Calendars exported from Hebcal via our subscription feeds (using iCalendar format) are typically “perpetual”. That is, they contain events for the current year (Gregorian or Hebrew) plus some number of years into the future. Most downloads (including Apple, Google Calendar, and Microsoft Outlook) support these perpetual calendar subscription feeds.
Using the default options on the Hebcal Custom Calendar page, our calendars will contain exactly 7 years of events (current year plus 6 years into the future). This is true whether you select the Gregorian year or the Hebrew year.
Size limitations imposed by Google and other calendar clients starting in 2016 require that Hebcal limit the number of events per calendar feed. If the options you select generate many events, the feed may need to be shortened.
Recommended workaround: multiple subscriptions
If you’d like to include the Hebrew date for every day of the year, you can subscribe to that calendar via a separate calendar feed at our Jewish Holiday downloads page. Look for Hebrew calendar dates (English) or Hebrew calendar dates (Hebrew).
Daf Yomi, Mishna Yomi and other daily learning single-purpose iCalendar feeds are also available on that page for Apple, Google, and any iCalendar application. Because each of these dedicated calendar feeds is guaranteed to contain only a single daily learning schedule, we can control the length and often provide multiple years of event lookahead.
An added advantage of the multi-subscription approach is that you can choose separate colors in Google Calendar or iOS/iCloud calendar for each calendar event feed.
Custom calendar event feed length limits
| Option | Feed duration (years) | Number of calendar events per year (approx) |
| Major holidays only | 7 | 40 |
| Major & minor holidays, Rosh Chodesh, Minor Fasts, Special Shabbatot, Modern Holidays | 7 | 95 |
| Weekly Torah portion on Saturdays | 5 | 50 |
| Days of the Omer | 5 | 49 |
| Candle lighting times | 4 | 120 |
| Days of the Omer + Weekly Torah portion | 4 | 101 |
| Show Hebrew date for dates with some event | 4 | variable |
| Show Hebrew date every day of the year | 2 | 365 |
| Daf Yomi or other daily learning | 2 | 365 |
| Daily learning and Hebrew date every day of the year | 1 | 730 |
Because of the feed limit requirements, perpetual calendar subscription feeds do not contain past year events. Doing so would further reduce the future year lookahead.
Advanced users: download and then upload
All that said, if you’d like to download future or past events to Google Calendar or another program that supports iCalendar (.ics) files such as macOS Calendar or Outlook, you may utilize Hebcal’s alternative download instructions below. This technique requires a laptop/desktop computer and generally does not work well on a smartphone or tablet. Note that once downloaded, these .ics files are no longer managed by Hebcal and will not refresh.
Please note that these instructions are recommended only for advanced users. If you don’t take great care to create a separate calendar and import Hebcal events into that new, separate calendar, you may unintentionally add hundreds of events to your personal calendar.