Facebook acts as a great event reminder, be it for your friend’s birthday or their anniversary. It has saved all of us from those embarrassing moments of forgetting our close ones’ birthday, all thanks to that notification. This guide explains how you can sync birthdays and other Facebook events directly to your iPhone’s calendar.
Facebook, up until 2016, allowed you to export and transfer birthdays and other important dates linked to your account directly to your iPhone’s calendar. Later, there was a workaround that would involve subscribing to its Calendar service. But even that was blocked by Facebook back in 2018. With the introduction of its new design, the social media giant has completely removed that option.
There’s still a trick out there that you can use to sync Facebook birthdays to iPhone’s Calendar app. But before we begin, there are some pre-requisites that you need to keep in mind before you start.
Pre-Requisites
- For this to work, you need to have a laptop/desktop with Google Chrome installed.
➤ Download – Google Chrome
- After you’ve installed Google Chrome on your desktop, install the ‘Birthday Calendar Extractor for Facebook‘ extension from Chrome Webstore.
➤ Download – Birthday Calendar Extractor for Facebook
Now that you’ve installed both Google Chrome and the extension, you can go ahead and follow the next set of steps.
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Sync Facebook Birthdays With iPhone Calendar
To start the syncing process, follow these steps.
Step 1: Open Google Chrome and head over to Facebook.com on your desktop.
Step 2: Sign in to your Facebook account.
Step 3: Click on the Birthday Calendar Extractor extension you’ve just installed.
Step 4: Hit ‘Generate Google Calendar – ICS.’ Even if the button says Google Calendar, the file downloaded works just fine on the iOS Calendar app.
Step 5: A file with the name ‘birthday-calendar.ics‘ should be downloaded in seconds. Your file should look somewhat similar to this.
Step 6: Transfer this file to your iPhone. You can use services like email, iMessage, and even AirDrop works just fine if you’re using a Mac.
Step 7: Tapping on the file on your iPhone should automatically open up the Calendar app.
Step 8: Now, you can customize the color and the tag of the events.
Step 9: Tap on Back, and now you should be able to see all the Birthday events in your iPhone Calendar app.
Sync Facebook Events With iPhone Calendar
Facebook allows you to directly sync events, other than birthdays, to your iPhone’s Calendar app. To do the same, follow these steps:
Step 1: Open the Facebook app on your iPhone.
➤ Download – Facebook for iOS
Step 2: Tap on the three lines in the bottom right, and then head over to Events.
Step 3: Tap on the event which you want to add to the Calendar app.
Step 4: Click on More, and then ‘Add to Calendar.’
Step 5: Tap on Done. The event will now show up in your iPhone’s Calendar app.
That’s it. Now, when it’s the time for your loved ones’ birthday, you’ll get a notification from your iPhone’s Calendar app first thing in the morning. You can even add a Calendar widget to your iPhone’s home screen with the custom tag to see all the events and birthdays directly.
In case you are not too fond of Facebook, but still use it for keeping track of events and friend’s birthdays, the above guide will help you in getting all the important data to your iPhone. You should also learn how to stop Facebook from tracking you across iPhone apps and services if you value your privacy.
For which purpose do you primarily use Facebook? How would the syncing of Facebook birthday events to your iPhone calendar help you? Let us know in the comments section below!
