Getting Google Contacts birthdays into Calendar

bolish

Hi,

For those interested in below issue solving :

Google Contact birth calendar doesn’t offer .ics so it’s impossible to get it automatically into MM calendar
I’ve wrote a quick google script that you can use as below :

1/ Create an empty personnal “birthday calendar” into Google Agenda (remind the ID of the calendar into calendar parameters for later)

2/ Create a new google script which you can store into your Google drive

3/ Paste below code into the script :

function Sync_Birth_Cal() {

  // Calendars adress (ID)
  
  var calendarSource = CalendarApp.getCalendarById("THE ID OF YOUR CONTACT CALENDAR");
  var calendarDestination = CalendarApp.getCalendarById("THE ID OF THE CREATED CALENDAR");
  
  // Start and End Date definition
  
  var Today = new Date();
  var StartDeleteDate = new Date();
  var EndDeleteDate = new Date();
  var StartCopyDate = new Date();
  var EndCopyDate = new Date();
  
  StartDeleteDate.setDate(Today.getDate()-400); 
  EndDeleteDate.setDate(Today.getDate()+400);
  StartCopyDate.setDate(Today.getDate()-360);
  EndCopyDate.setDate(Today.getDate()+360);
 
  
  // first deletes all datas in calendar
  
  
  var eventToDelete = calendarDestination.getEvents(StartDeleteDate, EndDeleteDate);
  
   for (var i = 0; i < eventToDelete.length; i++) {  
    eventToDelete[i].deleteEvent();
    }  


  // then copy everything again
  
  var eventToCopy = calendarSource.getEvents(StartCopyDate, EndCopyDate);

  for (var t in eventToCopy){
    var newEvent = calendarDestination.createEvent(eventToCopy[t].getTitle(), eventToCopy[t].getStartTime(), eventToCopy[t].getEndTime());
  }
  
}

4/ Into Google script, Edit, Add trigger (choose the one you want, I personally choose to launch that one every 2 hours, but you can do whatever you want)

5/ You can know use the .ics path of the newly created calendar into your MM calendar

NOTE : it’s the first time I write that kind of stuff. It works for me until now, but there could be some bugs also. Let’s see.

NOTE 2 : be careful… part of the script is deleting calendars events on purpose… So don’t mess up…If needed, back up before.

Regards

MwMagicMirror

@bolish said in Getting Google Contacts birthdays into Calendar:

function Sync_Birth_Cal() {

// Calendars adress (ID)

var calendarSource = CalendarApp.getCalendarById(“THE ID OF YOUR CONTACT CALENDAR”);
var calendarDestination = CalendarApp.getCalendarById(“THE ID OF THE CREATED CALENDAR”);

// Start and End Date definition

var Today = new Date();
var StartDeleteDate = new Date();
var EndDeleteDate = new Date();
var StartCopyDate = new Date();
var EndCopyDate = new Date();

StartDeleteDate.setDate(Today.getDate()-400);
EndDeleteDate.setDate(Today.getDate()+400);
StartCopyDate.setDate(Today.getDate()-360);
EndCopyDate.setDate(Today.getDate()+360);

// first deletes all datas in calendar

var eventToDelete = calendarDestination.getEvents(StartDeleteDate, EndDeleteDate);

for (var i = 0; i < eventToDelete.length; i++) {
eventToDelete[i].deleteEvent();
}

// then copy everything again

var eventToCopy = calendarSource.getEvents(StartCopyDate, EndCopyDate);

for (var t in eventToCopy){
var newEvent = calendarDestination.createEvent(eventToCopy[t].getTitle(), eventToCopy[t].getStartTime(), eventToCopy[t].getEndTime());
}

}

I get this error when I try to run the script:

TypeError: Cannot call method “getEvents” of null. (line 25, file “Code”)

I got that sorted, forgot the 2 IDs.
Now I get:
Service invoked too many times in a short time: calendar. Try Utilities.sleep(1000) between calls. (line 37, file “Code”)

MW

bolish

Hi @MwMagicMirror ,

I didn’t got this specific error on my side but I got another one :

Mine was “too much invokes for one day” : I reduce the “every 2 hours triggers” to once a day + modified the time range from +/-400 to something less (copying before today date was useless)

For your error, indeed, I’ve read somewhere on google that implementing a “sleep timer” between invokes could solve it.

I just tried that and it works on my side (I don’t know if it will solve your issue as I don’t got the same) :

function Sync_Birth_Cal() {

  // Calendars adress (ID)
  
  var calendarSource = CalendarApp.getCalendarById("ID1");
  var calendarDestination = CalendarApp.getCalendarById("ID2");
  
  // Start and End Date definition
  
  var Today = new Date();
  var StartDeleteDate = new Date();
  var EndDeleteDate = new Date();
  var StartCopyDate = new Date();
  var EndCopyDate = new Date();
  
  StartDeleteDate.setDate(Today.getDate()-10);
  EndDeleteDate.setDate(Today.getDate()+70);
  StartCopyDate.setDate(Today.getDate()-2);
  EndCopyDate.setDate(Today.getDate()+60);
 
  
  // first deletes all datas in calendar
  
  
  var eventToDelete = calendarDestination.getEvents(StartDeleteDate, EndDeleteDate);
  
   for (var i = 0; i < eventToDelete.length; i++) {  
    eventToDelete[i].deleteEvent();
     Utilities.sleep(1000); /// add a timer
    }  


  // then copy everything again
  
  var eventToCopy = calendarSource.getEvents(StartCopyDate, EndCopyDate);

  for (var t in eventToCopy){
    var newEvent = calendarDestination.createEvent(eventToCopy[t].getTitle(), eventToCopy[t].getStartTime(), eventToCopy[t].getEndTime());
    Utilities.sleep(1000); // add a timer
  }
  
}

MwMagicMirror

@bolish
That got it for me, you did have the eventToDelete[i].deleteEvent(); outside the for loop, anyway its working like it should now.

tyvm

MW

bolish

@MwMagicMirror Happy it helped someone!!
What do you mean by “was outside the loop”? Can you please show me the mistake?
Tx

MwMagicMirror

for (var i = 0; i < eventToDelete.length; i++) {
}
eventToDelete[i].deleteEvent();

Thats what I noticed, anyway its all good, dont see that issue in any code now.
Also I noticed that my birthday calendar has all my appointments and such. I see the logic is basically copying my main calendar into the birthday calendar. I manually delete everything out of my birthday calendar except for the birthdays, all is good…until…the script runs again then I back to having everything in my birthday calendar.

MW