Copying a Google Calendar from 2025 to 2026, part 3

In a couple of recent posts (here), I have been looking at how to export a Google Calendar as an .ics file, update it using Excel, and then reimport that data into a new .ics Google calendar; effectively duplicating all the events from one year into the next.

Of course it has turned out to be more complicated than I had hoped, but it does work after a fashion. I am hoping that I will find some hacks as I go to further smooth my path.

What I did to change the dates in Excel was  to create an Excel sheet with the following columns:

• A: Headings, a list to filter for "DTSTART" and "DTEND". In this column copied all my raw data from my exported .ics file, then deleted everything from the colon onwards (i.e. find and replace ":*")
• B: Course Name 2025, this column was a repeat of the raw data (to remain unchanged)
• C: Extracted date, trims the date in column D to eight characters. Uses the formula =LEFT(D3,8)
• D: Trim R/H, to filter for the date. Contains the formula =MID(B3,FIND(":",B3)+1,LEN(B3)-FIND("T",B3))
• E: Reorganised date, to create a readable date from column C. Uses the formula =DATE(LEFT(C3,4),MID(C3,5,2),RIGHT(C3,2)) with the date format  [$-en-NZ]dddd, d mmmm yyyy
• F: Course Name 2026, this column was a repeat of the raw data which I will change (and copy out and reimport)
• G: Extracted date, trims the date in column H to eight characters. Uses the formula =LEFT(H3,8)
• H: Trim R/H, to filter for the date. Contains the formula =MID(F3,FIND(":",F3)+1,LEN(F3)-FIND("T",F3))
• I: Actual date, to create a readable date from column G for double-checking. Uses the formula =DATE(LEFT(G3,4),MID(G3,5,2),RIGHT(G3,2)) with the date format  [$-en-NZ]dddd, d mmmm yyyy

After setting up, I (a) filtered column A to DT, (b) changed all years in column F from 2025 to 2026, (c) checked that the day for 2026 was the same day of the week for 2025 (moving the dates on manually at the moment), and (d) reimported the calendar.

Steps c and d took quite a while. But it worked. 

I am sure there are smarter ways of processing the data, but as a trial, this was effective. 

Sam