Importing Calendar Files

Your calendar says where your time went: meetings, classes, appointments. Kaizora imports calendar files in the iCalendar format (.ics), which every major calendar app can export. Exporting is done on a computer: the phone apps for Google Calendar, Apple Calendar, and Outlook can’t export a calendar.

Google Calendar

On a computer, at calendar.google.com:

• One calendar: under My calendars on the left, point to the calendar, select More (the three dots), then Settings and sharing. Under Calendar settings, select Export calendar. An .ics file downloads.
• Every calendar: select Settings (the gear at the top right), then Import & export on the left, then Export. A ZIP file downloads, with one .ics file per calendar. Unzip it and import each calendar you want on its own.

You can only export a calendar you have permission to make changes to and manage sharing for. A work or school account’s administrator may have turned export off.

Apple Calendar

On a Mac, in the Calendar app:

1. Select the calendar in the calendar list. If you don’t see the list, choose View › Show Calendar List.
2. Choose File › Export › Export.
3. Choose where to save it and select Export. The file is an .ics file.

File › Export › Calendar Archive makes a .icbu archive of every calendar, which only Apple Calendar can read; Kaizora needs the .ics file of each calendar. The Calendar app on an iPhone or iPad has no export, so use a Mac.

Outlook

• Classic Outlook for Windows: open the Calendar, select the calendar, then choose File › Save Calendar. Before saving, select More Options: set Date Range to Whole calendar (or the dates you want) and Detail to Full details, then OK and Save. With the default options, the file holds only some of your events, or only when you were busy.
• New Outlook and Outlook on the web: neither can save a calendar as a file. Instead, publish it: in Outlook on the web, open Settings › Calendar › Shared calendars, and under Publish a calendar, choose the calendar and Can view all details, then Publish. Open the ICS link it gives in your browser to download the file. Anyone with that link can see your calendar, so once you have the file, select Unpublish.

A whole calendar of several years can take a while to save.

Import It

1. Open Data Sources, from the account menu at the bottom of the sidebar.
2. Under Imports, find Calendar File and choose Import from file.
3. Under File, choose the .ics file.
4. Check the Time Zone. Most events carry their own time zone; it’s used only for an event whose time has none, yours by default.
5. Select Import.

Import each .ics file on its own; they all belong to one source, Calendar File, whichever app they came from.

What Comes In

Each timed event becomes a calendar event on your Activities page, with its title, start, and end. Their time adds up as Calendar Event Time, a time-use metric that is kept apart from exercise, so a two-hour meeting never counts as a workout.

• Repeating events are expanded: each occurrence is its own event. A series with no end stops at the last event in the file. Occurrences you skipped, moved, renamed, or cancelled are respected.
• All-day events are left out, since they aren’t time spent; so are cancelled events and events with no length.

Importing a newer export of the same calendar updates the events you already have. An event you’ve deleted from your calendar stays in Kaizora; to remove it, delete the Calendar File source’s data and import your calendars again. See Delete What a Source Brought In.

Tracking Your Own Time

To track time as you spend it, use the timer in the app’s header: start it with a title, such as “Writing”, and stop it when you’re done. Each one is saved as tracked time on the Activities page. See Track Time With the Timer.