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iphoneiosobjective-cios7eventkit

Is it possible to attach a file to an ios calender event?

In Mac OS it is possible to attach files to a calender event and read that files on the iOS calender.

Question: Is it possible to attach a file to an iOS calender event using the Event Kit framework?

I could not find any hint in the Event Kit documentation

Solution

  • The short answer to your question is no - there is no way to attach a file to an iOS Calendar Event.

    Why? Because there is no place to put a file. Looking at the EKEvent Class Reference turns up a short list of properties, none of which would work for our goal of adding a file to the event.

    If we go up to the super class EKCalendarItem there are also no place to put a file.

    However, what is it you are trying to do exactly?

    If you want to attach a file on one device, say a photo of a cat, and then have that photo sync with the event to another device, you are out of luck. The documentation shows no place you could attach a binary blob to a calendar event.

    However there are some other tricks you might want to try if you are ok only making it look like a file is attached:

    EKCalendarItem has a notes property that stores an NSString. You could try something hacky like putting the file as binary data in a string format in there, but I wouldn't as thats silly and could break in all sorts of ways. If you are trying to just store plain text, though, that could work well.

    If you want to link to the file using a URL you can put the URL in the notes property as another comment suggests, but I would suggest you use a different property - the URL property.

    As for how you can give the impression there is a file attached to a calendar event (without actually being able to) I would suggest you look into the magic a good URL scheme can provide. I'm not sure what functionality you are looking for, but a URL scheme is an Apple approved way to tell your software to show a 'file' (Well, a view in your app that could be a file) by clicking a URL attached to a Calendar Event. You will still have to take care of getting the file onto the device, but that should get you closer to what you want. Good luck!