Importing birthdays from facebook to your Android Phone

[eZtaR]

I found my calendar was lacking birthdays so I recently imported all(some) of my facebook contacts' birthdays to my phone and I'd though I'd share the method i used here

1. Go to this facebook application called Birthday Exporter
2. Press 'Download iCal file' and save it somewhere you can find it again.
3. Now go to Google Calendar
4. Under the tab 'My Calendars'(to the left), press 'Create' and create a new calendar called Facebook Birthdays (or whatever you wish)
5. Now click Settings (upper right corner) > Calendars (under the title) > Import Calendar.
6. Now import the ics file from step two to the 'Facebook Birthdays' calendar, which imports all the birthdays as all-day events repeating each year.
7. Now you're free to either:

• Keep this calendar as an 'external' calendar which will show up on your phone calendar in a different color if you acces the MENU > More > My Calendars
• Select which birthdays you'd like to import into your personal calendar by clicking on them in the calendar and import to personal calendar, remembering to select yearly repeats (I chose this way as i only chose to keep about 20% of the birthdays it imported in my own personal calendar)

Hope you liked my guide, feel more than free to PM me if you have any questions/suggestions

/eZtaR over and out of nicotine

EDIT: The list bbcodes don't seem to work well on my browser :S

 

[cred05]

Cool, thanks!

 

[softwaretech]

That is pretty clever...

Thanks!

 

[admur]

Was wondering how to do this, surprised Android can't merge these in automatically, but this is a great work around!

Thanks!

HTC Hero on Orange
w/Modaco 2.2 F/W update

 

[BORIStheBLADE]

Nice work, I'll have to check it out when I get my phone.

 

[Ketan Jani]

Great , but now how to sync the hand held with Google ?

 

[admur]

Great , but now how to sync the hand held with Google ?

As long as your are logged into your google account of the Android phone, syncing will happen automatically in the background. Same with your main calendar, contacts & email (in Gmail acc)

It's pretty damn slick!

 

[keithwright]

Thanks a bunch for the easy to follow guide

.... works a treat!!!

 

[SuperHero]

Nice work, I'll have to check it out when I get my phone.

Ditto!

 

[desertbunny]

Thats pretty nice, thanks.

I got pretty used to my blackberry pulling in facebook birthdays into my contacts app, so that would be a feature i would miss. Glad to know theres an easy workaround.

 

[cwrig]

Great idea.

FYI, on Hero; you can let "HTC Sense" link your facebook friends with matching contacts. If you do this, the facebook birthdays show up in the hero's contacts. (as well as the facebook profile picture for the contact)

 

[bitxboi]

I thought that editing the 'birthday' info on Gmail contacts and then syncing with your phone would be enough to get you contacts' birthdays, but it doesn't seem to work. That, or it's just android's default interface not showing them

 

[subhramani]

Is it possible to import the email addresses of your Facebook contacts? I dont think just importing the photo and birthday is enough. Email is one of the most important things.

 

[Nemmy]

Thanks for this. Birthdays now imported

 

[lea8198]

I have done this too! Thanks so much.

 

[DiRty-DeCcAz]

Need some help plz, it only for some reason inported 4 of my FB contacts birthdays! I have heaps on FB but only 4 on calendar!


Dirty

 

[Buckeye Boy]

I found my calendar was lacking birthdays so I recently imported all(some) of my facebook contacts' birthdays to my phone and I'd though I'd share the method i used here

1. Go to this facebook application called Birthday Exporter
2. Press 'Download iCal file' and save it somewhere you can find it again.
3. Now go to Google Calendar
4. Under the tab 'My Calendars'(to the left), press 'Create' and create a new calendar called Facebook Birthdays (or whatever you wish)
5. Now click Settings (upper right corner) > Calendars (under the title) > Import Calendar.
6. Now import the ics file from step two to the 'Facebook Birthdays' calendar, which imports all the birthdays as all-day events repeating each year.
7. Now you're free to either:

• Keep this calendar as an 'external' calendar which will show up on your phone calendar in a different color if you acces the MENU > More > My Calendars
• Select which birthdays you'd like to import into your personal calendar by clicking on them in the calendar and import to personal calendar, remembering to select yearly repeats (I chose this way as i only chose to keep about 20% of the birthdays it imported in my own personal calendar)

Hope you liked my guide, feel more than free to PM me if you have any questions/suggestions

/eZtaR over and out of nicotine

EDIT: The list bbcodes don't seem to work well on my browser :S

im stuck on step 6. can you clarify importing the saved ics file?

 

[zentegrity]

When I download the iCal file, the downloaded .ics file only has 1 of my facebook friend's birthdays. 259 bytes.

I have more than 1 facebook friend I am pretty sure

 

[FoxtrotUniform]

This method gives me an error saying it can't process the .ics file. Instead I went to facebook events>Birthdays>Export events which produces the .ics directly from Facebook. This processed 0 events.

Double fail.

I'm pretty sure it's a problem on Facebook's end.

Edit: Opening the ical file shows it's not populating the file with any event data. Big surprise, but confirms Facebook isn't providing a proper iCal file. Also, I tried fbCal with zero luck either. Epic fails all around.

 

[david1215e]

I found my calendar was lacking birthdays so I recently imported all(some) of my facebook contacts' birthdays to my phone and I'd though I'd share the method i used here

1. Go to this facebook application called Birthday Exporter
2. Press 'Download iCal file' and save it somewhere you can find it again.
3. Now go to Google Calendar
4. Under the tab 'My Calendars'(to the left), press 'Create' and create a new calendar called Facebook Birthdays (or whatever you wish)
5. Now click Settings (upper right corner) > Calendars (under the title) > Import Calendar.
6. Now import the ics file from step two to the 'Facebook Birthdays' calendar, which imports all the birthdays as all-day events repeating each year.
7. Now you're free to either:

• Keep this calendar as an 'external' calendar which will show up on your phone calendar in a different color if you acces the MENU > More > My Calendars
• Select which birthdays you'd like to import into your personal calendar by clicking on them in the calendar and import to personal calendar, remembering to select yearly repeats (I chose this way as i only chose to keep about 20% of the birthdays it imported in my own personal calendar)

Hope you liked my guide, feel more than free to PM me if you have any questions/suggestions

/eZtaR over and out of nicotine

EDIT: The list bbcodes don't seem to work well on my browser :S

hope this works man!

 

[jwp1223]

hope this works man!

It doesn't anymore from what I am reading on Facebook.

 

[andygu3]

Try Ebo Birthday from the android market, automatically syncs FB birthdays to your calender

 

[jwp1223]

Try Ebo Birthday from the android market, automatically syncs FB birthdays to your calender

Thanks dude!

 

[Guamguy]

Wow, I have taken for granted that HTC Sense and Samsung Touchwiz on selected Android phones would do Facebook calendar sync. Naturally, simply by logging on the the unique Facebook services of these phones (e.g. Facebook for HTC Sense), and activating them via Settings > Accounts & Sync > Add Account. Didn't try this on Motoblur or Sony Ericsson Timescape but I bet they have their own Facebook calendar integrators too.

In any case, if you have an Android phone with HTC Sense, Samsung Touchwiz or Motoblur, all combined which accounts for most Android phones out there, Facebook calendar sync, including birthdays and such, is supported directly simply by activating them on settings.

 

[Stuntman]

What I want to know is how to get rid of the birthdays. I want only other Facebook events and I do not want birthdays. So far, I cannot figure out how to get rid of birthdays only while keeping other FB events.