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So I currently use Thunderbird with Lightning and have imported several ICS files there on my Windows system (more details on how I did this here). This works great. But for Android there does not seem to be a simple app for this.

To sum up: overall I already have Dropbox for syncing. So I would just need a app that let me choose the ICS files and let me use it just like in Thunderbird. I already tested 20 apps. None was able to do my task so far.

I also don't need just an import app for ICS files. Because then the Dropbox wouldn't sync anymore for sure and I would have trouble on my Windows system. So just an editor that accesses ICS files would be perfect. As I have currently 7 ICS files, it would be great if the app would show them together like Thunderbird does.

By the way I already tried to open an ICS file with the Android Calendar app and it actually showed me an event. But I was not able to show all and the behaviour was very strange.

Update from the comments

  1. I found ICSDroid which allowed me to add ICS files from Dropbox correctly
  2. these Calendars where correctly added to the Calendar system
  3. the problem is that they are not added to "My Calendars", instead they are added to an external list, which is read-only!
  4. also the Sync is kind of broken on these calendars, updates in thunderbird are not shown on my Android calendar apps (I tried the normal, aCalendar, Planner Plus)
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    BTW: Be welcome to check with my list of Calendar Tools. ICSdroid seems to fit your description: "ICSdroid allows you to add/subscribe and manage external (web) and local (i.e. Dropbox, adb push etc) iCalendar/ics files on your Android device." If you can confirm this, feel free to flag a mod to have your question migrated to SR, so I will setup an answer there.
    – Izzy
    Jan 30, 2016 at 13:10
  • Well it's not free. Before buying and it does not maybe not work, you might know some others that are for free? And sure if this question does now fit here, move it. Maybe it's also possible without an app, so I changed the title :)
    – kwoxer
    Jan 30, 2016 at 13:44
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    I've never been in need of that, so I didn't check for this specific feature. But besides: If you look up that app in my list (which I linked), you might note it's available for free from F-Droid (from the list, you could even download the .apk directly to try it out).
    – Izzy
    Jan 30, 2016 at 13:51
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    I've no idea with that part, sorry. ICS files are plain ASCII – but editing them with a text editor might not be convenient (nor recommended if you don't know what you do). They are thought as a format to exchange informations rather than to be edited directly. The preferred way is editing the events within your calendar app, and then export that calendar again to .ics.
    – Izzy
    Jan 30, 2016 at 14:12
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    Alright my friend, gonna do that tomorrow. Thanks.
    – kwoxer
    Jan 30, 2016 at 14:35

1 Answer 1

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I now solved with installing ownCloud on my server. It was not difficult and is easy to setup. Also it gives the possibility to enable even more features.

So in Thunderbird I just add the online calendar URL to the specific calendar. That's it. The only bad thing is that Thunderbird(Lightning) does not get the colors from the server. So you have to set them manually.

And on Android you need a special app like CalDAV which is really cheap and as well easy to setup.

Now you can use any calendar app like the of your Android. Planner Plus or aCalendar. This is totally up to you. I really like Planner Plus somehow.

For me this is a really good solution. Synching is working perfectly even with different users on it at the same time. You can also manage the rights the users have in your ownCloud which was impossible with the row ics Dropbox solution.

I also use the Tasks app of ownCloud, what is called the app OpenTasks under Android, which makes it pretty easy also to use tasks on Android.

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