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Android: getting Budem into Google Calendar

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By the end of this you will see your marked days in the month view on your phone — and you will be able to mark a day from there, without opening Budem at all.

Google Calendar cannot connect to somebody else's calendar server, and never could. On Android DAVx⁵ does it instead: that app pulls the calendar onto the phone, and Google Calendar only displays it. It sounds like a detour, and it has one big advantage — your days never pass through Google's servers.

What to have ready

Three things, all of them a couple of taps:

  1. Syncing switched on for the calendar. In your calendars, open the one you want on your phone, go to its settings and flip the first switch under Syncing to your calendar app. Until then the calendar does not leave the app at all.
  2. A device password. In your account settings, under Your calendar on your phone, create one and name it after the phone. It is shown once, so copy it straight away. Never put your account password into a phone — and if you sign in with Google, you do not have one anyway.
  3. DAVx⁵, from Google Play or free from F-Droid.

Adding the account in DAVx⁵

Three fields in DAVx⁵ take this:

Field What goes in
Base URL https://budem.sk/caldav/
User name the e-mail you sign in to Budem with
Password the device password, not your account password

And here is the whole thing:

  1. Open DAVx⁵ and tap ⊕ (add account).
  2. Choose Login with URL and user name.
  3. Fill in the three fields above and tap Login. DAVx⁵ finds every calendar of yours that has syncing switched on.
  4. For the account name keep that same e-mail — DAVx⁵ also uses it as your address on invitations, and anything else there only confuses people later.
  5. In the list of collections, tick the calendars you want on the phone.
  6. Leave the sync interval at an hour. Android will not allow less than fifteen minutes anyway, and an hour is plenty for a calendar that changes once a day.

DAVx⁵ will say it found no address books. That is fine — Budem is a calendar and has no contacts.

The step everybody misses

The calendar is on the phone now, but Google Calendar still does not show it. Google hides calendars from other accounts by default and says so nowhere:

  1. In the Google Calendar app, open the side drawer (the three lines, top left).
  2. Settings → Manage accounts.
  3. Find the Non-Google accounts section and switch on the DAVx⁵ account.
  4. Go back to the drawer and tick your Budem calendar.

That is it. The days appear in the month view.

Marking a day from your phone

Syncing runs both ways, so you need not open Budem at all:

  • Mark a day — create an all-day event on that day in the Budem calendar. What you call the event does not matter; Budem replaces the title with its own.
  • Unmark a day — delete the event.
  • Write down a value and a rating — put value/rating on the first line of the description, for example 10/5. Use a dash for the half you are leaving out: 10/- or -/5. Anything below the first line is a note.

The same window applies as in the app: today and three days back. An older date, or the future, is refused by the server and DAVx⁵ shows a sync error — that is not a fault, that is the rule.

One more thing: a day that carries a note is not unmarked by deleting the event. Deleting an event on a phone is one swipe, and a few sentences written in the evening do not deserve that. Take such a day back in the app.

The whole of it is written out in what goes out and what we accept.

Where your data actually goes

DAVx⁵ stores the calendar in Android's own calendar storage, on the phone. Google Calendar is only a program that displays that storage — nothing is uploaded to Google's servers this way.

Notes have a switch of their own and are off until you switch them on.

If you would rather not install DAVx⁵

There is a simpler way with no extra app: a subscription link. Create it in the calendar's settings under Syncing, then add it in Google Calendar on a computer (not in the mobile app, which cannot do it) under Other calendars → From URL.

It is easier, and two things come with it: it is read-only, so no day can be marked from there — and the contents of the calendar end up on Google's servers, from where we cannot pull them back. Google also refreshes subscribed calendars whenever it feels like it, commonly hours later.

Anyone holding that link can read the calendar, so do not leave it where a stranger will find it. It is revoked with one click, and nothing else about the calendar is touched.

When it does not work

What you see What to do
DAVx⁵ found no calendars after signing in Syncing is not switched on for the calendar — the switch is in its settings.
Error 401 or Unauthorized The account password went into the password field instead of a device password, or that device password has been revoked. Create a new one.
The day was not saved and DAVx⁵ reports an error The date is outside the window — today and three days back is what can be written.
A deleted event comes back That day carries a note. Take it back in the app.
Nothing ever refreshes Android put DAVx⁵ to sleep to save battery. Turn off battery optimisation for it in the phone's settings.
It stopped syncing after a password change Device passwords are independent of your account password, so that should not be it. Check whether it has been revoked in your account settings.