Google Calendar will hold every date in your syllabus, but it cannot read the syllabus. Someone has to turn "lab report due the Friday of week 4" into an event on a specific day at a specific time. This guide covers the three ways to do that: typing the dates in, building a spreadsheet Google can import, or scanning the syllabus and importing the calendar file it produces. Each way stops being worth the effort at a different point, so the guide says where that point is.
One fact shapes all three. Google Calendar imports files only on a computer. The phone app shows the events afterwards, but the import itself happens at calendar.google.com in a browser.
First, make a separate calendar for your classes
Before importing anything, give the semester its own calendar. On a computer, open Google Calendar, find "Other calendars" on the left, click the plus sign next to it, and choose "Create new calendar". Name it after the term, "Fall 2026" or simply "Classes", and create it.
This takes a minute and saves an hour later. A separate calendar can be shown or hidden with one click, gets its own colour, and if an import goes wrong you delete that one calendar instead of picking seventy events out of the one that holds your dentist appointments. Every method below assumes you import into this calendar, not your main one.
Way 1: Type the dates in
For a course with a handful of graded items, three exams and two papers, typing is quickest. Open the syllabus beside the calendar and create one event per item.
A few habits make the typed version usable for a whole semester:
- Start every title with the course code, "BIO 101 Lab report 1", because a notification shows the title, not which calendar it came from.
- Use the real deadline as the time. A paper due "by 11:59 PM" and a quiz "in class at 10:10" are different events, and a reminder set for the wrong one is useless.
- Enter weekly class meetings as one repeating event that ends on the last day of classes, so the grid shows where your free hours actually are.
- For an exam the syllabus leaves undated, add an all-day placeholder on the Monday of the week it mentions, titled "BIO 101 Exam 2 (date TBD)", and fix it the moment the date is announced. A placeholder you can see beats a date you forgot to look up.
- Add a notification one day before each deadline. Google Calendar's default is ten minutes, which is a warning, not a plan.
The limit is time. A full load of four or five courses produces sixty to eighty graded items, and at a couple of minutes each, that is two to three hours of data entry at the start of the term, before any date has moved.
Way 2: Build a spreadsheet and import it
If you already have the dates in a list, from a table in the syllabus or an assignment page you copied, a spreadsheet is faster than typing events one by one. Google Calendar imports a .csv file whose first row uses these headers, in English:
Subject, Start Date, Start Time, End Date, End Time, All Day Event, Description, Location, Private
Only Subject and Start Date are required. Dates look like 10/02/2026 and times like 2:00 PM. Put True in All Day Event for a deadline with no time, and False otherwise.
Build it in Google Sheets with one row per deadline, then download it as a .csv file (File, Download, Comma Separated Values). In Google Calendar on a computer, click the settings gear, then Settings, then "Import & Export" in the left menu. Choose the file, pick your class calendar as the destination, and click Import.
Two things to know before you rely on this. Repeating events in a .csv file arrive as a series of one-time events, so weekly class meetings are better added by hand as one repeating event. And a .csv row carries no identity, so importing the same file twice gives you two copies of everything. Once the import is done, make corrections directly in Google Calendar rather than re-importing.
Way 3: Scan the syllabus and import the calendar file
This is the route for a semester with several courses and several PDFs, and it is the one Semora is built for. The scan does the reading, you check the result, and the export produces a file Google Calendar accepts.
- In Semora, open the Add tab and choose how to bring the syllabus in: "Take a photo" for a printed handout (up to five pages), "Upload a document" for a PDF or Word file, or "Paste text" for text copied from a PDF or your course site. On the web app you can also drag the file onto the page.
- Check the review screen. It lists every assignment, exam, quiz, reading and class meeting the scan found, with the grade weights. An item the syllabus left undated is flagged as pending instead of being given an invented date. Nothing is saved until you tap "Save tasks".
- Repeat for each course in the semester.
- Open the Me tab, then Settings, then "Calendar Sync", and tap "Export calendar file (.ics)". In the web app the file downloads straight to the computer. On a phone the share sheet opens, so send the file to yourself by AirDrop, email or Drive and open it on a computer.
- In Google Calendar on that computer, click the settings gear, then Settings, then "Import & Export". Select the file, choose your class calendar, and click Import.
What the file contains: every deadline in the selected semester that you have not marked complete, timed when the syllabus gave a time and all-day when it did not, plus each weekly class meeting as a repeating event that ends with the semester. Times are written as plain local times, so a 2:00 PM lab lands at 2:00 PM in whatever time zone your Google Calendar uses.
Keeping it right when a date moves: the import is one-way, so edits in Google Calendar do not flow back, and Google's help pages do not say whether a second import updates events or duplicates them. The routine that never produces duplicates is simple. Change the date in Semora, where your reminders and study plan follow it, export again, delete the class calendar in Google Calendar, create it again, and import the new file. Two minutes.
On the free plan, scanning a syllabus is your one AI action, and the deadlines it finds stay free to track with same-day reminders. The calendar export and the device calendar sync are Pro features; the pricing page has the full breakdown.
On a phone
iPhone and iPad. If the calendar you live in is the iPhone's own Calendar app, you do not need the file at all. Semora's Calendar Sync, in the same Settings screen, creates a "Semora" calendar in the Calendar app and keeps it updated as dates change. That calendar belongs to your iCloud or default account, not to Google, which is why Google Calendar users still use the export.
Android. The Google Calendar app cannot import a file, so export from Semora, send the file to a computer, and import there. Once the import is done, open the app's calendar list and switch on the class calendar under your account, and the events appear on the phone.
If your school uses Canvas
Canvas offers a private calendar feed link, found at the bottom of the Canvas calendar page. In Google Calendar on a computer, click the plus sign next to "Other calendars", choose "From URL", and paste it. That subscription updates on its own whenever a Canvas due date changes, which is its advantage over any imported file.
Its limit is what Canvas knows. Office hours, the grading scale, category weights and a separate lab schedule usually live only in the syllabus. Semora connects to that same Canvas feed for free, with no cap on classes, and combines it with the scanned syllabus, so the export carries both. If reminders are the reason you wanted the dates in a calendar, Canvas deadline reminders: what you actually get explains what Canvas does and does not send.
Which way to pick
- Ten dates or fewer: type them in.
- You already have the dates in a table or a list: build the spreadsheet.
- Three or more courses, each with its own PDF: scan them and import the file.
Whichever you choose, the calendar is only as good as the check you did before the dates went in. The longer guide, how to turn a syllabus into a semester calendar, covers the four syllabus formats that hide a deadline and how to read each one.
Frequently asked questions
Can I import the file on my phone?
No. Google Calendar imports .ics and .csv files only on a computer, through Settings and then Import & Export. You can create and export the file on a phone, but open calendar.google.com in a browser on a computer to import it. The events then show up in the phone app once that calendar is switched on in its calendar list.
Will the events update when my professor changes a date?
Not on their own. An imported file is a snapshot. Change the date in Semora, export again, and import the new file into a freshly created class calendar. If your course is on Canvas, the Canvas calendar feed subscription in Google Calendar does update itself, but it carries only what the professor entered in Canvas.
Does the exported file include my class times?
Yes. Each course meeting with a start time becomes a weekly repeating event that stops at the end of the semester. Deadlines you have already marked complete are left out, so the calendar only shows what is still ahead.
Do I need Pro for this?
Scanning a syllabus is the one AI action the free plan includes, and the deadlines it finds stay free to track. Exporting the calendar file, and syncing with the calendar app on an iPhone or iPad, are Pro features at $4.99 a month or $29.99 a year.
I imported the file but see nothing. What happened?
Three usual causes. The calendar you imported into is unticked in the list on the left, so its events are hidden. You imported while signed in to a different Google account than the one on your phone. Or the import went into your main calendar instead of the class calendar, which is why the guide creates a separate calendar first.
Ready to get organized?
Scan your first syllabus free. No credit card required.