Hebcal gives you two ways to get Jewish calendar events into your calendar app: you can subscribe to a calendar feed, or you can download a file and import it. They look the same at first, since either way the holidays show up on your calendar. But they behave very differently over time, and a lot of the questions we get (“Why didn’t my calendar update?” “How do I get rid of these?” “Why does Outlook say I’m out of the office?”) come down to which one was used.
The short version
We recommend subscribing for almost everyone. Here’s how the two compare:
| Subscribe (recommended) | Download and import | |
|---|---|---|
| Where the events live | In a separate calendar that you can show, hide, color or remove | Copied into your own personal calendar, mixed in with your appointments |
| Updates and corrections | Automatic, usually within a day (Google Calendar can take longer) | Never |
| Future years | Rolls forward on its own each year | Only the years you downloaded |
| Changes to a yahrzeit list | Appear automatically | Delete the old events and import again |
| Free/busy status | Doesn’t affect your availability | Holidays may make you look busy or out of office |
| Removing it | One click | Delete events one at a time, or select them in bulk |
How can I tell which one I have?
Look at your list of calendars in your calendar app.
- If Hebcal appears as its own entry in the list, with its own name and color, you subscribed.
- If the Hebcal events are mixed into a calendar called something like “Calendar,” “Home” or your own name, and they’re the same color as your appointments, you imported them.
It’s possible to have both. If you see every holiday twice, that’s a likely reason. See Why do I see Hebcal events twice?
How do I subscribe?
On any Hebcal calendar page, look for the buttons for Apple, Google or Outlook. Those buttons create a subscription. Our step-by-step instructions cover each app:
If you’d like to switch from imported events to a subscription, remove the imported events first (Google · Mac · Outlook for Windows · Outlook for Mac), then subscribe.
Outlook shows me as Out of Office on Jewish holidays
This only happens with imported events. When Outlook imports all-day holiday events into your main calendar, it may treat them as time you’re unavailable, so coworkers see you as busy or out of office. Subscribed calendars are kept separate and don’t affect your free/busy status. Hebcal never marks Shabbat as busy.
To fix it, remove the imported events and subscribe instead.
When does downloading make sense?
Downloading is still useful in a few situations: if your calendar program doesn’t support subscriptions, if you need a file to load into a spreadsheet or another system, or if your workplace blocks calendar subscriptions. If you only want one year of events in Outlook, here’s a tip that will save you trouble later:
- Click Download and choose the .ics file.
- In Outlook, import it into a new, separate calendar, not your main calendar.
- When you no longer need it, delete that whole calendar in one step.