Import TimeTree, Google Calendar, Outlook & Apple Calendar into Famora

TimeTree, Google Calendar, Outlook, or Apple Calendar — most families already have a digital calendar before they discover Famora, full of years of birthdays, daycare dates, and club schedules that shouldn't get lost in a switch. The good news: you don't have to start from zero. Famora can take over your existing events — once, or as an ongoing subscription — and if you want to keep using your old app alongside it, you can give it a look at your Famora calendar too. Here's exactly how that works, including the one limit that ends up mattering most to families.

Import or subscribe — what's the difference?

Famora offers two very different ways to bring in someone else's calendar, and which one fits depends on whether the old calendar still keeps changing:

• Import a calendar file: one-time, from an .ics file. The events become ordinary Famora events — editable, assignable to a person, with your own reminders.
• Subscribe to a calendar: ongoing, via an address instead of a file. Famora fetches the events automatically on a regular schedule and shows them as their own colour-coded layer next to your family calendar — but for viewing only, not editable.

For a one-time move — "we're switching to Famora for good" — importing is the right choice. For a calendar that keeps changing, like a sports club's training schedule or a daycare calendar, subscribing is more practical, since you won't have to re-import it every week.

Step 1: export your events from TimeTree, Google Calendar, Outlook or Apple Calendar

All four apps can hand your events over as an .ics file — the standard format for calendar data that every calendar app understands. Usually you'll find it under a setting like "Export calendar" or "Share calendar": in TimeTree, for instance, under Settings → Export calendar. Google Calendar, Outlook and Apple Calendar often give you an address instead of a file — a "secret address in iCal format" for Google Calendar, "Publish calendar" in Outlook, "Share Calendar → Public Calendar" in Apple Calendar. Either a file or an address works for the next steps. Exactly where that menu item sits shifts a little with app updates from time to time — if you can't find it, check the sharing or export settings of your particular calendar.

Step 2: import the calendar file into Famora

Once you have an .ics file, go to Calendar → Import calendar in Famora and choose the file. Famora reads it and shows you a preview first: title, date, location — and flags events you already have as duplicates. You pick what to bring over and confirm. Only then are the events created, as completely ordinary Famora events: you can edit them, assign them to a person, and set your own reminders. On purpose, no imported event gets an automatic reminder — for a school-year calendar with a hundred entries, that would be a flood of notifications. You decide yourself which events deserve a reminder. Import is available on every plan, including Basis.

Step 3: subscribe to a calendar on an ongoing basis

For events that keep changing, a subscription is more practical than importing again and again. Under Calendar → External calendars → Add, paste the address you copied in step 1 — say, Google Calendar's secret iCal address, or the published link from Outlook. Famora fetches that address right away, then automatically about every six hours after that, so new events on the other side reach you too. A sync button also lets you refresh by hand, at most once a minute. How many external calendars a family can subscribe to at once depends on the plan: one on Basis, three on Family, five on Premium, and ten on Assistant.

And the other way round: seeing Famora events in Google Calendar, Outlook or Apple Calendar

If Famora should stay your main calendar, but your old app should still show the family's events, it works the other way too: under Calendar → Subscribe to calendar, you'll find your personal calendar link. It shows the whole family calendar, so treat it with the same care as a password. Paste this link into Google Calendar under "Other calendars" → From URL, into Outlook under Add calendar → Subscribe from web, or into Apple Calendar under File → New Calendar Subscription. That app then fetches the link on its own schedule afterwards — Famora doesn't decide that, the calendar provider does, and sometimes it's only a few times a day. If someone loses their device, or access should end, generate a new link under the same menu in Famora — the old one stops working immediately.

This is not two-way sync

Everything above still comes with one important point, and we'd rather say it once too often than not enough: Famora does not sync calendars live in both directions. An imported event becomes a completely ordinary Famora event afterwards — change it later in TimeTree or Google Calendar, and Famora never finds out. A subscribed external calendar stays a pure display: you can't edit its events, assign them to anyone, or set a Famora reminder for them; if the event changes in the original app, Famora simply picks that up at its next automatic refresh. And the link you hand to Google Calendar, Outlook or Apple Calendar runs in one direction only: what shows up there comes from Famora — never the other way round. So create each event where you actually want to be able to edit it.

Which way fits you?

• You're switching to Famora for good and won't need the old app afterwards → import a calendar file, once.
• You want to keep a calendar that keeps changing — a club, daycare, a shared family calendar → subscribe to a calendar.
• Famora should be your main calendar, but stay visible in Google Calendar, Outlook or Apple Calendar → hand out your personal link under Subscribe to calendar.

You'll find more background on all three ways on our sync your calendar page.

👉 Try it with your own calendar — an .ics file from TimeTree, Google Calendar, Outlook or Apple Calendar is usually exported and imported into Famora in just a few minutes. 💚