iCloud iCloud not invites not being received to google calendar

[TwoBytes]

I have a google calendar.

From any other account (outlook.com etc) sending an invite to my google calendar works as expected.
Sending from my iCloud account, the invites never reach my google calendar.

Any tips on troubleshooting this?

Thanks!

 

[conradolson]

I have hit the same issue. I am trying to move my Google calendar to my iCloud calendar.

I have managed to export/import all the events easily enough but after some testing I am struggling to get invites to work with some of my friends. After a lot of reading on the internet this seems to be an issue with people who have setup an Apple ID with their current e-mail address, but don't use it for their calendar. This is probably a lot of my friends, most of whom use Gmail/Hotmail/Yahoo addresses, but have probably owned an iPad or iPhone etc at some point in time.

I've read lots of resources that say that each of these users must individually log into their iCloud accounts and change the 'Receive event invitations as:' setting.

This is not a valid solution to my problem for three reasons:

1. I don't know who of my contacts this applies to. I have no way of knowing if they received my calendar invites or not.
2. My one friend who has been helping me with these tests can't log into her Apple ID account. She set it up years ago and when she tried to log in she was told that she got a message that she had to "Set up iCloud on a device to use iCloud.com and that that device must be in iOS or macOS device. She doesn't have an Apple devices any more so she can't access her Apple ID. This is an OUTRAGEOUS situation.
3. I don't want to have to tell all my contacts that they have to go an change a bunch of settings on their end because I am changing how I am doing something.

Other than Apple blanket changing the iCloud setting, so that everyone who doesn't use their iCloud account can get my calendar invites, the only solution I can see is for me to be able to force Apple calendar to send e-mail invites for every event I create. Is there a way to do this?

I am trying to move away from using Google as much as I can, and I enjoy using my Apple products but this is exactly the kind of situation that drive people crazy and makes them hate Apple.

Has anyone else got a solution to this problem that isn't something that each individual recipient has to do?

 

[TwoBytes]

Thanks for the post. This is new information to me.
I think raising this to some senior-level Apple support may shed some light on this (do post back if you get anything)

The only solution I have is don't use Apple because it didn't work! That's not really a solution you're looking for, but their design of this makes it so.

I hope there is an answer to this!

 

[conradolson]

Thanks for the post. This is new information to me.
I think raising this to some senior-level Apple support may shed some light on this (do post back if you get anything)

The only solution I have is don't use Apple because it didn't work! That's not really a solution you're looking for, but their design of this makes it so.

I hope there is an answer to this!

I would love to be able to escalate this to someone high up at Apple but I have no idea how to do this. I did put in a ticket at apple.com/feedback, but I the character limit on the form meant I couldn’t even fit everything I typed above.

One hacky solution I found I could do at my end was to include a “+invite“ into my friends Gmail address so the email address would be their_name+invite@gmail.com. You can add ‘+anything’ to a Gmail address and it still gets through. So this way Apple doesn’t match it to the Apple ID and sends an email invite.

This works for specific friends but it isn’t really a solution as I don’t know who needs it without asking every contact individually, and I have to add this second email address into my address book for it to show up in my calendar as an option.

I would love Apple to fix this but until then I’m looking for another solution that isn’t Google and that works.

 

[TwoBytes]

Have you tried phoning apple support? It sounds like the kind of thing they'd esculate.

 

[conradolson]

I will give that a go.

 

[conradolson]

Just spent 40 minutes on the phone with them. They listened very carefully, I got escalated once, and then told 'there's nothing you can do to fix this problem, I'll leave a note with your comment'

 

[TwoBytes]

Just thought i'd check in (this thread is hopefully helping others!)
What solution have you settled with?

 

[conradolson]

I haven't settled on a good solution yet. I was going to use the calendar system that comes with my domain name and e-mail address but for that to work properly I will have to ditch my Gmail address and commit to moving everything over, which I haven't had time to do yet.

But I don't think there is a way that I can use iCloud Calendar while this issue exists.

 

[TwoBytes]

That's a good idea! Then again having the system yourself has pros and cons... the con being then transferring that to another place if you have to may come with hassle.

As for me i was thinking of opening and outlook address and using that.
I was playing with gmail and it might be i've just missed it, I can't find a way to see if you can get calendar notifications there is an update to your appointment.


My predicament is i need to share a calendar with one person but any changes other other needs to be notified of.

 

[PhoenixDown]

Don't rule out this being a Google Calendar issue. I've had plenty of those too.

 

[conradolson]

It's not a Google issue. After some research and my own testing it boils down to iCloud not sending an e-mail notification if the email address that you entered to invite has at any point been used to create an AppleID.

My friends that haven't used their e-mail address for an AppleID get their invites, and if I modify the e-mail address for people who weren't getting the invites, the invites suddenly arrive. The problem is I have no idea who this would apply to outside of the testing I've done. And I don't want to have to create modified e-mail addresses for everyone. And then those modifications wouldn't work for people without Gmail addresses.

 

[NYCValkyrie]

Wanted to follow up on this thread to see if either of you have had any luck with this problem. I have this issue PLUS Outlook invites sent to my iCloud alias aren't showing up on my calendar after I accept. And for some reason when I do click accept, it sends out as my primary iCloud email, which I only use for login.

I am also trying to move to iCloud from gMail but nothing seems to work right.

 

[d686546s]

I've been trying to figure out all afternoon why my wife wouldn't get my calendar invite. Like yourselves I have been trying to move over to iCloud but this is beyond frustrating as the issue seems to persist.

Has anyone figured out a workable solution?

 

[TwoBytes]

The way I work:

1. Create a google calendar
2. subscribe to that calendar on your mac/phone
3. create a calendar appointment and move the appointment to that google calendar

Otherwise the only thing you can do is either sign up that Gmail as an iCloud address (haven't tried, could be problematic) OR a failsafe is just create a new email as an iCloud address and use this

 

[d686546s]

Hm, thanks. Well I might just end up keep using my Google calendar then. I don't know who at Apple thought this was a good idea.