27

If I share a calendar with someone else and we end up with clashing events, how can I tell who "got there first"?

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7 Answers 7

6

There's no way to do that via the web interface. If you're happy to get down and dirty with the the Calendar Data API, then you can get the creation and last-modified timestamps from any event in any of the calendars you're subscribed to.

20

You can locate the date created and date modified for an event by examining the .ics file for the calendar with a text editor. Download the .ics file for your calendar from calendar.google.com > Settings > Import & Export> Export

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9

Web version of the Calendar API is probably the easiest:

  1. Get the event ID for the calendar event
    1. Edit the event in Google Calendar
    2. Copy the last part of URL (after the last "/") from the address bar (for example, from this URL https://calendar.google.com/calendar/r/eventedit/NGh0Z3BtbTFobWFrNzQ0cjBrYmtkY29kYXIgZXVndTlrYW4xZGRpMXBtaTZzazNpYjWoNmdAZw you copy NGh0Z3BtbTFobWFrNzQ0cjBrYmtkY29kYXIgZXVndTlrYW4xZGRpMXBtaTZzazNpYjWoNmdAZw
    3. Decode that from base64 format (this tool works: https://www.base64decode.org/)
    4. The first part (before the space) is your event ID
  2. Use the Calendar API (https://developers.google.com/apis-explorer/#p/calendar/v3/calendar.events.get) with primary in the calendarId field and your event ID in the eventId field. If the calendar in question is not the primary calendar for the account, get the calendarId from the Settings page for the calendar
  3. The "created" field has the date/time for when the event was added
4

The date published flag is the answer. The quick and dirty way to get the info is to enter

https://www.google.com/calendar/feeds/[username]@gmail.com/private/full

and do a Ctrl+F to find the event you need. The date published flag is only a couple of tags back.

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  • 14
    I get 403 Forbidden, in another tab in the same browser where I have Google Calendar open with that account
    – golimar
    Feb 23, 2017 at 8:58
3

You can now do this without writing any code by using the web version of the calendar API: https://developers.google.com/apis-explorer/#p/calendar/v3/calendar.events.get

  1. Go to the calendar event in question in "edit" view.
  2. Go to "More Actions" and then "Troubleshooting Info".
  3. Copy the event ID (eid=...).
    • Note: for a recurring event, remove the _[date]Z suffix.
  4. Go to https://developers.google.com/apis-explorer/#p/calendar/v3/calendar.events.get, enter "primary" calendarId" and use that ID for eventId.

The result will include a "created" and "updated" section.

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1

If you have another email address, add that to the event and send the invite. This will create the .ics file. Open the .ics file on any text editor and search for "CREATED:".

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Sounds like you need to detect a "date created" flag of some kind. I see a "date published" flag in the Calendar API docs, referring to the .xml format of calender entries. I would go and examine the developer API docs.

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