article

README

MCP iCal Server

🗓️ Natural Language Calendar Management for macOS

🌟 Overview

Transform how you interact with your macOS calendar using natural language! The mcp-ical server leverages the Model Context Protocol (MCP) to turn your calendar management into a conversational experience.

You: "What's my schedule for next week?"
Claude: "Let me check that for you..."
[Displays a clean overview of your upcoming week]

You: "Add a lunch meeting with Sarah tomorrow at noon"
Claude: "✨ 📅 Created: Lunch with Sarah Tomorrow, 12:00 PM"

✨ Features

📅 Event Creation

Transform natural language into calendar events instantly!

"Schedule a team lunch next Thursday at 1 PM at Bistro Garden"
↓
📎 Created: Team Lunch
   📅 Thursday, 1:00 PM
   📍 Bistro Garden

Supported Features

Custom calendar selection
Location and notes
Smart reminders
Recurring events

Power User Examples

🔄 Recurring Events:
"Set up my weekly team sync every Monday at 9 AM with a 15-minute reminder"

📝 Detailed Events:
"Schedule a product review meeting tomorrow from 2-4 PM in the Engineering calendar, 
add notes about reviewing Q1 metrics, and remind me 1 hour before"

📱 Multi-Calendar Support:
"Add a dentist appointment to my Personal calendar for next Wednesday at 3 PM"

🔍 Smart Schedule Management & Availability

Quick access to your schedule with natural queries:

"What's on my calendar for next week?"
↓
📊 Shows your upcoming events with smart formatting

"When am I free to schedule a 2-hour meeting next Tuesday?"
↓
🕒 Available time slots found:
   • Tuesday 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM
   • Tuesday 2:00 PM - 4:00 PM

✏️ Intelligent Event Updates

Modify events naturally:

Before: "Move tomorrow's team meeting to 3 PM instead"
↓
After: ✨ Meeting rescheduled to 3:00 PM

Update Capabilities

Time and date modifications
Calendar transfers
Location updates
Note additions
Reminder adjustments
Recurring pattern changes

📊 Calendar Management

View all available calendars
Smart calendar suggestions
Seamless Google Calendar integration when configured with iCloud

💡 Pro Tip: Since you can create events in custom calendars, if you have your Google Calendar synced with your iCloud Calendar, you can use this MCP server to create events in your Google Calendar too! Just specify the Google calendar when creating/updating events.

🚀 Quick Start

💡 Note: While these instructions focus on setting up the MCP server with Claude for Desktop, this server can be used with any MCP-compatible client. For more details on using different clients, see the MCP documentation.

Prerequisites

uv package manager
macOS with Calendar app configured
An MCP client - Claude for desktop is recommended

Installation

Whilst this MCP server can be used with any MCP compatible client, the instructions below are for use with Claude for desktop.

Clone and Setup

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/Omar-V2/mcp-ical.git
cd mcp-ical

# Install dependencies
uv sync

Configure Claude for Desktop

Create or edit ~/Library/Application\ Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json:

{
    "mcpServers": {
        "mcp-ical": {
            "command": "uv",
            "args": [
                "--directory",
                "/ABSOLUTE/PATH/TO/PARENT/FOLDER/mcp-ical",
                "run",
                "mcp-ical"
            ]
        }
    }
}

Launch Claude for Calendar Access

⚠️ Critical: Claude must be launched from the terminal to properly request calendar permissions. Launching directly from Finder will not trigger the permissions prompt.

Run the following command in your terminal.
```
/Applications/Claude.app/Contents/MacOS/Claude
```
⚠️ Warning: Alternatively, you can manually grant calendar access, but this involves modifying system files and should only be done if you understand the risks involved.

Start Using!

Try: "What's my schedule looking like for next week?"

🔑 Note: When you first use a calendar-related command, macOS will prompt for calendar access. This prompt will only appear if you launched Claude from the terminal as specified above.

🧪 Testing

⚠️ Warning: Tests will create temporary calendars and events. While cleanup is automatic, only run tests in development environments.

# Install dev dependencies
uv sync --dev

# Run test suite
uv run pytest tests

🐛 Known Issues

Recurring Events

Non-standard recurring schedules may not always be set correctly
Better results with Claude 3.5 Sonnet compared to Haiku
Reminder timing for recurring all-day events may be off by one day

🤝 Contributing

Feedback and contributions are welcome. Here's how you can help:

Fork the repository
Create your feature branch
Commit your changes
Push to the branch
Open a Pull Request

📝 License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.

🙏 Acknowledgments

Built with Model Context Protocol
macOS Calendar integration built with PyObjC

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