How to sync a password-protected ICS feed to Google Calendar

Updated 14 October 2026

Your schedule comes as a calendar feed — an .ics or iCal link — but the link asks for a username and password. Google Calendar's Add calendar → From URL will not take it. Here is why, and what works.

Why "From URL" fails

When you add a calendar from a URL, it is Google's servers that fetch the link, not your phone or your browser. They fetch it without signing in to anything, so the link has to open for anyone who has it. A feed behind a username and password answers Google with "not authorised", and the calendar either refuses to add or sits empty.

Even for a public link the copy is slow: Google's help says changes "might take up to 12 hours" to show, and there is no way to ask for a refresh.

The usual workarounds, and what they cost

• Putting the password in the link (https://name:password@...). Google generally rejects such links, and where one is accepted your password is now stored in the address on Google's side.
• Asking for a public link. If your employer or service offers a private link with a long random token in it, that works with Google. Many do not offer one, and a link like that is a password anyone can forward.
• Importing the file by hand. Import takes a one-time copy. It never updates, and importing again creates duplicates.
• Running your own relay on a server that signs in and republishes the feed publicly. It works, and it means your work schedule and its password now live on a server you have to keep secure.

A way that keeps the password on your computer

PortalCal is a small app for Windows and Mac. Instead of asking Google to fetch the feed, it fetches the feed itself, from your own computer, signing in with the username and password you give it. Then it writes the events into a Google calendar it creates for the purpose, through Google's own calendar service — so they show up in Google Calendar on your phone like any other event.

• The password never leaves your computer except to go to the feed's own server. It is stored encrypted, and nothing is kept on a server of ours.
• Checked every five minutes, not every twelve hours.
• Only its own calendar. Google is asked for permission to manage calendars the app created and nothing else, so it cannot read or change your other calendars.
• It tells you when it stops, and it keeps events the feed has since dropped.
• Outlook too, if you want the same events there.

The trade is that a computer has to be on for it to run: it syncs while your PC or Mac is awake and catches up the moment it wakes.