there. Published feeds update on their provider's own schedule, not instantly, and some are slow. Sync now re-reads the feed; if the provider hasn't refreshed it yet, the new event genuinely isn't in it to read.

• Calendar connection: what an automatic span is, and what happens when the meeting doesn't match the invite.
• Connect Google Calendar and Microsoft Outlook: the account-based paths, when your workplace allows them.
• Connect Apple Calendar: the simplest path if the calendar is already on your Mac.
• All Earkeep how-tos.