Data will be UTF-8 encoded for sync.
Follow the instructions at [[#Installation][Installation]], and then run ~org-gcal-fetch~ to download Google Calendar events into your Org-mode files using the Google Calendar API. Run ~org-gcal-fetch~ to retrieve new events and update events already retrieved, and run ~org-gcal-post-at-point~ on an Org-mode headline corresponding to a downloaded event to push updates to the events on the Google Calendar API server.
First time setup: on the initial run, in order to obtain the initial OAuth authorization, ~org-gcal~ will open a link in the browser to obtain authorization for the OAuth credentials generated in [[#Installation][Installation]]. You will probably see a screen that says "This app isn't verified". You will need to click on the "Advanced" link to authorize the application:
[[file:https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/44981227/71685532-d892ce00-2d98-11ea-8981-1adce23e8678.png]]
Requirements
Emacs 26+
[[https://orgmode.org/][Org mode]] 9.3+
[[https://github.com/rhaps0dy/emacs-oauth2-auto][rhaps0dy/emacs-oauth2-auto]] (actually using vendored fork [[https://github.com/telotortium/emacs-oauth2-auto/tree/main][telotortium/emacs-oauth2-auto]])
=org-gcal= is now available in the famous emacs package repo [[http://melpa.milkbox.net/][MELPA]], so the recommended way is to install it through Emacs package management system.
NOTE: ~persist~ lives in GNU ELPA. If you're running Emacs 26.x with x < 3, you may need to add ~(setq gnutls-algorithm-priority "NORMAL:-VERS-TLS1.3")~ to your ~init.el~ to work around Emacs bug https://debbugs.gnu.org/34341 ([[https://www.reddit.com/r/emacs/comments/cdei4p/failed_to_download_gnu_archive_bad_request/][more info]]).
Installation :PROPERTIES: :ID: f5de2e1e-80a1-4ee3-8eeb-fd4db0794448 :CUSTOM_ID: Installation :END:
The method below will allow you to use oauth2-auto to perform authentication of the Google Calendar API. This new method is required due to a February 2022 change on Google's end that removed Out-of-Band redirect urls.
Please note that users still the old OOB method of authentication will be required to use the below method before Feburary 2023, [[https://developers.google.com/identity/protocols/oauth2/resources/oob-migration][as Google will be blocking all existing OOB clients on January 31, 2023.]]
Go to [[https://console.developers.google.com/project][Google Developers Console]]
Create a project (with any name)
Click on the project
Click on the hamburger menu at the upper-left, then APIs & Services, then Credentials.
Set up a consent screen. Give the application a name and set it up as type "external application", and accept the defaults for everything else. You should not need to verify the application, because only your user will be using it.
Once you've set up a consent screen (this is required), click on Create Credentials and Oauth client ID with Application type /Desktop/ (or /Other/, if /Desktop/ is not present).
Click on Create Client ID
Record the Client ID and Client secret for setup.
Under the same APIs & Services menu section, select Library
Scroll down to Calendar API. Click the Enable button to enable calendar API access to the app you created in steps 5 & 6.
Go to [[https://www.google.com/calendar/render][Google setting page]] to check the calendar ID.
Go to [[https://www.google.com/calendar/render][Google setting page]] and click the gear-shaped settings icon in the upper right, then select "Settings" from the drop down list.
Select the "Setting for my Calendars" tab on the left, which will display a list of your calendars.
Select the calendar you would like to synchronize with. This will take you to the "Calendar Settings" page for that calendar. Near the end is a section titled "Integrate Calendar". Following the XML, ICAL, and HTML tags, you will see your Calendar ID.
Copy the Calendar ID for use in the settings below, where you will use it as the first element in the org-gcal-fetch-file-alist for associating calendars with specific org files. You can associate different calendars with different org files, so repeat this for each calendar you want to use.
** Setting example
(setq org-gcal-client-id "your-id-foo.apps.googleusercontent.com" org-gcal-client-secret "your-secret" org-gcal-fetch-file-alist '(("your-mail@gmail.com" . "~/schedule.org") ("another-mail@gmail.com" . "~/task.org"))) (require 'org-gcal)
*** Note
This package uses ~plstore~ as a dependency for storing OAuth tokens. In order to avoid getting prompted all the time for the password to your plstore, it is recommended that you put the following in your init.el:
(setq plstore-cache-passphrase-for-symmetric-encryption t)
You may run into an issue where emacs asks for your PLSTORE password, then asks
whether you want to kill a buffer for oauth2-auto.plistwithout actually creating
such a file or before returning dispatching (epg-error "Encrypt failed" exit).
If this occurs, try the following:
oauth2-auto.plist file exists already in your USER-EMACS-DIRECTORY,
make sure you use the correct password.oauth2-auto.plist inside your USER-EMACS-DIRECTORY and run org-gcal-fetch.Alternatively, you may want to use an asymmetric GPG key instead. The main advantage of this is that the key can be retrieved from ~gpg-agent~ instead. In particular, on many systems you can configure ~gpg-agent~ to read the key from the system keychain, which means that you should only need to enter the keychain password, instead of having to memorize and enter a separate password for ~plstore~. As a bonus, you'll be prompted fewer times to enter a password, and it's easier to automatically run ~org-gcal~ unattended.
To do this, follow these steps:
Generate a new GPG key following these instructions. You could reuse an existing one also, but it's probably best to separate it from any other keys whose public keys you publish (Git signing, GPG-encrypted email, etc.).
Once you have a key, copy the long form of the GPG key ID you'd like to use (see the Github instructions above, or run ~gpg --list-secret-keys --keyid-format=long~).
Add the key ID to the Emacs variable ~plstore-encrypt-to~:
(require 'plstore) (add-to-list 'plstore-encrypt-to '("GPG-key-id"))
Set up ~pinentry~ for ~gpg-agent~, so that the password to decrypt the GPG key is stored in the system keychain. For example, on macOS you can follow these instructions.
** Multiple accounts
There's no support for multiple accounts. If you want to use org-gcal with calendars from different accounts, you can give permissions to the account you configured via the calendar's settings interface.
To get more detailed information you can [[https://digibites.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/200299863-How-do-I-share-my-calendar-with-someone-else-Google-Calendar-or-Outlook-com-][check this link]].
** Different timezone
If you local timezone is different from the Calendar. You can use your local timezone to fetch events. Event will be fetched using timezone defined in =org-gcal-local-timezone=. Timezone string can be found from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tz_database_time_zones.
To execute compile and regression tests, run ~make~.
This will use your existing Emacs installation to generate a value of ~load-path~ that allows ~org-gcal~ to find all its dependencies, and save it to ~.load-path.el~ in this directory. To delete this and other temporary files, run ~make clean~.
Once you've set up the basic settings (see [[Setting example]]), you can run =org-gcal-fetch= to fetch events into the files configured in =org-gcal-fetch-file-alist=. After the initial fetch, running =org-gcal-fetch= will retrieve newly-created events and update already-fetched events.
To create a Google Calendar event from an Org-mode event, it's enough to run the =org-gcal-post-at-point= command on a simple headline:
,* Event title
This will prompt you for the calendar ID, start time, and end time of the event. Therefore, if you'd like to create an event without user interaction (from a template, for example), you should set these fields before running =org-gcal-post-at-point=:
,* Event title :PROPERTIES: :calendar-id: jjjjjjjjjjjfuuuk842fdok134@group.calendar.google.com :END: :org-gcal: <2020-07-15 wed 09:15-09:30>
Event details
(can be multiple paragraphs). :END:
After the event has been created, some Google Calendar API-specific fields will be set for future updates to the event:
,* Event title :PROPERTIES: :calendar-id: jjjjjjjjjjjfuuuk842fdok134@group.calendar.google.com :ETag: "7777777777980000" :ID: xxxxxxxxxxa4jlcj0v998f4u18/jjjjjjjjjjjfuuuk842fdok134@group.calendar.google.com :END: :org-gcal: <2020-07-15 wed 09:15-09:30>
Event details
(can be multiple paragraphs). :END:
If you want to schedule the event in your Org Agenda, you can use the SCHEDULED property (set by =org-schedule=) instead of storing the date in the =:org-gcal:= drawer. The drawer will still be present to contain event details:
,* Event title SCHEDULED: <2020-07-15 wed 09:15-09:30> :PROPERTIES: :calendar-id: jjjjjjjjjjjfuuuk842fdok134@group.calendar.google.com :ETag: "7777777777980000" :ID: xxxxxxxxxxa4jlcj0v998f4u18/jjjjjjjjjjjfuuuk842fdok134@group.calendar.google.com :END: :org-gcal: Event details
(can be multiple paragraphs). :END:
After editing an event in Org mode, you can also run =org-gcal-post-at-point= to update the event on Google Calendar. The command =org-gcal-sync= does what =org-gcal-fetch= does, but also runs =org-gcal-post-at-point= on all events that you've edited in Org mode to update the corresponding events in Google Calendar. ** Event structure =org-gcal= modifies the following Org-mode properties and drawers when updating an event from the Google Calendar API:
Properties:
NOTE: If the =ETag= property is present on a headline (even if empty (=""=)) and not equal to the value stored by the Calendar API, your event will be overwritten with the data from the server. In this case, you'll see a notification for a HTTP 512. This is intended behavior. If your event is being overwritten when you don't want it, remove the =ETag= property from your headline.
Apart from these, all other attributes are preserved when an event is updated in any way.
Commands ** =org-gcal-fetch= Fetch Google calendar events for all calendar IDs in =org-gcal-fetch-file-alist= occurring between =org-gcal-up-days= before today and =org-gcal-down-days= after today. If the events have already been retrieved and can be located using their Org-mode headline IDs, update the event in place. Otherwise, insert it at the end of the file corresponding to the event's calendar ID in =org-gcal-fetch-file-alist=. Does not update events on the server. =org-gcal-sync= Like =org-gcal-fetch=, but also update events on the server if they have changed locally. Note: This command does not post /newly created events/ onto the server, which is done with =org-gcal-post-at-point=. =org-gcal-sync= updates events /after/ they are posted to the server. =org-gcal-fetch-buffer= Fetch changes to Google calendar events to update entries in the current buffer, but don't update events on server. =org-gcal-sync-buffer= Sync entries in the current buffer with Google Calendar. *** =org-gcal-post-at-point= Update the event represented by the Org-mode headline at POINT on the server using the Google Calendar API.
If the event has changed on the server since it was last retrieved (detected using the =ETag= property), automatically update the headline using the event data from the server instead of updating the event on the server. *** =org-gcal-delete-at-point= Delete the event represented by the Org-mode headline at POINT on the server using the Google Calendar API. This will not delete the Org-mode headline.
If the event has changed on the server since it was last retrieved (detected using the =ETag= property), automatically update the headline using the event data from the server instead of updating the event on the server.
** Deleting events If an event is deleted on the server, then updating an event (via =org-gcal-post-at-point=, =org-gcal-sync=, etc.) will optionally cancel and delete the corresponding Org mode headlines:
=org-gcal-update-cancelled-events-with-todo=: if set (the default), mark all cancelled events with the =org-gcal-cancelled-todo-keyword= (default: =CANCELLED=). This keyword must be one defined in =org-todo-keywords= or it will be ignored.
=org-gcal-remove-api-cancelled-events=: if set, delete Org headlines of cancelled events. The default value is ='ask=, which means to prompt for deletion.
=org-gcal-remove-events-with-cancelled-todo=: by default, avoid deleting Org headlines of events that are marked with =org-gcal-cancelled-todo-keyword= beforehand, to allow preserving a headline for a cancelled event from being deleted. Setting this to =t= always deletes headlines, even already cancelled ones.
Other features ** Minimize alerts
Modify =org-gcal-notify-p= from =t= to =nil=
** Collect instances of recurring events under parent event
By default, =org-gcal-recurring-events-mode= is set to ='top-level=, which means that new fetched events that are instances of recurring events will be inserted at the top level of the file for the calendar ID configured in =org-gcal-fetch-file-alist=:
, Meeting SCHEDULED: <2020-08-07 Fri 11:00> , Meeting SCHEDULED: <2020-08-14 Fri 11:00> , Meeting SCHEDULED: <2020-08-21 Fri 11:00> , Meeting SCHEDULED: <2020-08-28 Fri 11:00>
If =org-gcal-recurring-events-mode= is instead set to ='nested=, such events will be inserted as Org-mode child headlines under the headline for the parent event:
,* Meeting SCHEDULED: <2017-02-17 Fri 11:00> , Meeting SCHEDULED: <2020-08-07 Fri 11:00> , Meeting SCHEDULED: <2020-08-14 Fri 11:00> , Meeting SCHEDULED: <2020-08-21 Fri 11:00> , Meeting SCHEDULED: <2020-08-28 Fri 11:00>
Here the parent meeting has been running for several years, but only the instances of the meeting in the range given by =org-gcal-down-days= and =org-gcal-up-days= are fetched.
** Customizing the contents of event entries
If you would like to customize the contents of event entries (for example, to add a property from the Google Calendar API that's not automatically written to the Org-mode entry), you can add a function to the list =org-gcal-after-update-entry-functions=. For example, here is some code to add the =Effort= property to an entry based on the duration of the event (note that the current point is placed at the beginning of the entry when the function is called):
(defun my-org-gcal-set-effort (_calendar-id event _update-mode) "Set Effort property based on EVENT if not already set." (when-let* ((stime (plist-get (plist-get event :start) :dateTime)) (etime (plist-get (plist-get event :end) :dateTime)) (diff (float-time (time-subtract (org-gcal--parse-calendar-time-string etime) (org-gcal--parse-calendar-time-string stime)))) (minutes (floor (/ diff 60)))) (let ((effort (org-entry-get (point) org-effort-property))) (unless effort (message "need to set effort - minutes %S" minutes) (org-entry-put (point) org-effort-property (apply #'format "%d:%02d" (cl-floor minutes 60))))))) (add-hook 'org-gcal-after-update-entry-functions #'my-org-gcal-set-effort)
** org-capture template
Here is a recommended snippet to use as a =org-capture-template= for making Google Calendar appointments:
(setq org-capture-templates `(("a" "Appointment" entry (file ,(concat org-directory "/gcal.org")) "* %?\n:PROPERTIES:\n:calendar-id:\tFirst.Last@gmail.com\n:END:\n:org-gcal:\n%^T--%^T\n:END:\n\n" :jump-to-captured t)))
Change the following:
/gcal.org should be whichever org file you plan to capture appointments to. If this file is not in your generic =org-directory=, then adjust the (concat org-directory "/gcal.org") as needed.First.Last@gmail.com should be the calendar id you want to capture to. If this is your Gmail account's calendar, then just change First.Last to be your email handle.** Sync automatically at regular times
This snippet uses run-at-time to perform a org-gcal-sync at specific times.
;; Run ‘org-gcal-sync’ regularly not at startup, but at 8 AM every day, ;; starting the next time 8 AM arrives. (run-at-time (let ((now-decoded (decode-time)) (today-8am-decoded (append '(0 0 8) (nthcdr 3 now-decoded))) (now (encode-time now-decoded)) (today-8am (encode-time today-8am-decoded))) (if (time-less-p now today-8am) today-8am (time-add today-8am ( 24 60 60)))) (* 24 60 60) (defun my-org-gcal-sync-clear-token () "Sync calendar, clearing tokens first." (interactive) (require 'org-gcal) (when org-gcal--sync-lock (warn "%s" "‘my-org-gcal-sync-clear-token’: ‘org-gcal--sync-lock’ not nil - calling ‘org-gcal--sync-unlock’.") (org-gcal--sync-unlock)) (org-gcal-sync-tokens-clear) (org-gcal-sync) nil))
Because we used the [[https://github.com/kiwanami/emacs-deferred][deferred.el]] to perform asynchronous operations like calling ~request~ (via [[https://github.com/tkf/emacs-request/blob/master/request-deferred.el][~request-deferred~]]), normal Emacs debugging and stack traces tend not to be as useful as usual. The best way to debug is to run ~M-x org-gcal-toggle-debug~, which sets a variety of debugging variables to ease debugging. The old values of the variables are saved so they can be restored by another call to ~M-x org-gcal-toggle-debug~.
One of the most useful things this enables is logging of HTTP requests. Open the ~request-log~ buffer to see all requests issued by this library.
** Errors *** Duplicate ID
You get an error like this:
Duplicate ID "FOO", also in file BAR
Most likely, this means some calendar events were mistakenly retrieved twice (for example, if you ran =org-gcal-fetch= on different computers). Search your Org-mode files for the duplicate ID "FOO" and delete one of the headlines with duplicate IDs (or just change the =ID= property on one of the events to something else).