Microsoft deprecating subscribed .ics / iCal calendars

So apparently Microsoft is deprecating subscribed .ics / iCal calendars from outlook.com. This is actually the second Microsoft support person to tell me this over the past month as I’ve been trying to get support for 2 subscribed .ics calendars that aren’t syncing to my personal outlook.com calendar following the initial import, for example whenever the event organizers modify existing events or adds new events.

Not surprisingly, subscribed .ics calendars work completely fine in Google Calendar and interestingly they work even with my paid Microsoft 365 business account. Sure I can use my Microsoft 365 business account to subscribe to these, which actually isn’t ideal. But the bigger problem is for others in my family who rely on a number of these subscribed .ics calendars that they’re subscribed to for hobbies and sports activities that their coaches and team managers update constantly.

Has anyone seen an official statement about Microsoft removing subscribed calendar capability? Completely ridiculous if it’s in fact true! I hope Paul or Brad or someone can raise this with their contacts!

Conversation 11 comments

  • Chris_Kez

    Premium Member
    11 October, 2021 - 10:56 am

    <p>following</p>

    • artvandelay

      06 December, 2021 - 10:10 am

      <p>I have been looking for a solution to this for months, and I vaguely remember going through similar motions many months or years prior with no solution. I have never had outlook.com subscribed internet calendars sync reliably (I tried every trick on the internet). Google calendar updates just fine. </p><p><br></p><p>Microsoft’s support pages seem to indicate that it should work for personal accounts, but it doesn’t. If anyone knows of an open suport ticket we can jump on, please share. I can’t be bothered to contact Microcoft support myself because experience has shown me this is worthless. They need to hear from enough users before taking notice and fixing a problem.</p>

  • ourmaninny

    11 October, 2021 - 11:27 am

    <p>This would explain a lot. I’ve had a endless .ics subscription issues over the last few months in Outlook.com. Ended up with several janky workarounds which (hopefully) will keep working.</p>

    • johnny777

      11 October, 2021 - 2:14 pm

      <p>Please share the workarounds, clearly I’m not the only one seeing the issue. Just another terrible Microsoft experience for me — someone who is completely bought-in to the MSFT ecosystem, but for how much longer? </p>

  • dougkinzinger

    11 October, 2021 - 12:37 pm

    <p>I would believe it. To me, Microsoft could easily say Internet calendar subscriptions are reserved for business SKUs only. I would imagine far less than 1% of Outlook.com/Hotmail users would use Internet calendar subscriptions anyway.</p>

    • johnny777

      11 October, 2021 - 2:13 pm

      <p>Am I the only one who sees this as ridiculously short-sighted though if it’s true they’re removing functionality? It’s yet another example of something that doesn’t work for consumer Microsoft services if someone like myself is completely bought-in to the MSFT ecosystem. </p><p><br></p><p>I HATE Google, I truly do, but Microsoft really does make it difficult to stick around when it’s everyday things like this that are removed or don’t function properly. And piss poor zero communication about it. In fact https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/cff1429c-5af6-41ec-a5b4-74f2c278e98c shows it should function normal but as their support have told me and as we’re seeing from others here and on Microsoft forums, they’re clearly no longer supporting subscribed ics/ical calendars.</p>

  • dougkinzinger

    11 October, 2021 - 3:01 pm

    <p>Well, I think the answer to your question might be "yes." I doubt Microsoft wants to invest in maintaining support for a feature that likely only a handful of people would use, at least on the <em>consumer</em> side of Outlook. The <em>business</em> side of 365 is a different story.</p>

  • yoshi

    Premium Member
    11 October, 2021 - 3:25 pm

    <p>I subscribe to my daughter’s school calendar and noticed it no longer displays on Outlook.com. But on Google Calendar, no issues there. I guess this explains it. </p><p><br></p><p><br></p>

  • darkgrayknight

    Premium Member
    12 October, 2021 - 12:55 pm

    <p>Hmm, I’m still seeing internet calendar updates…</p>

    • johnny777

      13 October, 2021 - 1:18 am

      <p>It’s likely not an ics ical then where an event organizer modifies regularly. I’m not saying events don’t show up after initial subscription to the calendar, the issue is that updates to existing events and any new events added by the calendar owner will no longer appear. </p>

  • Chris_Kez

    Premium Member
    04 November, 2021 - 9:58 am

    <p>I just got a pop-up on Outlook.com calendar that my kids’ school calendars were no longer available, and told I should go to burbio dot com to create a feed there. I presume this is a result of changes the OP mentioned. If so, it is pretty lame. </p>

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