Track billable hours in any calendar app

Search for “calendar time tracking” and almost everything you find is about Google Calendar. How to use Google Calendar as a timesheet. How to export it. Which Google Calendar add-on to install.

If you work in Outlook, Apple Calendar, or Proton Calendar, you might conclude the method doesn’t apply to you.

It does. Every calendar app mentioned above exports iCal. That’s the only requirement.

What iCal is (and why it matters)

iCal (.ics) is the open standard for calendar data. It’s not a Google product — it predates Google Calendar. Every mainstream calendar supports it: Outlook, iCloud, Proton Calendar, Fastmail, Infomaniak, Zoho, Yahoo Calendar.

When Timescanner reads your calendar, it reads an iCal feed. It has no idea what app generated the events. It just reads the titles, times, and dates — and looks for the bracket tags you added.

The method is identical regardless of which calendar you use:

1. Name billable events with the bracket convention: [Client][Project][F]
2. At month end, connect your iCal URL to Timescanner and run the analysis

That’s it. No export. No reformatting. No app-specific setup.

The naming convention is what matters, not the app

[Acme][Website][F] Design review behaves identically whether you created it in Google Calendar, Outlook, or Apple Calendar. Timescanner reads the event title — not the calendar app.

The bracket naming method — [Client] mandatory, [Project] optional, [F] to mark a session as billed — is the core of the system. Apply it consistently and your calendar becomes a billing record, whatever app you open it in.

Outlook Calendar

Outlook exposes a private ICS URL for each calendar. In Outlook.com: Settings → View all Outlook settings → Calendar → Shared calendars → publish a calendar → copy the ICS link.

Paste that URL into Timescanner once. From then on, every tagged event appears in the billing report without any manual export. [Contoso][Dev][F] Sprint review in Outlook shows up exactly as expected.

Apple Calendar (iCloud)

iCloud exposes a shareable URL for each calendar. In iCloud.com: open Calendar → click the share icon next to your calendar → enable Public Calendar → copy the link. Change webcal:// to https:// before pasting it into Timescanner.

If you’re macOS or iOS-first and have never used Google Calendar, nothing in this method requires you to switch.

Proton Calendar

Proton Calendar supports iCal sharing. Go to calendar settings → share → copy the ICS URL. The privacy alignment is natural: Timescanner is local-first — your events are never stored on its servers. They’re read, analyzed, and discarded.

Getting the iCal URL from any calendar

The process is roughly the same everywhere:

1. Open your calendar app’s settings
2. Find “share calendar” or “calendar settings”
3. Look for “ICS link”, “iCal URL”, or “secret address”
4. Copy the URL — it’s read-only and private
5. Paste it into Timescanner

If you can’t find it, search “[your calendar app] iCal URL” — every major calendar has a dedicated help page for this.

Why most content focuses on Google Calendar

Google Calendar has the highest market share. Writers optimize for search volume. The result: a blind spot for millions of freelancers who use Outlook (standard in B2B), Apple Calendar (default on Mac), or Proton (privacy-first).

The iCal standard is the same across all of them. The billing method doesn’t change. The articles just never mentioned it.

What you need

One thing: a calendar that exports iCal. Every mainstream calendar does.

Connect the URL to Timescanner once. It reads whatever is in there — past events, current month, events you haven’t billed yet. The full calendar time tracking method covers naming conventions, edge cases, and how to handle multi-client months. It applies to any calendar app.

The 15-minute invoice is the output. Whatever calendar you use to get there.

Timescanner connects to any iCal-compatible calendar — Google Calendar, Outlook, Apple Calendar, Proton, Fastmail, iCloud, and more — and generates per-client billing reports automatically.