Google Sheets to Live iCal Feed for Google, Apple & Outlook

Turn a Google Sheet into a live iCal calendar feed—instantly

This n8n workflow generates a token-protected iCalendar (.ics) feed from a Google Sheets events tab, so users can subscribe in Google Calendar, Apple Calendar, and Outlook using a live calendar URL.

What this workflow does

• Receives webhook requests for calendar.ics and checks the ?token= query parameter against a configured feed_token secret.
• Serves fast responses by using short-lived cached .ics output from workflow static data when the cache is still fresh.
• Reads events from Google Sheets (sheet tab name: events) when the cache is stale—while continuing gracefully even if the sheet read errors.
• Validates and normalizes events per row (e.g., all-day vs timed events, supported status values, and a past/future time window). Malformed or out-of-window entries are dropped.
• Renders an RFC 5545-compliant iCalendar response with correct escaping, CRLF line endings, and UTC timestamps. It can also add an optional “feed health” event.
• Fail-safe behavior: returns the last known good calendar if sheet read/render fails, and responds with 404/503 for unauthorized or unavailable requests.

Use cases

• Publish recurring and scheduled events from a team-maintained Google Sheet as a live calendar everyone can subscribe to.
• Keep calendar updates automated for Outlook and Apple Calendar without manually exporting .ics files.
• Run an internal event calendar for SaaS operations, support, or onboarding that stays synced via iCal.

Technical details

• Nodes / building blocks: webhook, if, set, code, sticky note, and Google Sheets read.
• Required sheet: a tab named events with headers such as uid, title, start_date, start_time, end_date, end_time, location, description, status, updated_at, and rrule.
• Security: configure a long random feed_token for ?token= access.