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Troubleshooting Meeting Invitation Issues

Receiving meeting invitations from others doesn't always go smoothly. While some issues are easy to resolve, others may be unavoidable due to external factors. Below is a non-exhaustive list of common problems you might encounter and tips for troubleshooting or circumventing them effectively:

Not Seeing Accept / Decline / Response Options​

Reason 1: Mismatch of Email Addresses​

This issue occurs when the sender (i.e., the organizer) uses an email address to send you an invitation, but the receiving address doesn’t match the one associated with your calendar account. For example, if you add a CalDAV account to BusyCal with the email address bob@email.com, but your email server is configured with aliases like bobby@email.com or robert@email.com, BusyCal may not recognize these aliases. Many servers do not share additional aliases with third-party apps.

When such an invitation reaches your calendar and is viewed in BusyCal, the app marks the event as "read-only" and prevents you from responding because it cannot match the attendee bobby@email.com with the account bob@email.com.

Solution:​

  1. Request others to send invites to bob@email.com directly, or
  2. Sign in to your calendar account within BusyCal using bobby@email.com if that’s an option, or
  3. Open Apple Contacts, edit your Me Card, and add any additional aliases. BusyCal will reference your Me Card
  4. to match email addresses and allow you to respond to meeting invitations.

Reason 2: Invitation (.ics File) Was Manually Imported​

If the meeting invitation was manually imported into BusyCal, perhaps from an email attachment, and the email address it was sent to doesn’t match the calendar account where it was imported, you won’t be presented with any response options.

Solution:​

  1. Open Apple Contacts, edit your Me Card, and add all your email addresses (including aliases).
    This helps BusyCal identify you as an attendee and enables response options for imported invitations.
  2. Ensure that invitations are not manually imported when they can sync directly through your calendar account.

Meeting Responses are sent as a Decline​

If you accept a meeting invitation but the organizer receives a decline instead, it is likely because the event was moved between calendars.

Why This Happens​

Moving a meeting from one calendar to another is often treated by calendar servers as two separate operations:

  1. Delete – The event is removed from the original calendar, triggering a decline notification to the organizer.
  2. Add – The event is copied to the new calendar, but this does not update the original invitation.

As a result, the organizer mistakenly sees your response as a decline, even though you intended to accept.

Solution​

Do not move meeting invitations between calendars. Instead, keep the event on the calendar where it was originally scheduled to avoid triggering an unintended decline response. Some accounts, such as iCloud, support configuring a Meeting Calendar under Settings > Accounts. Use this option to select and dedicate a calendar for meetings.

If you need to organize events separately, consider using tags or calendar filters instead of moving the event itself. You can also duplicate and move the duplicated-event to another calendar if you wish.

Meeting Responses Not Updating / Missing​

If you're the organizer and attendees are sending replies, but your meeting invitations aren’t reflecting their responses (e.g., you always see a question mark next to their email addresses in the event details section), this may be due to configuration issues at the sender's end or one of the following scenarios:

  • Shared Email Across Services:
    You’re using an email address for your calendar account that’s shared across multiple services. For example, you’re using an iCloud account, but your email address is actually a Gmail address, like tom.joe@gmail.com. In such cases, emails sent to this address may reach your Gmail Inbox or Calendar instead of iCloud.

  • Mismatched Services:
    Similar issues can arise when accounts use email domains from one service but are hosted by another—for example, an Outlook account with a Yahoo domain or vice versa. These mismatches often lead to confusion when sending and receiving invitations.

  • Cross-Service Interference:
    If the sender or recipient is using email accounts hosted by different services, it may cause interference or misrouting of meeting invitations and responses.

Key Notes
  • This behavior isn’t specific to BusyCal. You’ll likely see the same issue in other calendar apps.
  • Identifying the root cause requires collaboration with your attendees, as well as checking your account’s online portal, where the issue may also appear.

Unfortunately, resolving these issues often involves configurations outside the scope of what we can troubleshoot directly.

Not Receiving Meeting Invitations From Others, Or Vice-versa​

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When meeting invitations are sent from calendar services like iCloud, Google, Outlook, or Exchange, the invitation delivery is handled entirely by that server—not by third-party apps like BusyCal that the sender might be using.

If meeting invitations aren't being received (whether you're not getting invites from others, or others aren't receiving your invitations), this typically indicates a delivery or routing issue between calendar services. Common troubleshooting steps include:

  • Check the Spam or Trash folder in the mail app
  • For Exchange users, the invite may appear in the Inbox folder of the calendar. There may be a setting preventing these from appearing on the calendar itself.

However, the most likely cause is the following:

  • If the recipient (you or someone else) uses an iCloud account with a Gmail or Outlook address, the invite may be intercepted by those services and not reach iCloud, as highlighted in the section above.

Google Calendar Users​

1. Invitations Not Sending​

If you add an attendee but they never receive an email:

  • Google Rate Limiting: If you send too many invites in a short time, Google may temporarily block sending.
  • "My" Calendars Only: Ensure the event is on your primary calendar or a calendar you own. You cannot send invites from a read-only or subscribed calendar (like a holiday calendar).

2. Invitations Not appearing in Inbox​

For Google calendar, there is a setting that can be disabled inadvertently which would prevent invitations from appearing in the calendar automatically. This setting can be enabled in your Google account settings.

  • Go to Google Calendar Settings on the web.
  • Under Event settings, find "Add invitations to my calendar".
  • Ensure it is set to "From everyone".

iCloud Users​

1. Alias Issues​

If you use an email alias (e.g., user@custom-domain.com) with your iCloud account:

  • iCloud may not send invites if the "Organizer" email doesn't match your primary iCloud ID.
  • Fix: Go to BusyCal > Settings > Accounts > iCloud, and ensure the Email field is set to your primary iCloud email address (usually ending in @icloud.com or @me.com), or a valid alias registered with Apple.

2. Invitations Going to Spam​

Ask the attendee to check their Junk/Spam folder. iCloud invites sometimes get filtered by other email providers.

Local / "On My Mac" Calendars​

If you are using a local calendar (not synced to a cloud service), BusyCal does send the email directly using Apple Mail.

  • Mail App Required: Apple Mail must be set as your default email reader.
  • Check Outbox: If the invite isn't sending, check the Outbox in Apple Mail to see if the message is stuck.
  • Sent Folder: Check your Sent folder in Mail to verify if the invite was actually generated and sent.

General Troubleshooting​

Check "My Card"​

BusyCal uses your "Me" card in Apple Contacts to identify you.

  1. Open Contacts app.
  2. Find your own card.
  3. Ensure Card > Make This My Card is selected.
  4. Ensure all your email addresses are listed on this card.

Replies Not Received​

If you are the organizer and not receiving replies (Accepted/Declined):

  • Check if the attendee used an email client that supports calendar replies (like BusyCal, Outlook, or Apple Mail).
  • If they replied via a plain text email, BusyCal cannot automatically update the status. You must manually change their status in the Event Info Panel.
Avoid Manually Importing .ics Files

As a general rule, you should avoid importing .ics files manually when using accounts with iCloud, Google, Outlook etc. Meeting invitations show up on your calendar automatically during sync. Whenever an invitation is received, it is captured in two places: the Mail Inbox and the Calendar Inbox. If you import the .ics file sent as an attachment via mail manually, and don't wait for the calendar to sync this automatically, conflicts can occur and these can further complicate matters as updates may or may not be sent out correctly. Some servers, such as Google Calendar, can be extremely picky when it comes to meeting invitations and related conflicts. In the worse case you may also end up with duplicate meetings.

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