Yes, I really want to know what I did 2 years ago
August 16, 2021 10:20 AM Subscribe
I want to see what was on my Google Calendar many years into the past. I can do this on desktop and see all the events, but if I go back using the Calendar app for Android it only shows a few recurring events. The Google Calendar mobile website has the same behavior. Is there any way — including another app — to look back several years on my Google Calendar? Besides requesting the desktop website.
As far as I can tell the Google Calendar app is not syncing the old events becase I can leave it on that date for several minutes and it never shows all the events.
And if this is some kind of Google Calendar API limitation, I'd like to know that too, because I might just write my own app to do this (mostly for practice).
As far as I can tell the Google Calendar app is not syncing the old events becase I can leave it on that date for several minutes and it never shows all the events.
And if this is some kind of Google Calendar API limitation, I'd like to know that too, because I might just write my own app to do this (mostly for practice).
Best answer: https://developers.google.com/calendar/api/v3/reference/events/list
The Google Calendar API events list function works fine for historical events. Use "primary" as the calendar id for your default calendar.
posted by GuyZero at 11:22 AM on August 16, 2021 [2 favorites]
The Google Calendar API events list function works fine for historical events. Use "primary" as the calendar id for your default calendar.
posted by GuyZero at 11:22 AM on August 16, 2021 [2 favorites]
I know you are looking for alternative ways, but the only way I have been able to go back is through a browser (on my Pixel) requesting desktop site.
posted by AugustWest at 12:04 PM on August 16, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by AugustWest at 12:04 PM on August 16, 2021 [1 favorite]
If you want to do it on your phone/tablet, look for other calendar apps in the app store and try them out. One thing you may be able to do is to "subscribe" to the calendar using the sharing link Google Calendar will give you (it's a long hairy URL ending in ".ics". The link goes to an Internet Calendar Standard (".ics") file which is your calendar information in a standard format understood by many calendar programs. I use Outlook on my desktop, yet subscribe to the family Google Calendar via that link. Outlook retrieves the ".ics" file every time it checks for new mail, so it keeps up with changes, and it shows the file as it would any other calendar.
posted by TimHare at 6:35 PM on August 16, 2021
posted by TimHare at 6:35 PM on August 16, 2021
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The recurring events show up because they are part of a series that continues to happen and falls within that 1-year cutoff.
A number of users get around this by exporting their calendar events and re-importing them, but as a limitation it's invisible and also obnoxious.
Other calendar apps may retrieve further back in time, although I haven't used others myself and just now learned about this limitation and am frustrated by it. I thought it would be an easy setting like Gmail's "# of days to sync" setting.
posted by bookdragoness at 11:21 AM on August 16, 2021 [2 favorites]