Ingest calendar

Read this if you want OMem to ingest your calendar events. On macOS it reads Apple Calendar’s local store (calendar-app) directly — so Exchange, iCloud, and CalDAV accounts all flow through one source, symmetric with how mail works.

Local store, not Outlook Web

The default source is calendar-app, reading the local Calendar database. An earlier design routed calendar through a browser-scraped Outlook Web; that was changed because reading the local store is more reliable. You won’t need a browser session for calendar.

Calendar's permission changed in macOS 26

Where macOS keeps the Calendar database — and therefore which permission OMem needs — depends on your version:

• macOS ≤ 12 (older): Calendar lives at ~/Library/Calendars/Calendar Cache and is gated by the Calendars privacy permission. macOS prompts for it normally.
• macOS 26 (Tahoe) and newer: Calendar moved into a sandboxed group container (~/Library/Group Containers/group.com.apple.calendar/Calendar.sqlitedb), so access is now gated by Full Disk Access — exactly like mail. macOS never prompts for FDA automatically; you add the omem binary by hand.

Either way, omem setup --grant-tcc detects your version and walks you through the right one. If calendar ingests nothing on macOS 26, it’s almost always missing FDA — see common errors.

Turn it on

1. Grant access. Calendar needs a macOS permission — the wizard handles it, or run it directly:

   omem setup --grant-tcc

   Which permission depends on your macOS version (see the note below): older macOS grants a Calendars privacy permission (a normal prompt), while macOS 26+ needs Full Disk Access — the same as mail.

2. Set the time window. Calendar uses a symmetric window — recent past and near future (defaults: 3 months back, 3 months forward):

   omem config set kinds.calendar.scope.time_window.since 6m_ago
   omem config set kinds.calendar.scope.time_window.until 6m_from_now

3. Enable and ingest:

   omem config set kinds.calendar.enabled true
   omem ingest --kind calendar

Pick which sub-calendars

If you subscribe to noisy calendars (holidays, birthdays, a shared team calendar), restrict ingest to the ones you care about. null (the default) means all sub-calendars:

omem config set kinds.calendar.scope.calendars '["Calendar", "Work"]'

Other scope knobs

Setting	Default	What it does
kinds.calendar.scope.include_recurring_instances	true	Expand each occurrence of a recurring event.
kinds.calendar.scope.max_events_per_account	5000	Cap per account.
kinds.calendar.scope.include_attachments	true	Ingest meeting-agenda attachments (PDFs, etc.).
kinds.calendar.scope.max_attachment_size_mb	50	Skip larger attachments (metadata-only line kept).

Confirm it worked

omem query "the offsite planning meeting" --kind calendar
omem wiki ls --kind calendar

Each event page carries its time, location, organizer, and attendees, plus any attached agenda.

Calendar deletions are permanent

Unlike mail (which has a trash you can restore from), a deleted calendar event is gone — OMem can’t revive its page the way it revives a deleted file’s page. Worth knowing if you prune your calendar aggressively.

What’s next

• Ingest Loop notes — the one source that needs a browser sign-in.
• Ingest mail — the sibling local source.