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 send a calendar invite as an .ics attachment?
Put the addresses on the event, download the .ics, and attach it to an ordinary email: each guest becomes an ATTENDEE line carrying ROLE, PARTSTAT, and RSVP, and the recipient saves the event in one tap. What a downloaded file cannot do is collect answers, because RSVP tracking needs something that receives METHOD:REPLY mail. ICS Maker writes neither METHOD:REQUEST nor ORGANIZER on purpose: it has no mail server and no account, so claiming to be the organiser would be a lie the recipient's calendar could act on. To collect RSVPs, import the file into your own calendar and send the invitations from there.
What a guest list looks like in the file
Each person is one line. ATTENDEE;ROLE=REQ-PARTICIPANT;PARTSTAT=NEEDS-ACTION;RSVP=TRUE:mailto:ada@example.com says who is invited, that they are expected rather than optional, that they have not answered yet, and that an answer is wanted. A display name goes in a CN parameter if you add one by hand — ATTENDEE;CN=Ada Lovelace;… — and the address itself is always a mailto: URI, which is the one part parsers are strict about.
An event with guests is not the same as an invitation
A real invitation is a mail message: the calendar data is attached as text/calendar; method=REQUEST, the file carries a matching METHOD:REQUEST line and an ORGANIZER, and the recipient’s mail client turns it into accept and decline buttons that mail a METHOD:REPLY back. The whole exchange runs over email between two calendar servers.
This builder deliberately writes neither the method nor the organiser. It has no account, no mail server, and no idea who you are, so claiming to be the organiser of an event would be a lie the recipient’s calendar could act on. What you get is a plain event with its guest list intact — which is what you want for attaching, forwarding, or publishing.
So how do you actually invite people?
- Attach the file
- Download it and attach it to an ordinary email. Everyone gets an event they can save in one tap, and it survives being forwarded. Nobody can RSVP, so ask for replies in the message body.
- Import it, then invite from your calendar
- Open the file in your own calendar, which fills in every field and the guest list, then hit send. Your calendar is the organiser, so it sends proper invitations and tracks who accepted. This is the route when you need RSVPs.
- Send a link instead
- An add-to-calendar link prefills the event in the recipient’s own calendar with no download at all — better in a newsletter or on a page, though it carries no guest list.
Questions
- Will the people I add as invitees receive an email?
- Not from this page. It has no mail server and never sends anything — the addresses are written into the file as ATTENDEE lines and nothing more. Attach the file to an email yourself, or import it into your own calendar and let that send the invitations.
- What is the difference between METHOD:REQUEST and METHOD:PUBLISH?
- REQUEST means "you are invited, please reply", and belongs on a message a calendar system sends on an organiser’s behalf; the recipient’s client answers with METHOD:REPLY. PUBLISH means "here is an event, take it or leave it", which is what a file on a website or an attachment is. A file with no METHOD line at all is treated as publish by most readers, which is what this builder produces.
- Can I track who accepted?
- Not with a downloaded file. RSVP tracking needs something that receives replies — a calendar account or a server — and a static file has neither. PARTSTAT=NEEDS-ACTION on each attendee is a starting state, not a mailbox. Import the event into your own calendar and invite from there if you need the answers.
- How do I attach an .ics to a Gmail or Outlook message?
- Exactly like any other file: compose the message and attach the downloaded .ics. Both clients recognise the type and most recipients see an add-to-calendar prompt inline rather than a bare attachment. Gmail also lets you build an invitation directly from the compose window, which is the route to take if you want RSVPs.