Calendar reminders from SMS messages

[stuarta]

Hi all,

I thought there used to be a way that you could create a Google Calendar appointment/reminder from an incoming SMS message. For example I received a text this morning to say that something had to be done by a certain date. Currently using Android 12.

Many thanks

 

[Hadron]

If the message contains a .ics file that would be simple: if you open the file then your calendar app should offer to import it.

If not then I think you are talking about an app feature rather than an operating system feature. None of my Calendar apps ask for SMS access and none of my SMS apps ask for calendar access, so none of the apps on my phone could do it by themselves (though I don't actually have Google's Calendar app installed at all, so can't check that one). Perhaps Assistant could, since it has access to both and it sounds the sort of thing it could do, but I keep that disabled myself so can't say.

 

[lunatic59]

I do use both Google calendar and Google messages and if a date is recognized in an SMS message, it will become a hyperlink to a make it a calendar appointment. I'm wondering if somehow that feature has been disabled or permissions revoked? Make sure your SMS and calendar apps' permission allow access to each other and in your SMS settings, I found it under assistant's suggested actions.

 

[stuarta]

ok thanks and I was thinking something with the assistant. The text is basically a payment reminder so just goes along the lines of "A payment of xx is due by 12-Jul. Maybe something in there it doesn't recognise although @lunatic59 I've tried looking for those settings but couldn't find anything.

 

[stuarta]

Ah I went into my SMS app and settings and under suggested actions I have 'Create event' so guessing it doesn't meet the criteria for autodetecting

 

[Hadron]

I do use both Google calendar and Google messages and if a date is recognized in an SMS message, it will become a hyperlink to a make it a calendar appointment. I'm wondering if somehow that feature has been disabled or permissions revoked? Make sure your SMS and calendar apps' permission allow access to each other and in your SMS settings, I found it under assistant's suggested actions.

Ah, yes - you know I've never clicked on one of those links! I think I've always dismissed them as irrelevant (which, since I very rarely want to create a calendar event from an SMS, they mostly are for me).

The behaviour does vary between apps: some SMS apps don't do this at all, some just take you to that date in your calendar, while others take you to the event creation dialogue (this is just from testing a few SMS apps on my phone). In any case that's how you avoid the problem of the SMS app not having calendar access, you just create a link which the actual calendar app handles.

 

[Trom]

Microsoft makes a messaging app that will do that does that stuff, but I don't remember if it syncs with google calendar or the microsoft to-do app, it's called SMS organizer

 

[lunatic59]

Ah I went into my SMS app and settings and under suggested actions I have 'Create event' so guessing it doesn't meet the criteria for autodetecting

Depending on how the date is formed in the message, it might not recognize it as a date and won't create the link. Just out of curiosity I browsed through some old messages and unless the date included the full month/day/year it didn't seem to want to make an appointment. However if any message contained a time, it was always a link to the calendar.

Microsoft makes a messaging app that will do that does that stuff, but I don't remember if it syncs with google calendar or the microsoft to-do app, it's called SMS organizer

Knowing how Microsoft and Google get along, I would guess that the default behavior for a Microsoft app to send appointments to Outlook's calendar and, if you don't have it installed, it asks you to install and create an account long before you see any options for other calendars.