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Remove All Events from Google Calendar (Reset Calendar)

Posted on 05/23/2018 at 09:29 pm by Kevin Wentworth
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I've been doing a lot of programming with the Google Calendar API lately and ran into an issue when I was ready to "go live" with the site.  The Google Calendar was loaded with tons of test data!  I searched around and found plenty of sites giving the same answer.  The problem with the answer- it was incomplete.  If you want to reset a calendar (a Google Calendar factory reset of sorts) you need to permanently delete all calendar events using calendar settings, but also you need to empty the trash!

Reset Google Calendar / Clearing All Events from Google Calendar

1. On the left-hand sidebar, click the 3 vertical dots next to the calendar you want to delete all events
2. Click on the option for settings
3. Scroll all the way down to the bottom of the calendar settings
4. Click Remove calendar > Delete > Delete permanently. 

Deleted Events Have a Status of Cancelled

But they are still in your calendar!  So, if you are using the calendar API, to say, pull in all events, including cancellations, then your web application won't change one bit!  This is because Google Calendar only cancels the events, it doesn't delete them.

Empty the Trash!

The solution, is to empty the trash related to the calendar you just deleted/cleared/reset above.  You clear the trash by:

1. Click on the settings icon on the top of your calendar (not the calendar setting, but the settings for the calendar application)
2. Go to Trash
3. Click the text link for "empty trash"

Finally!  

Cheers,
- Kevin Wentworth