Is it possible to create an event that repeats at every 1st, 3rd and 5th Friday in the month in Google calendar?
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11 Answers
Although Google Calendar doesn't allow you to create or modify arbitrary recurrence rules, the iCalendar specification which it uses and understands is quite robust in this regard.
Create an ICS file with a custom recurrence rule (RRULE). For example, for an all-day event on the first, third, and fifth Fridays of every month, starting 2 March 2012:
BEGIN:VCALENDAR
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20120302
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20120302
RRULE:FREQ=MONTHLY;INTERVAL=1;BYDAY=1FR,3FR,5FR
DESCRIPTION:
LOCATION:
SEQUENCE:0
STATUS:CONFIRMED
SUMMARY:Event on the first, third, and fifth Fridays.
TRANSP:TRANSPARENT
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR
To import the ICS file (updated June 2018): Click the gear icon and select "Settings", then choose "Import & export" from the menu. (Here's a direct link as of June 2018.) Under "Import", select your ICS file and upload it to the desired calendar.
For this example, Google Calendar parses the RRULE correctly and even describes the recurrence as "Monthly on Friday of weeks 1, 3, 5 of the month":
Of course, you won't be able to tweak the custom recurrence rule from within Google Calendar, unless you want to replace the recurrence rule entirely with one of the standard options. Otherwise, you'll have to delete the event, tweak your ICS file, and reimport. You should still be able to make other changes to the event within Google Calendar, such as renaming, moving to another calendar, etc.
If this helps, you may wish to read more about the flexibility offered by custom recurrence rules in the iCalendar specification.
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1Something about this didn't work when importing, but the error message wasn't at all useful. I was able to export my existing calendar, leave all the junk in there between VCALENDAR and VEVENT, then strip out all but one event and modify that to make it work. The dates look a little different and there's no INTERVAL, but I don't know exactly what was causing it to fail– redbmkMay 24, 2013 at 21:56
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I updated the DTEND value (so that DTEND is in the future), created a new calendar and tried to import this into the newly created calendar. All I get, However, is
Processed one event. Successfully imported 0 events.I also tried to add 'VERSION:2.0' and 'PRODID:[my-last-name]'. Each change gave the same result.– RamyAug 4, 2015 at 13:44 -
amilkhanzada.com/2013/06/… <-- this link shows how to do it on the web; ti syncs to the phone just fine– IgbanamDec 21, 2015 at 10:48
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Worked well for me. Example with time: BEGIN:VCALENDAR BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20170118T121500 DTEND;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20170118T134500 RRULE:FREQ=MONTHLY;INTERVAL=1;BYDAY=1WE,3WE,5WE DESCRIPTION:Toastmasters LOCATION:Bridge St SEQUENCE:0 STATUS:CONFIRMED SUMMARY:Toastmasters Standards Australia TRANSP:TRANSPARENT END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR– jeznagJan 4, 2017 at 22:19
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The only practical way to achieve this is to create three separate events, one that repeats the 1st Friday, one that repeats on the 3rd Friday, and one on the 5th Friday (although not every month is going to have a 5th Friday).
Update: Another method occurs to me: You would need to create 12 separate recurring appointments, one for each month, that starts on the first Friday of the month, repeats every two weeks, and ends on the last day of the month. Then you will hit, for that month, the first, third and, if it exists, fifth Friday.
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1That leaves the question about how you create an event that repeats on every 5th friday. When I click on repeat every month I get: repeats every last friday. Sep 20, 2010 at 11:16
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@Al Everest, this is not really possible in Google Calendar, you can't choose 1st, 3rd, or 5th if you are selecting the Monthly repeats..!! When you're selecting monthly repeats you can only choose which day of the month, not of the week!– LipisSep 20, 2010 at 17:23
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@Lipis: Oh really? What about the screen shot I've added? It clearly shows that you can choose to repeat on the third Friday of every month.– aleSep 20, 2010 at 18:22
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@Al Everett.. oups...! :) Missed that.. that's why we are here after all.. good to know!– LipisSep 20, 2010 at 18:50
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It's possible to create something that repeats every third Friday. If you click on day of the week you however don't get repeats every 5th Friday. Sep 21, 2010 at 9:59
Some of the methods addressed here no longer work, though the accepted answer works fine.
Heres another way - create an event that repeats on every xth weekday for each repetition you need.
Here's the process: create an event on the correct weekday, then go to repetition -> monthly -> repeat on every xth weekday. You can duplicate the event to make creation of the other events faster.
For repeating every 5th weekday, you'll need to use an application that takes advantage of the Google calendar API that allows repetition every fifth Sunday. I use the well-made Business Calendar 2 for this purpose, but there are others that work as well.
See the attached photo for evidence that Google API supports this behavior.
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As of June 2018, Google Calendar still supports importing ICS files as suggested in my accepted answer, though things have moved around a bit, so I've updated it. It could be argued that accomplishing this with several separate events is just as much of a "hack" as using a custom recurrence rule to keep it all together, but they're still both valid approaches. Jun 1, 2018 at 3:07
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1My apologies, your method works fine - I was addressing another method that no longer works. That said, a solution for those allergic to code is nice to have. =)– ZediiiiiJun 2, 2018 at 4:12
No other method worked at all for me except for the ICS file import. My need was to specify what happened on a doctor's schedule on particular weekdays on the 5th week of any month. If you have a need for 5th weeks, please feel free to use this changed ICS file as an example:
BEGIN:VCALENDAR
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20190430
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20190430
RRULE:FREQ=MONTHLY;INTERVAL=1;BYDAY=5TU
DESCRIPTION: 5th week test entry
LOCATION:
SEQUENCE:0
STATUS:CONFIRMED
SUMMARY:Test-Event fifth Tuesdays
TRANSP:TRANSPARENT
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR
No it's not possible to set this rule.
The closest thing that you can achieve is to set it to daily and repeating every 14 days starting from one Friday.
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2Very 14 days is something completely different as the event happens at certain days in reality. Sep 19, 2010 at 17:53
Try Quick Add and type something like 8:30-10:30 Swimming every 5th sunday of every month.
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This is a possible solution, but only works for every 5th Sunday, you'd need to add to this answer to address the rest of the question, as it's not as simple as adding 1 Quick Event to cover all recurrences. Nov 19, 2012 at 21:23
If you select a 5th friday and manually type "My Event on every 5th friday of every month" in the description box, it will add them appropriately. Of course you would substitute your title for "My event".
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1This seems like a great answer, but I can't replicate the behavior in 2018 calendar. Does this still work?– ZediiiiiMay 31, 2018 at 17:26
Here's one solution:
Make a "sample" month, creating one Event on the first Friday, one on the third Friday and one on the fifth Friday.
For each event check the box "repeating"
In the repeating window, check monthly and day of the month.
Your event will now show up for all these dates for as long as you wish.
Click on the first day of the series in Google Calendar and type 'My Event, fifth Sunday of every month, 12:30-3:00' in the "What:" field:
Here is a blog post with more details: http://www.amilkhanzada.com/2013/06/google-calendar-repeating-events-on.html
When faced with "you can't do it" answers regarding a web app, I try to find out whether it has a published API and use that. Lucky for you, Google Calendar has a well documented API. So if you can phrase your needs in any programming language, you can do it. Good luck!
answered Sep 20, 2010 at 10:50
If you select the third Friday of the month for the first occurrence and then select monthly it will figure out what you are doing and look just like your screenshot.