Import FB Birthdays into Pre

**Abyssul** · 10/10/2009, 11:23 PM

Requires:
-Facebook Account
-Gmail (or other compatible email sync)
-Common Sense

Visit http://s178844036.onlinehome.us/fbookbday/

If you have "remember me" enable in Facebook, the website will quickly provide a download link for you to download the .ics file If not, then log in.

Go to your corresponding email account and direct yourself to the calender section. For Gmail, you will want to "Settings" and then select the "Calenders" tab. Once you are there, click import calender and browse to the previously downloaded .ics file. Once it has parsed through your file, the birthdays should appear on your calender.

Tip by lastdetailwd:
Since this relies on a manual update frequency, it will be best if you import the Facebook birthday data onto a new calender. When you want to update, just delete the old calender and create a new one (while importing the new data). This will help get rid of duplicate entries.

On your Pre, sync your account to make sure they show up. Presto.

**licotto** · 10/11/2009, 10:17 AM

Dude! Awesome tip! Thanks a ton!!!

**Abyssul** · 10/11/2009, 10:46 AM

They show up as all-day events which is fine with me, but they are the only entries I have in the phone and I want to see any kind of icon or mark (of the birthday events) when I'm in month view in the Calender app. Any idea how to do this?

**RC46** · 10/11/2009, 10:52 AM

Google uses colors and not icons. What you should do is create a separate calendar called Birthdays then assign a special color to it. Then when you look at your Calendar using Agenda you can easily see which ones are the birthdays.

I realize this is not quite the solution you were looking for but it may work for some people.

**Abyssul** · 10/11/2009, 11:03 AM

Hmm... I'll look into it more. When you create a event in the Calender app, it shows a mark on the corresponding day in Month View.

**BDoG76** · 10/11/2009, 11:19 AM

Cant seem to figure this out for yahoo...

**Abyssul** · 10/11/2009, 11:23 AM

Originally Posted by BDoG76

Cant seem to figure this out for yahoo...

Well Yahoo isn't supported by WebOS unless you found a way to sync your Yahoo calender with the Pre.

**BDoG76** · 10/11/2009, 11:31 AM

no i haven't. maybe should have stated that in your first post, but thanks for the heads up.

**BDoG76** · 10/11/2009, 11:35 AM

I created a gmail account. thanks again for the tip!

**Abyssul** · 10/11/2009, 11:40 AM

"other compatible email sync" was listed in the requirements.

**Abyssul** · 10/11/2009, 11:54 AM

Seems like there is a patch by WebOS-Internals that solves my issue with All-Day events not showing up in Month View, but it is not currently compatible for 1.2.0+.

**bulls96** · 10/11/2009, 12:28 PM

great tip! thanks!

**gabe2gg** · 10/11/2009, 12:28 PM

I can't seem to do this from my pre. Desktop I presume?

**Abyssul** · 10/11/2009, 12:33 PM

I can't seem to do this from my pre. Desktop I presume?

Yep

**rmt5** · 10/11/2009, 02:48 PM

I love this idea and thanks for figuring it out. But my concern is that without a direct sync between facebook and google (this method just uploads a file), the birthdays of any new friends made will not be updated. And if you were to re-download the calendar file in the future for an updated list, uploading it to google would result in a doubling of most of the friends birthdays.

Can anyone brainstorm a way around this? Because this would be a *great* functionality to have.

**lastdetailwd** · 10/11/2009, 04:25 PM

Originally Posted by rmt5

I love this idea and thanks for figuring it out. But my concern is that without a direct sync between facebook and google (this method just uploads a file), the birthdays of any new friends made will not be updated. And if you were to re-download the calendar file in the future for an updated list, uploading it to google would result in a doubling of most of the friends birthdays.

Can anyone brainstorm a way around this? Because this would be a *great* functionality to have.

I created a new calendar called 'Birthdays'. That way, if you want to update it each month, just delete the calendar and re-import the new file you create into a new 'Birthdays' calendar.

**Abyssul** · 10/11/2009, 04:37 PM

Originally Posted by lastdetailwd

I created a new calendar called 'Birthdays'. That way, if you want to update it each month, just delete the calendar and re-import the new file you create into a new 'Birthdays' calendar.

Good idea.

**rmt5** · 10/11/2009, 04:39 PM

Awesome. Thanks!

**lastdetailwd** · 10/11/2009, 09:58 PM

I have added my 'Birthday' calendar. When I swipe day-to-day, it is VERY slow to load now. Anyone have any ideas why?

**jhoff80** · 10/11/2009, 10:06 PM

Why would you import the calendar manually every month? Just add a public calendar by url, and paste the .ics link in, and it should be updated as necessary automatically.

I've been doing the same thing myself for a long time using a different Facebook app: Birthday Exporter

Edit: Actually I'm mistaken, apparently it's not automatically updating, not even on Google. Never mind that... though that might be because the newest contact I added doesn't have the year listed or something, maybe it's not exporting properly.

But I think if you add by URL it should work and auto-update- it's been mostly working for other iCal URLs that I added.

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