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ics files do not display in email recieved messages

  • 4 cavab
  • 1 has this problem
  • 23 views
  • Last reply by Matt

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Greetings, simply trying to get TB to display the calendar/ics files that are in emails in my inbox. details below...

I've searched and read various posts about ics / calendar files in received emails. but haven't found any solution yet.

any suggestions greatly appreciated. unfortunately if i can't get TB to display calendar files, i won't be able to use it. thank you- jeffery

-- details below

in TB, i can see the email source: Content-Type: text/calendar; charset="utf-8"; method=REQUEST Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64 so the attachments are definitely in the email body... but TB doesn't show any attachment for this in the message...

i've looked thru all the TB preference panes, settings, etc. tried different display options for the message window... but haven't found a way to get TB to display the calendar attachment.

i found the calendar module in TB and experimented with it. but i think it is dreadful and still doesn't show me a file i can import to my 3rd party calendar client... so disabled those calendar interfaces to try to get the calendar attachment in the mail body... i've never liked and don't use calendar extensions in mail programs. and want to continue to use the 3rd party calendar programs that work best for me. i hadn't used TB for about a year. i remember the old versions of TB would show the calendar attachments. so it used to work...

i receive a lot of emails with calendar invitations for work. most from outrage (aka outlook)... am trying to migrate from apples's mailapp. apple's mailapp displays ics files fine for all the years i've used it. i use a 3rd party calendar client that works perfectly. i normally drag/drop to import invitations i want to have in my calendar. it has been the most reliable calendar client over the years.

i've installed the current version of thunderbird. TB 91.4.0. MacOS 10.15.7...

Greetings, simply trying to get TB to display the calendar/ics files that are in emails in my inbox. details below... I've searched and read various posts about ics / calendar files in received emails. but haven't found any solution yet. any suggestions greatly appreciated. unfortunately if i can't get TB to display calendar files, i won't be able to use it. thank you- jeffery -- details below in TB, i can see the email source: Content-Type: text/calendar; charset="utf-8"; method=REQUEST Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64 so the attachments are definitely in the email body... but TB doesn't show any attachment for this in the message... i've looked thru all the TB preference panes, settings, etc. tried different display options for the message window... but haven't found a way to get TB to display the calendar attachment. i found the calendar module in TB and experimented with it. but i think it is dreadful and still doesn't show me a file i can import to my 3rd party calendar client... so disabled those calendar interfaces to try to get the calendar attachment in the mail body... i've never liked and don't use calendar extensions in mail programs. and want to continue to use the 3rd party calendar programs that work best for me. i hadn't used TB for about a year. i remember the old versions of TB would show the calendar attachments. so it used to work... i receive a lot of emails with calendar invitations for work. most from outrage (aka outlook)... am trying to migrate from apples's mailapp. apple's mailapp displays ics files fine for all the years i've used it. i use a 3rd party calendar client that works perfectly. i normally drag/drop to import invitations i want to have in my calendar. it has been the most reliable calendar client over the years. i've installed the current version of thunderbird. TB 91.4.0. MacOS 10.15.7...

All Replies (4)

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Thunderbird displays action buttons for ICS files to add the item accept etc. to manage the attachment and manage the information in the calendar. SO I guess you will have to try another mail client, or use Thunderbird's calendar.

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Matt, thank you for your reply! i appreciate your help!

anyway, trying your suggestion to use the bundled calendar client... am looking for the account settings in thunderbird to specify the calendar server. i don't find any entry for a calendar server. i see only the following: add mail, add chat, add feed, add other. when i try "add other", it seems to show only newsgroup. so i don't see a way to add the server information for one of the calendars servers i need to connect to.


if someone has any suggestions for adding a calendar server connection, i'd really appreciate it. am trying to add a calendar server at work an not a public site... i've searched the webpage help for setting up new accounts. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/manual-account-configuration https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/automatic-account-configuration don't see anything about setting up calendar accounts there.

too bad that developers decided not to display the ics attachment. seems like it would not have been hard to show the ics attachment even if you want to use the bundled calendar client... is there a way to suggest/request this option from the developers? i'm sure this leads to a lot of problems. the calendar notices i receive people often have syntax errors from their server. i've had to try different calendar clients until i found some that handle most of the ics files. but occasionally there are still ICS files that no calendar software can seem to parse... either stand alone client, or just trying to import it via gmail web interface...

thank you! jeffery

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Calendars from providers that support CalDAV can be added starting from File/New/Calendar...On the Network. Enter the Username, which is usually an email address, and the CalDAV URL in the Location box. With Google calendars, it's sufficient to enter the gmail address, as the calendar location is autodetected. In that case, the setup proceeds to the OAuth authentication, which requires that cookies be accepted in TB Preferences.

Network calendars from other providers, including ones that support Exchange ActiveSync, can be added with the TbSync and related add-ons. TbSync also handles contact syncing, although this is also supported in TB through CardDAV in Address Book.

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am trying to add a calendar server at work an not a public site...

The issue is in getting the caldav URL for the internal server. If you have an IT group ask them if the server supports caldav and what the URL is. That is the simple solution. It is not quite so simple if they only support Microsoft exchange in it's various forms. But not impossible .