ClientHours

Recurring meetings in a calendar export

In short: An .ics file stores a repeating meeting once, with a rule like "every second Tuesday", plus its exceptions. This page expands the rule for your dates. An Outlook CSV has no rule, only the meetings Outlook wrote out.

Recurring meetings in a calendar export

.ics, .zip or Outlook CSV

An .ics file from Google Calendar, Apple Calendar or Outlook, Google's .zip of all calendars, or Outlook's calendar CSV. Several files at once are fine.

Your calendar stays on this device

The file is read and added up by this page, inside your browser. Nothing from it is uploaded. Your keyword table and rates are saved only in this browser.

No calendar export handy? or download the sample to look at it first.

The freelancer, clients and meetings in the sample are invented. It is read on this device, like your own file.

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What it does

  • Daily, weekly, monthly and yearly rules, with intervals, end dates and counts.
  • Weekday rules like the first Friday or the last weekday of the month.
  • Skipped dates (EXDATE), moved meetings and cancelled ones (RECURRENCE-ID).
  • Checked against every daily, weekly, monthly and yearly example printed in RFC 5545.

Export from Outlook (CSV)

  1. In classic Outlook for Windows: File, Open & Export, Import/Export.
  2. Choose Export to a file, then Comma Separated Values, then your Calendar folder.
  3. Outlook asks for a date range. Pick the period you bill for. Save, then drop the .csv here.

The CSV has no time zone, no declined status and no repeat rules. Each row is one meeting as it sat in your calendar. If repeating meetings look missing, export as .ics instead.

Export steps for the other apps

Export from Google Calendar

  1. Open Google Calendar on a computer (the phone app cannot export).
  2. For every calendar at once: click the gear icon, then Settings, then Import & export, then Export. A .zip downloads. Drop the .zip here as it is.
  3. For one calendar: under My calendars, point at the calendar, click the three dots, then Settings and sharing, then Export calendar. An .ics file downloads.

Work and school accounts can have export turned off by the admin. You need the "Make changes and manage sharing" permission on a calendar to export it.

Export from Outlook (.ics)

  1. In classic Outlook for Windows, open the calendar, then File, then Save Calendar.
  2. Click More Options. Set Date Range to the period you bill for, and Detail to Full details. "Availability only" leaves out the titles, so no client can be matched.
  3. Save. Drop the .ics file here.

The new Outlook and Outlook on the web do not always offer this. If yours does not, use the CSV export from classic Outlook, or publish the calendar and download its .ics link.

Export from Apple Calendar

  1. Open Calendar on your Mac. If the calendar list is hidden, choose View, then Show Calendar List.
  2. Click the calendar name in the list.
  3. Choose File, then Export, then Export. Save the .ics file and drop it here.

Apple exports one calendar at a time. The "Calendar Archive" (.icbu) option is a backup format this tool does not read. Drop several .ics files at once if your work sits in more than one calendar.

Limits

  • An event counts on the day it starts, in the time zone you pick. An event that runs past midnight is not split across two days.
  • All-day events are left out unless you set hours per all-day event. Then an event over several days gives one row per day, for the days inside your date range.
  • Declined meetings are left out only when you enter your own email address, and only for .ics files. The Outlook CSV has no declined, tentative or free status, so those tick boxes do nothing for it.
  • Client keywords match whole words, so "art" does not match "Party". A keyword with @ or a dot, like @acme.com, matches inside email addresses.
  • The "events shown as free" box leaves out events marked TRANSP:TRANSPARENT in the file. That this is what Google writes for events set to Free is not confirmed against a real Google export.
  • Repeat rules by the hour or minute, by week number, or by hour of the day are not expanded. Those series are listed as not counted. Calendar apps rarely write them.
  • A repeat that lands on a time skipped by a clock change (for example 2:30 on the night clocks go forward) is skipped, as the iCalendar standard says. Some calendar apps show it an hour later instead. The page names those dates.
  • "This and all later" changes written as RANGE=THISANDFUTURE are applied to the one meeting only, with a warning.
  • The Outlook CSV must have English column names. A CSV from a German, French or other localized Outlook is refused.
  • The Outlook CSV has no time zone. Its times are read as the wall-clock times of the computer that exported them.
  • Not tested against real exports of timed, repeating and declined events from Google, Apple or Outlook. The test files are built from the iCalendar standard and the vendors' help pages. Check the first timesheet against your calendar.
  • The Toggl Track, Harvest and Clockify import files follow those vendors' help pages and were not tested by importing into a real account.

Questions

A moved meeting shows on the new day. Is that right?
Yes. A moved meeting counts on the day and time it was moved to, with its new length. The original slot is removed.
Is my calendar uploaded anywhere?
No. The file is read by this page inside your browser. Nothing from it is sent to a server. You can disconnect from the internet after the page loads and it still works.
How is the client picked for each event?
From a keyword table you can edit. The first row whose keyword appears as a whole word in the event title, categories, location, or a guest's name sets the client; a keyword with @ or a dot, like @acme.com, matches inside email addresses. Suggestions come from guest email domains, categories and titles like "Acme: review". Your own domain is never suggested, and the table is filled in only once your email address is known. It is saved in your browser.
How are hours rounded?
Per event and always up: exact, to 6 minutes (0.1 hour), to 15 minutes, or to 30 minutes. With exact rounding each event counts in whole minutes and is shown as hours:minutes (0:20), and totals add the minutes before giving decimal hours, so three 20-minute calls are 1:00 = 1.00 hours. With 6, 15 or 30 minutes every row is already a whole number of hundredths, so the decimals add up.
Does it handle repeating meetings?
Yes for .ics files: daily, weekly, monthly and yearly repeats with every interval, end date, count, weekday rule (like the second Monday), skipped dates, moved meetings and cancelled meetings. The rules follow the iCalendar standard, RFC 5545.
Is it free?
Yes. There is no account and no payment. A Google .zip may unpack to at most 200 MB; other files are limited only by what your browser can hold.

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