Can I create a Google Calendar event that repeats at every 1st, 3rd and 5th Friday in the month?

Question

Is it possible to create an event that repeats at every 1st, 3rd and 5th Friday in the month in Google calendar?

Answer 1

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: In the left-hand list of "My Calendars", click "Settings", then "Import Calendar" link. You can then move the event over to any other calendar if you'd like, but you won't be able to edit it from Google Calendar, aside from deleting it and reimporting.

If this helps, you may wish to read more about the flexibility offered by custom recurrence rules in the iCalendar specification.

Answer 2

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.

Answer 3

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!

Answer 4

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.

Answer 5

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.

Answer 6

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".

Answer 7

Try Quick Add and type something like 8:30-10:30 Swimming every 5th sunday of every month.

Answer 8

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.