---
id: ical
version: "14.1.0"
license: Apache-2.0
license_treatment: permissive
maintenance: active
---

# ical — Python iCalendar implementation (rfc 5545) with built-in recurring event support

License: permissive · Maintenance: active · Downloads: 123.3K/mo

## What it is and what it does

ical is a modern Python library for reading, creating, and manipulating iCalendar files (RFC 5545 format). It handles recurring events natively—automatically expanding them into individual occurrences when you iterate over a calendar's timeline—without requiring a separate companion library. The library provides a Pythonic API with direct attribute access (event.start, event.summary), input validation with clear error messages, and full type annotations.

You can parse .ics files from disk or fetch them from remote URLs (with optional async support), create calendars and events programmatically, write calendars back to .ics format, and manage calendar state through an application-level store API. It supports Python 3.11+ and is actively maintained. Home Assistant uses it to power its calendar integrations.

Use it for:

- Parse a calendar file and iterate over all events (including expanded recurring instances) in chronological order
- Fetch a remote calendar over HTTP and automatically expand recurring events without blocking
- Create a calendar programmatically with recurring events and write it to an .ics file
- Manage calendar state in an application, handling timezone conversions and editing individual recurring event instances
- Validate iCalendar input with clear error messages before processing

## Worth the install?

AI-flagged interpretation of the facts above — verify before relying.

Parse, create, and iterate over iCalendar (RFC 5545) files with built-in recurring event expansion, using a single unified API without needing companion libraries.

Yes. ical is actively maintained, has low install friction, carries a permissive license, and solves a real problem—handling recurring events natively without needing two separate libraries. It's production-ready (Development Status 5) and already used by Home Assistant. Install it if you need to work with iCalendar files and want a modern, unified API.

## Install

pip install ical
uv add ical
poetry add ical

## Installing ical

Before you install: Low install friction; pure Python wheel. Actively maintained with a release 5 days ago. Requires Python 3.11+. Three runtime dependencies (python-dateutil, tzdata, pydantic) are all stable and widely used.

License in practice: Apache-2.0 permissive license allows commercial and private use with minimal restrictions; suitable for most projects.

Quickstart:

from ical.calendar_stream import IcsCalendarStream

cal = IcsCalendarStream.calendar_from_ics(ics_content)
for event in cal.timeline:
    print(event.start, event.summary)

Requires Python 3.11 or later. Optional async support (for remote calendar fetching) requires the ical[async] extra, which adds aiohttp.

Verify before relying:

- Actual performance characteristics when handling large calendars with many recurring events
- Compatibility edge cases with non-standard or malformed iCalendar files in production use

## Package facts

- License: Apache-2.0 (permissive)
- Python support: supports_current
- Install friction: low
- Maintenance: active
- Downloads: 123.3K/month (top 15,000 on PyPI)
- Known vulnerabilities: none known

## Tags

icalendar parsing python, recurring events calendar, rfc 5545 implementation, ics file reader, calendar timeline expansion, calendar-scheduling, rfc-standards

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