Combine gmail calendars from two different addresses

[HCHTech]

Weird client request of the day: I have two separate gmail addresses, one is used as my main email and the other is where my calendar is. Can you move my calendar to the main email account so I can only have one address going forward?

Well, Gmail lets you export a calendar to an .ical file, but it doesn't let you control what is in that export. No "all items newer than 12 months", for example. The only choice is to export everything. In my first attempt, the .ical file was about 7.5 MB.

Next, you apparently cannot import an .ical file bigger than 1 MB. So that's a dead stop.

Next I tried using Google Takeout, thinking it might offer more options - and the short answer is no. The process is different, but the results are the same - can't export a portion of a calendar, only the whole thing.

Apparently the solution to this is the hand-edit the too-large .ical file in a text editor to delete the events you don't want so that the resulting file is less than 1MB and thus importable. Not too bad, but events look like this:

BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART:20260128T213000Z
DTEND:20260128T223000Z
DTSTAMP:20260319T163131Z
UID:000tqgr55j9ec1imrloddjdkeukvmw52pnq6g@google.com
CREATED:20260102T141546Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260122T185836Z
SEQUENCE:1
STATUS:CONFIRMED
SUMMARY:meet George - Cranberry
TRANSP:OPAQUE
END:VEVENT


I was all set to do this when I read about the gotcha of deleting any repeating events. Apparently deleting old events that are part of a current stream of repeating events will scramble/delete the current events, too. That's nice. Also, apparently if you delete any events with a status of "Cancelled", then that event will be active again in the resulting file. I'm used to the "Nothing is ever as easy as it seems" problem, but now I'm thinking I don't want to touch this because importing could ireversibly muck up the calendar he wants to be the survivor. Is there a better way?

 

[britechguy]

Weird client request of the day: I have two separate gmail addresses, one is used as my main email and the other is where my calendar is. Can you move my calendar to the main email account so I can only have one address going forward?

My question is why they need to move the calendar at all or get rid of the Google account with which it's associated?

In my main Google Account I have shared calendars from my business Google Account and my partner's Google Account and have edit permission for all of them.

They need never even use the Gmail address for the account where they want to use the calendar, and the calendar can appear in the Google Account that they want as "the central/only one."

 

[callthatgirl]

If you do it via Outlook GWSMO connector, it's easy.
Set up one account first, only download 1 gig of email, the full calendar will set up
Then export to a CSV and a PST
Then create another profile with the other Google account, rinse repeat
Import the calendar from the CSV, I have better results from PST tho.

This does not take as long as it sounds. I have done this many times and it works great.

 

[Diggs]

My question is why they need to move the calendar at all or get rid of the Google account with which it's associated?

Death of a business associate or owner is where I've run into it. They wanted to fold all the calendar dates, email, etc, into the son's account.

 

[britechguy]

@Diggs,

I understand the desired end result, but, to me, if access to the "other account" is possible then I'd just share out the calendar with full control to the person(s) who should have it as well as forwarding all email. Once that type of sharing is done, they are granted all access and all permissions on that calendar.

It's up to the person "now in charge" to handle the "you need to change your email address" part of the equation, as it always is when this situation arises.

 

[HCHTech]

This is a company rebranding, and the owner wants to simplify the infrastructure down to a single Gmail account - counting his "personal" gmail, there are 3 accounts currently. He wants to go down to 2. Based on the complexity that Google has set out for this process, it makes a lot of sense to pitch the "just grant access" path. This isn't Google Workspace, just regular old free gmail - I have tried to explain they should be on a paid service, but people are bullheaded (it takes one to know one, haha). That takes GWSMO off the table, unfortunately. I'll try to pitch that conversion again as part of this.

I swear, cheap clients are the worst. I'd dump him but he is lifetime buddies with a bigger firm that isn't so cheap and actually does what I recommend.

 

[britechguy]

@HCHTech

Now that you have clearly identified the ecosystem involved, the only way I'd go is the one where full calendar access is granted from the "retiring Google account" to the one that is to remain active and that vacation responder in that same retiring account is turned on with a canned message that the email address is no longer active and (if desired) giving the address that should be used instead.

There is nothing to be gained from doing anything else, and the end result is, for all practical intents and purposes, exactly what the client wants.

 

[callthatgirl]

For Gmail only, you could use Gsyncit and setup in Outlook with GWSMO and have a PST dedicated for the Gmail, then export and import into GWSMO lol. I find ways to get it done.