Why a Shared CalDAV Calendar Is Read-Only—and What You Can Do

A shared CalDAV calendar is read-only when its owner grants viewing access without editing rights. An ICS subscription is also read-only: it follows what the publisher supplies. Identify which connection you have before changing passwords or adding another sync service.

Identify the calendar's owner

Open the calendar's settings or inspect it on the provider's website. Check which account owns it and how it was shared with you.

In Nextcloud, for example, the owner can share a calendar with read-only or write access. With write access, you can also change events. This is described in its calendar-sharing manual.

If the calendar belongs to a school, team, or family member, ask whether you are supposed to edit it. A class timetable may deliberately allow only the administrator to make changes. In that case, ask the publisher to correct the entry.

A calendar can also contain meetings organized by other people. A calendar's edit permission does not make you the organizer of meetings sent by other people.

Subscription or shared account?

A calendar added through a published ICS or iCalendar URL provides a feed to read. It is not an editable account connection. Adding it to Apple Calendar or Outlook does not change that.

CalDAV account connections and ICS feeds use different access methods. For a practical clue, look at how you added it: a subscription address and a calendar name usually point to a feed; a provider login and discovered calendar list usually point to an account.

Do not replace a feed URL with a guessed server path. Ask the owner whether authenticated CalDAV access is available and appropriate.

Test an owned calendar before reconnecting

If you should have write access, create a test event in a calendar you own through the same app. Confirm it appears on the provider's website.

If that works, the app can send changes to the account. Focus next on the shared calendar's permissions, ownership, or server-specific restrictions. If it fails too, work through CalDAV sign-in and connection checks.

Also check that the event editor selected the intended calendar. It is easy to edit an event in one account while thinking it belongs to another, particularly when names and colors match.

Make the test without guests. You want to check saving, not send invitations to everyone on a real meeting.

What you can do with a read-only source

You can still use the calendar for reference. For personal planning, show it alongside your own editable calendar and create related notes or travel blocks in your own account. Keep the publisher's original unchanged.

If its appointments should block your work availability, manually add generic Busy events to the work calendar. For a changing schedule, a copying service can maintain separate destination events, provided you are authorized to use the source information that way.

Avum's Sync Rules distinguish a source from a destination. A readable CalDAV source can supply appointments for copies into a writable Google, Outlook/Microsoft 365, iCloud, or CalDAV calendar. The destination still needs permission to accept new events. Avum cannot grant access the owner has withheld.

Those copies do not make the source editable. If the school moves a lesson, update requests still go to the school. Editing a local copy does not change the publisher's lesson.

Which calendar to edit

Name the source so you recognize who controls it, and decide which calendar you will use for each kind of change. Avoid a setup that encourages several people to edit separate copies of the same appointment.

For work availability, set up busy copies from a read-only source and inspect the receiving calendar separately from the publisher's original.

Ready to copy busy time from a read-only calendar? Start your free 30-day trial with Avum today.