How can I see when a Google Calendar event was created?

There’s two ways to see when a Google Calendar event was created. If you’re using Google Workspace (was G Suite), then the administrator will have access to an audit log that shows this detail.

But if you’re using Google Workspace as a regular user (or even using the free version of Google Calendar), then you’re still able to see when your own events were created or modified – but you’ll need to undertake a couple of steps to do so.

Download the Google Calendar file

The first step is to download your Google Calendar:

Open Google Calendar on your PC: calendar.google.com
In the top right of the browser window, click on Settings (the Gear icon) and then click on Settings in the drop down menu.
In the menu on the left, click Import & export.
Under “Export,” click Export. A ZIP file of all your Google Calendar events will download to your computer.

Find the Google Calendar event details

The next step is to unzip that download and then open the icalendar file that is in it, with Notepad or another text editor.

There’s a lot of information in that file (especially if you’ve got a lot of events!) but for each event you will be able to see the date it was created as well as the date it was last modified.

To find any particular event just search for the event title or details. The event title will be under the line ‘Summary’ in this download whilst the details will be under the line ‘Description’.

As you can see in this screenshot all event information is contained within the BEGIN:VEVENT and END:VEVENT lines.

Check when the event was created and/or last modified

The final step is to actually check the creation and or modification dates!

Once you’ve found your event look for the two lines titled CREATED and LAST-MODIFIED lines which come up before the SUMMARY or DESCRIPTION lines. These show the dates when the event was created and last modified (weird huh!) in YYYYMMDD and using Greenwich Mean Time.

In my example above you can see the event (Test to see when this event was created) was created on 23 July 2020 at 11:45am GMT and hasn’t been modified since then.

Looking for help with a specific issue?

I can help with a number of common Google Workspace issues, such as regaining administrator access; fixing email delivery issues; and cybersecurity.

Tags:

Google Calendar, Productivity and Time Management

Comments

21 responses to “How can I see when a Google Calendar event was created?”

Andy

10 August 2021

Thanks so much for this. Helped me locate a phone number that I hadn’t saved as I knew I had made a calendar appointment straight after my phone call.

Reply
Debbie

24 June 2022

Thank you. People in my office put meetings on the calendar without any notice. Helpful to suss out when they did so.

Reply
1. Jayjay
  
  1 November 2022
  
  How did you see the event details added by others? I share a Google calendar with my ex husband and he keeps changing things without warning but when I try to export the calendar event files it doesn’t allow me to add his calendar to the export , therefore I can’t see events added by him
  
  Reply
  1. Rword
    
    1 February 2023
    
    Did you ever get this figured out? I’m having the exact same issue.
    
    Reply
Ania

19 July 2022

Thanks! Very helpful 😀

Reply
HP

10 September 2022

Will this file update as events are added or does it need to be exported repeatedly?

Reply
1. Priya
  
  11 September 2022
  
  Hi, the file will need to be exported repeatedly to get the most up to date information.
  
  Reply
Carmen

14 October 2022

Please advise if the date time on this is 19:18 or 9:18

BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART:20221013T183000Z
DTEND:20221013T190000Z
DTSTAMP:20221013T191816Z
UID:6e61s43qc29nlbch7idph2jk0r@google.com
ATTENDEE;CUTYPE=RESOURCE;ROLE=REQ-PARTICIPANT;PARTSTAT=ACCEPTED;CN=”WHS Wil
dcat Room – Located near Counseling Office [65 LCD Panel, Conference phone]
“;X-NUM-GUESTS=0:mailto:rocklinusd.org_3736323437313735333932@resource.cale
ndar.google.com
CREATED:20221011T213554Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20221011T213554Z
LOCATION:WHS Wildcat Room – Located near Counseling Office [65” LCD Panel\,
Conference phone]
SEQUENCE:0
STATUS:CONFIRMED
SUMMARY:Dietrich Aide interview
TRANSP:OPAQUE
END:VEVENT

Reply
1. Priya
  
  16 October 2022
  
  Hi Carmen, the date is 13 October 2022 and the time is 19:18 or 07:18PM Zulu time.
  
  Reply
Duncan

23 October 2022

Hey, what time does this indicate? If I am in PST:

CREATED:20221017T224145Z

Reply
Theresa Hardy

2 February 2023

This is a LOT of extra work to find out when someone sent an invite. Google needs to come up with a better solution.

Reply
Jim

17 February 2023

You could query the appointment via a Google App Script. It could expose the date created and the last date modified. There are several example on the web of how to build a script in Google Sheets that would download the Google Calendar information.

Reply
evan

5 April 2023

Please help

I have exported the file, but when I open it, it only shows me a list of all my events. It doesn’t give me the details as described above and I can’t select or expand my events for more information to see when it was entered. Staff are saying they put things in the calendar on a specific day that needs to be verified.

thanks for your help

Reply
1. Priya
  
  13 April 2023
  
  Hi Evan, it might be easier if you send me a message through my contact form as I would need to see a screenshot of your export file to get an understanding of what’s happening here.
  
  Reply
  1. John
    
    27 July 2023
    
    Hi Priya,
    Hope you are well. I’m having the same problem as Evan (23rd April 2023).
    Any advice please?
    Many thanks.
    John
    
    Reply
2. Cat
  
  31 July 2023
  
  Hey there, If I understood correctly, I believe in the instructions given, it explains that when you export the file, it will give you a list of “ALL” Events created and you will have to sift through them focusing on the “Summary” for the particular Event. Once you find it, you can then read the details for it. Hope I’m right and this clarifies it for you. Good luck!
  
  Reply
  1. Priya
    
    2 August 2023
    
    That’s exactly right Cat – thanks for explaining it so clearly 🙂
    
    Reply
Michael Monberg

27 September 2023

Just what I needed to find that phone number that called just before I made the event. Thanks!!

Reply
Tom B.

4 January 2024

Thank you! That was EXTREMELY helpful. And I appreciate the clear, concise instructions. Wonderful!

Reply
Kate

6 June 2024

I need to see when an event was created but my computer won’t let me open the exported calendar in anything but outlook calendar.

Reply
1. Priya
  
  9 June 2024
  
  Hi Kate, try right clicking on the file and selecting ‘open with’ to get a different way of opening the file.
  
  Reply