Facebook events and iOS calendar

Tech Support
1

So apparently tomorrow, it will no longer be possible to link one’s added events on facebook to one’s personal calendar, like Calendar on iOS or iPadOS, or in my case Fantastical.

I have been using this feature for years. It’s great way to keep up on what I have marked as interesting and attending on Facebook and then have it visually appear in my personal calendar.

But as a far as I can make out, this stops tomorrow, unfortunately:
https://www.facebook.com/help/152652248136178?helpref=uf_permalink

Anyone else bummed by this?

2

Not sure if you’re getting a different page but when I follow that link I just get instructions on how to add Facebook events into my calendar. There’s no mention of the service coming to an end.

We have been getting notifications on Facebook that something was changing and had to refresh the calendar subscription URL to a new one as apparently the old one would cease to function in the near future.

I wonder if this is a regional thing, maybe they’re doing different things for different countries? I’m in UK for reference.

3

No I think you’re right. How did does one update that link on iOS or iPadOS with Fantastical?

4

I’m not a fantastical user so not sure on that one.

5

I’m not seeing anything that suggests this feature is going away, either (I’m in the US).

I use Fantastical — doesn’t it just automatically pull in the same data as Calendar does? I think it uses the same store of data. So, if you can add it to Calendar, it should appear in Fantastical.

What kind of file do you get when you “download the calendar file” as instructed by Facebook. Is it CalDAV? If so, that should still work (though you might need to download a new version of it if Facebook is changing their servers or something).

6

I’m only on iOS/iPadOS so my question is how do I add the new link that facebook provided to either Calendar or Fantastical? :blush:

7

If it’s an .ics file, you can email it to yourself. When you tap on it in Mail, it should open in Calendar and you will have the option to add it to one of your existing calendars. This works for a .ics file with a single event (I just tested it), and I believe multiple events can be contained in a single .ics file. However, this is a one-time import; I don’t think it will automatically update with new events.

For ongoing updates, you’d need to subscribe to the calendar feed. Try these steps from iMore:

Sorry I can’t be more specific, but I don’t use Facebook Events so I don’t know what kind of thing you will get when you “download the calendar file” as instructed by Facebook.

1 Like
8

Alright thanks. I have the new link. I’m just not sure if it has been added or not. I still see future events in there and today is the 15th so I guess it’s still working and I did something right along the way, just not sure what :blush: