Calendar invite generator (.ics) with time zones
Type the title, date, time, time zone and place, and get a calendar file your guests can open, plus add-to-calendar links for Google and Outlook.
Fill in the form, press Download .ics and send the file. Times are saved in UTC using your chosen time zone, so each guest’s calendar shows their own local time.
Your calendar file
Add a title.
Add to a calendar
- Google Calendar
- Outlook.com
- Outlook for work or school
not confirmed by the vendorGoogle and Microsoft do not document these links; they can change. Apple Calendar: use the .ics file.
See the file text
Fill in the form to see the file.
How to send a calendar invite as a file
A save-the-date your guests can drop straight into their calendar.
A calendar invite file ends in .ics. It is plain text in the iCalendar format, defined in RFC 5545, and every calendar app that follows the standard can read it. You attach it to an e-mail or a message, the guest opens it, and the event appears with the title, the start and end, the place and your notes already filled in. There is no account to create and no service in the middle: this page builds the file on your device.
What goes in the file
Each event needs a unique identifier (UID), the moment the file was made (DTSTAMP, always in UTC), a start and an end, and a title. This page adds the place, the notes and an optional reminder when you fill them in. Commas, semicolons, backslashes and line breaks in your text are escaped the way the standard requires, and long lines are folded at 75 bytes, so a long title or an emoji does not break the file. A new identifier is generated every time you press Download, so two files never share one.
Why the times are saved in UTC
The standard lets a file name a time zone, but then it must also carry the full rules of that zone inside the file. To avoid that, this page converts your start and end to UTC (the form with a Z at the end, defined in section 3.3.5) and leaves the display to each guest’s calendar. The conversion uses the time zone data built into your browser, not the clock of your device, so you can write an invite for an event in Tokyo while sitting in São Paulo.
All-day events
For an all-day event the file stores only dates. The standard treats the end date as the day after the last day, so a party on December 24 and 25 ends on December 26 in the file. The page does that for you: you type the last day.
Time zones and daylight saving time
Why the same wall-clock time can map to different UTC times on two days.
A 9:00 event in New York is 14:00 UTC on March 7, 2026 and 13:00 UTC on March 8, 2026. The clocks in the United States went forward at 2 a.m. on March 8, so New York moved from UTC-5 to UTC-4. The same thing happens when the clocks go back. The page works this out from the date you choose, so you never have to know the offset.
- March 7, 2026, 09:00 in America/New_York is UTC-5, so the file says 14:00 UTC.
- March 8, 2026, 09:00 is UTC-4, so the file says 13:00 UTC.
- A guest in Tokyo (UTC+9, no daylight saving) sees 23:00 on March 7 and 22:00 on March 8, one hour earlier on the second day.
| When | What the clocks do | What the page does |
|---|---|---|
| New York, March 8, 2026, 2:30 a.m. | Clocks jump from 2:00 to 3:00, so 2:30 does not exist. | Moves it to 3:30 a.m. (07:30 UTC) and tells you. |
| New York, November 1, 2026, 1:30 a.m. | Clocks go back from 2:00 to 1:00, so 1:30 happens twice. | Uses the first 1:30 (05:30 UTC) and tells you. |
| London, March 29, 2026, 1:30 a.m. | Clocks jump from 1:00 to 2:00. | Moves it to 2:30 a.m. (01:30 UTC) and tells you. |
| London, October 25, 2026, 1:30 a.m. | Clocks go back from 2:00 to 1:00. | Uses the first 1:30 (00:30 UTC) and tells you. |
Sources: NIST (daylight saving time) (page dated Feb 9, 2026); GOV.UK (clock changes) (page shows no date); RFC 5545 (page dated Sep 2009) · opened on
Which calendar apps open the file or the links?
What we checked and what we did not.
We read the generated file with two independent readers in our tests: a calendar-parsing library and a strict reader of the standard that checks line breaks, the 75-byte limit and the required properties. We did not import the file into Google Calendar, Apple Calendar or Outlook themselves, so how each app presents it is not confirmed.
The links for Google Calendar and Outlook use address formats that the companies do not document. We took them from a community-maintained reference (add-event-to-calendar-docs) and checked in tests that the addresses carry the right title, dates and place. If a link stops working, the .ics file will still open.
Sources: Add-event-to-calendar docs (Google) (page shows no date); Add-event-to-calendar docs (Outlook) (page dated Aug 19, 2026) · opened on
Always check the date, time and time zone in your own calendar after importing, and tell guests which time zone the event uses.
After you send the invite
Plan the rest on the timeline: the planning timeline counts back from your date and can export every stage as its own all-day calendar event. Once replies come in, update your numbers in the budget calculator and the party food calculator. To follow the days left before the party, see the countdown on daycounting.com.
Frequently asked questions
What is an .ics file?
An iCalendar file, the standard text format for calendar events (RFC 5545). A calendar app that opens it creates the event with the title, start and end, place and notes already filled in.
How do time zones and daylight saving work in the file?
You pick the time zone of the event. The page converts the start and end to UTC using the time zone rules built into your browser, including daylight saving, and writes them with a Z. Each guest’s calendar then shows the right local time. A 9:00 event in New York is 14:00 UTC on March 7, 2026 and 13:00 UTC on March 8, 2026, because the clocks went forward that day.
What if the time does not exist or happens twice?
On the day clocks go forward, an hour such as 2:30 does not exist in New York, and the page moves it forward and tells you. On the day clocks go back, an hour such as 1:30 happens twice, and the page uses the first one and tells you. Choose a different time if that is not what you want.
Does the Google Calendar or Outlook link always work?
We cannot promise it. Google and Microsoft do not publish official documentation for these links, so the formats come from community notes and can change. The .ics file is the dependable route, and it also works for Apple Calendar.
Can an event run past midnight?
Yes. Set the end date to the next day. The page rejects an end that is not after the start, and a note tells you when the event ends on a later date.
Is the title or place sent to your server?
No. The file is built in your browser. If you open a Google or Outlook link, the text in it goes to that company, because the link carries it.
Keep planning
Each tool covers one stage of the timeline.