Important: By enabling calendar sync between your SimplePractice calendar and an external calendar, you acknowledge and agree to follow HIPAA Compliance requirements and protect your calendar information, including the secure Telehealth video link. Once synchronized, all of your Telehealth appointments will be included in your external calendar, along with all associated secure video links. You can access these links in your external calendar to join Telehealth appointments.

SimplePractice offers a 1-way calendar sync to view SimplePractice appointments and events in your personal Apple Calendar.

Note: Out of office blocks added in SimplePractice won’t appear in your Apple Calendar.

With this sync, you won’t be able to create or modify SimplePractice appointments from your external calendar, or view your external calendar events on your SimplePractice calendar. If you’re interested in these features, see Getting started with the 2-way Google Calendar sync.

In this guide, we’ll cover:

• Enabling 1-way calendar sync
• Syncing your calendar on macOS
• Syncing your calendar on iPhone or iPad with version 11.4 or later
• Syncing your calendar on iPhone or iPad with versions prior to 11.4
• Troubleshooting Apple Calendar sync issues

Note: This type of calendar sync only syncs in one direction: from SimplePractice to your external calendar. Calendar sync is only available on the Plus plan. To learn more about our plans, see Which subscription plan is right for me?

Enabling 1-way calendar sync

To start using 1-way calendar sync, you'll generate a Calendar URL. To do this:

• Navigate to Settings > Scheduling > Calendar
• Toggle Calendar sync on

• This will generate a secure Calendar URL that you can use to sync with Apple Calendar
• Click Copy link

Note: In a group practice, only your specific calendar will sync. It won’t include appointments for other clinicians in your group. 

Important: All appointments entered in your SimplePractice calendar, 30 days prior to the date of the sync and onwards, will be published to your Apple Calendar once you authorize the connection. Any SimplePractice events that are more than 30 days old will be removed from your Apple Calendar each time it’s synced.

For steps on how to resolve calendar sync issues, see Troubleshooting calendar sync issues.

Disabling 1-way sync

In order to fully unsubscribe your Apple Calendar from 1-way calendar sync, it must be disabled manually in your Apple Calendar. To do this:

• Open Apple Calendar
• Click View from the menu at the top of the screen
• Choose Show calendar list
• Right click the SimplePractice calendar
• Choose Unsubscribe

Note: For more information, see Calendar User Guide.

Syncing your calendar on macOS

If you’re using an Apple computer, you can sync your calendar using the Calendar application on your desktop. To do this:

• Open Calendar
• Click File from the menu at the top of the screen
• Select New Calendar Subscription in the dropdown menu
• Paste your Calendar URL from SimplePractice into the Calendar URL field
• Click Subscribe

• From the Location dropdown, you can either select:
  • iCloud if you’d like the calendar subscription to sync to your other Apple devices, or
  • On My Mac if you’d prefer the SimplePractice calendar to remain only on your Mac computer
• Select Every 5 minutes from the Auto-refresh dropdown menu

• Click OK

Syncing your calendar on iPhone or iPad with version 11.4 or later

To sync your SimplePractice calendar on an iPhone using version 11.4 or later:

• Copy the link that you generated from your SimplePractice account
  • We recommend copying the Calendar URL from SimplePractice and texting or emailing it to yourself to copy the link on your mobile
• Go to Settings from the home screen on your iPhone
• Tap Calendar > Accounts > Add Account > Other > Add Subscribed Calendar
• Paste the link in the Server field

• Tap Next
• Make sure that Use SSL is on
  • Username and password fields are optional

• Tap Save

Syncing your calendar on iPhone or iPad with versions prior to 11.4

To sync your SimplePractice calendar on an iPhone or iPad with a version prior to 11.4:

• Copy the link that you generated from your SimplePractice account
• Tap Settings from the home screen
• Scroll down and tap Accounts > Add Account
• Select Other, then tap Add Subscribed Calendar
• Enter your secure calendar URL in the Server field
• Tap Next > Save

You’ll then see SimplePractice listed under your Subscribed Calendars on the Accounts page.

Troubleshooting Apple Calendar sync issues

If events are slow to update or if they stop updating, you can refresh your Apple Calendar via macOS desktop. To do this manually, open the Calendar app and select View > Refresh Calendars.

You can also set up auto-refresh in the Calendar app. To do this:

• Click the SimplePractice calendar in the left column with 2 fingers
  • Alternatively, right-click the calendar
• Select Get Info

• Choose your preferred frequency from the Auto-refresh dropdown menu

• Click OK

Note: To learn more, see Refresh calendars on Mac.

To troubleshoot on iPhone or iPad, you can set up your Push and Fetch settings to make sure that your Apple Calendar is updated frequently. To do this: 

• Navigate to Settings > Calendar
• Select Accounts

• Tap Fetch New Data
• Make sure Push is toggled on

• Choose the Fetch frequency
  • We recommend Every 15 minutes

Tip: If your Apple Calendar doesn’t update after adjusting your settings, try disabling and enabling the 1-way sync. For more information, see Enabling 1-way calendar sync.