Title, location, date and time, time zone, repeat, invitees, alerts, and notes — then download the .ics file or open it straight in your calendar. You can also paste a schedule or attach a document or photo to make several events at once.
How do I make an 'add to Google Calendar' link?
A Google Calendar link is an ordinary URL — calendar.google.com/calendar/render — carrying the title, times, location, and description as query parameters. Clicking it opens Google Calendar with the event already filled in, and nothing is stored on Google's side until the person presses save. ICS Maker builds that link from a form and produces the Outlook.com, Office 365, and Yahoo equivalents from the same event, plus the .ics file for the calendars that are none of the four. Nobody needs an ICS Maker account, because there are none; the recipient needs a Google account only to save the event into it.
What the link actually is
Google accepts an event as a URL: calendar.google.com/calendar/render with the title, times, location, and description as query parameters. Nothing is stored on Google’s side until the person clicks save, so the link works for anyone — they do not need to be the account that made it, and you do not need an account at all to build one.
The same event produces links for Outlook.com, Office 365, and Yahoo at the same time, and downloads as an .ics file for Apple Calendar, Thunderbird, and everything else. Pick whichever your audience uses; the event is identical in all of them.
Where a link beats a file
A link is better in an email, a newsletter, or a web page: one tap, no download, nothing to open. A file is better when the recipient’s calendar is not one of the four web services above, when the event must survive being forwarded, or when you want it saved somewhere permanent. Most invitations want both — a link for convenience and a file for the people whose calendar you cannot guess.
Questions
- Does the person clicking the link need a Google account?
- They need one to save the event, since it lands in their own calendar. The link itself is public and works for anyone; Google prompts them to sign in if they are not already.
- Can I put the link on a button on my site?
- Yes — it is an ordinary URL, so any anchor or button works. If you would rather let visitors build their own event, the whole builder embeds with one script tag.
- Will invitees I add get an invitation?
- Not from the link. Invitee addresses travel in the .ics file, and it is the calendar or mail client that sends invitations when the organiser saves the event. A prefilled Google link fills the fields; it does not send mail on your behalf.
- What happens to the time zone in a link?
- Google is told the zone explicitly when you pick one, so everyone sees the same instant. With no zone chosen, the event uses the clock time you typed, interpreted in whatever zone the person saving it lives in.