Getting started with MiCal

This takes about two minutes. You will join your group, connect your calendar and, if you like, put MiCal on your phone.

  1. You got an invite
  2. Your first few minutes
  3. Connect your calendars
  4. Put MiCal on your phone
  5. Shared schedule and tasks
  6. Calendar
  7. Clean up duplicates
  8. Remove the copies a sync flow made
  9. Use MiCal from Claude
  10. Questions or a bug

You got an invite

  1. Open the link in your invitation email.
  2. Choose Sign in with Google or Sign in with Microsoft. Pick whichever one holds your calendar.
  3. You land in the group. That is it.

If you sign in with a different email than the one the invitation went to, that is fine, as long as you came in through the invitation link. The invitation lasts 30 days.

Your first few minutes

The first time you open MiCal, a short welcome walks you through setup: what brought you here, your calendars, one next step (turning on sync, starting your family, or getting your booking link) and, if you like, connecting Claude. Skip any step. Close it and choose Finish setup on Home to carry on where you left off, on any device.

Connect your calendars

Open Calendars in the menu. If you have nothing connected yet you will see Connect Google, Connect Outlook and Add ICS feed. After that, use Connect an account at the top and choose one of these:

Then pick which of that account's calendars to bring in. To add a second account, for example a work Outlook next to your personal Google, choose Connect an account again. You can also use Choose calendars to import from the same menu to bring in more from an account you have already connected.

iCloud calendars are not supported yet. If you need one, share it as a public link from the Calendar app on your Apple device and add that link as an ICS feed. MiCal can read it but not change it.

Put MiCal on your phone

MiCal installs from your browser. There is nothing to download from an app store. It then opens full screen from your home screen like any other app.

iPhone and iPad

  1. Open www.mical.net in Safari and sign in first. On iOS 16.3 and earlier it has to be Safari. On iOS 16.4 and later, Chrome also works through its Share menu.
  2. Tap the Share button, the square with an arrow pointing up.
  3. Scroll down and tap Add to Home Screen.
  4. Tap Add.
  5. Open MiCal from your home screen.

If the app ever shows you as signed out right after you sign in with Google or Microsoft, close it and open it again. If it still says signed out, sign in once in Safari, then reopen MiCal from your home screen.

Android

  1. Open www.mical.net in Chrome and sign in.
  2. Either open Settings in MiCal and tap Install on the "Install MiCal on your phone" card, or tap Chrome's menu (the three dots) and choose Install app. Older versions of Chrome call it Add to Home screen.
  3. Open MiCal from your home screen.

MiCal needs an internet connection. Without one you will see a "You're offline" page until you are back online.

Shared schedule and tasks

Your group shows up in the left menu under its name, with Schedule, Tasks and Settings under it.

You decide what the group sees. In the group's Settings, under "My calendars in this group", choose Share a calendar and pick how much to show: full detail, free/busy only, or hidden. The Schedule page then lays everyone's next 14 days out together. Choose Subscribe there to see the same schedule in your phone's own calendar app.

Shared tasks work like a family to-do list. Add a task, give it a due day, assign it to someone, and tick it off when it is done. Tasks can repeat. Your own personal tasks are separate, under Tasks in the main menu, and nobody else sees them. Shared tasks need a paid plan on the group owner's side. If you are not the owner and a shared task will not save, ask the owner.

Group Settings is also where an owner or admin uses Invite to add more people.

Calendar

Calendar in the main menu shows your week as a grid, or one day at a time on a phone. Use the arrows to move between weeks and Today to come back. Tap one of your own events to open it.

To see the others, pick your group in the Group menu at the top. Each person gets a color, and tapping a name hides or shows them. Where someone shares only free/busy, you see striped "Busy" blocks. Someone who shares nothing is marked "not sharing". If a calendar will not load, its edge is striped and MiCal says so. That time is unknown, not free. On a phone, when more than three people are busy at once, they collapse into one block such as "4 busy". Tap it to see who. Choose Just me to go back to your own events.

With a group picked, green bands mark times when everyone is free between 8 am and 6 pm. Under the grid, Free for everyone lists the next few of them. Tap a band, or Ask the group, to fill in the Ask form on the group's Schedule tab for that time. Nothing is sent until you press Check. Only people who are shown and sharing are counted, and the line under the grid says who is left out. If someone's calendar will not load, MiCal does not guess: there are no green bands until it loads or you switch that person off. On a phone, a green dot under a day means everyone is free some time that day.

Clean up duplicates

If an old sync tool left copies on your calendar, such as a second "Team meeting (Clone)" at the same time, open the Calendars page and choose Find duplicates next to that calendar. MiCal lists what it found and what it would keep. It only compares events inside that one calendar, so the copies MiCal syncs into it from your other calendars are never touched. Leftover copies are ticked. Anything that only looks like a repeat is left unticked for you to check. Nothing is removed until you confirm.

Removed events stay under Recently removed for 7 days, and Restore puts one back. Restoring does not send invites again. If you restore a whole repeating series, single dates you had changed or canceled come back as regular ones. Invites from other people are never offered unless they are leftover copies.

Remove the copies a sync flow made

On the Sync flows page, choose Remove copies on a sync flow. MiCal counts the events that flow added in the past 365 days and the next 60 days, and removes them when you confirm. It removes only that flow's copies: your own events, copies from other flows or shared groups, and copies someone added guests to are never touched. The flow is turned off first so it doesn't add them back. If you turn it on again, it copies events again.

When you delete a sync flow that added copies, MiCal asks whether to remove them too. Delete flow only leaves them on your calendar, and MiCal can't remove them for you later. Removed copies stay under Recently removed on Connected calendars for 7 days. Undo the last sync only reverses the most recent sync, so use Remove copies to clear out everything a flow added.

Use MiCal from Claude

If you use Claude, you can connect it to MiCal and ask things like "when are we all free on Saturday?" or "add milk to the shopping list." You choose what it is allowed to do, and you can disconnect it any time. The steps are on the connect an AI assistant page.

Questions or a bug

Write to support@mical.net. If something looks broken, use the Report a bug button on the page and tell us what happened.