gcal-sync

Overview

A simple apps script to sync events from one google calendar to another.

The intended use case is to synchronize events from a personal calendar to a work calendar, so that free/busy on the work calendar accurately reflects personal events during the work day.

Notes

This project uses clasp, which is a CLI interface for Google Apps Script projects. More information is available on how to use it for development.

Despite using clasp, we must configure some things in the UI - notably allowing permissions, and also setting up triggers (which cannot be created via clasp at this time).

Getting started

Only OS X is supported at the moment. PRs welcome for other operating systems.

1. Set up initial dependencies: script/bootstrap

   • Homebrew is required, and the script will complain if it cannot be found.

2. Log in: npx clasp login

   • You should authenticate with the account we will be syncing to.

3. Create an apps script project: npx clasp create --type standalone --title gcal-sync

   • This will drop additional files into your checkout, which are not checked in.
   • You may get an error about not having enabled the Apps Script API. If so, follow the instructions in the error message.

Configuration

Because I'm not extremely familiar with Apps Script, configuration is done in the script itself. Open main.ts and change the configuration hash to something that works for you.

• searchDays: How many days we should look forward when syncing events. The default is 14, and longer intervals equate to longer runtimes.
• calendarTo: The calendar which will receive the synced events.
• calendarFrom: The calendar which will be scanned for events to sync.
• patterns: An array of pattterns to match, case insensitive. Technically, full javascript regex support should work here but it has not been tested.

When the script is executed, we will ask for the next searchDays worth of events from calendarFrom and calendarTo. We will examine each event retrieved from calendarFrom and if the event title matches one of patterns, we will sync it to calendarTo.

Events will not be duplicated during runs (unless you delete and re-create the event on calendarFrom), so running on a schedule should be safe.

Synced events are set to private visibility.

Deployment

1. Share your calendarFrom with your calendarTo account. You must allow the calendarTo account full visibility.
   • Instructions
2. Ensure that events from Gmail are set to full visibility, if you use this feature:
   • Instructions
3. Add your calendarFrom calendar to your calendarTo account:
   • Instructions
4. Deploy the app to Google Apps: npx clasp push
   • Ensure you have changed the defaults in main.ts before this step.
   • I do not commit my changes anywhere, because I consider the synced events private and personal. Whether or not you do so, is up to you.
5. Manually run the script at least once to ensure you have authorized the app to modify your calendar:
   1. npx clasp open
   2. Click Run -> Run Function -> syncEvents
   3. Review Permissions -> Choose Account -> Allow
   4. Click View -> Logs and ensure things worked as expected
6. Add a trigger for the project
   1. Click on Edit -> Current Project's Triggers
   2. Click on Add Trigger (in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen)
      • Do not change the function/deployment settings
      • I use a time-driven trigger, once daily.
      • You can use whatever you want