How Often Calendar Subscriptions Update
When someone subscribes to your church calendar feed (the live .ics link — see iCalendar and Subscriptions), they may not see new or changed events right away. This is normal, and it helps to understand why — because the delay is set by the subscriber's calendar app (Apple, Google, or Outlook), not by TimelyChurch.
On TimelyChurch's side: always up to date
Your feed is live. The moment you add, edit, or remove an event, the calendar feed reflects it within about a minute. TimelyChurch also tells every subscribing app to check for updates every 15 minutes.
So there is no delay on our end — your changes are published right away.
On the subscriber's side: their app decides when to refresh
That "every 15 minutes" is only a request. Each calendar app refreshes external subscriptions on its own schedule, and they differ a lot:
| Calendar app | How often it actually refreshes |
|---|---|
| Apple Calendar (iPhone, iPad, Mac) | Usually every 15 minutes to 1 hour. The user can change this in the subscription settings (Push / Every 15 min / 30 min / Hourly / Daily). |
| Outlook | Roughly every few hours. |
| Google Calendar | On Google's own schedule — typically 8 to 24 hours, sometimes longer. Google largely ignores the refresh hint and cannot be sped up. |
This is a limitation of those calendar services, not of TimelyChurch. We publish every change immediately; how quickly a subscriber sees it depends entirely on which app they use.
What this means in practice
- Apple Calendar users usually see your changes within 15–60 minutes.
- Google Calendar users may not see a new or changed event for several hours, up to a day.
- If you need everyone to see an update right now (for example, a last-minute cancellation), don't rely on the calendar subscription alone — also send an announcement or notification through TimelyChurch.
Tip: The most up-to-date view of your events is always inside TimelyChurch itself (the admin calendar, the public calendar page, and the member portal). The
.icssubscription is a convenient mirror in someone's personal calendar app — but its refresh timing is controlled by that app.