How to Retrieve a Google Calendar Event by Custom eventId in Python

Learn the proper way to create and fetch Google Calendar events using a custom event ID with Python Google API client. --- This video is based on the question https://stackoverflow.com/q/79491031/ asked by the user 'Sim81' ( https://stackoverflow.com/u/6227035/ ) and on the answer https://stackoverflow.com/a/79491278/ provided by the user 'Lydia Kirubai S' ( https://stackoverflow.com/u/29675560/ ) at 'Stack Overflow' website. Thanks to these great users and Stackexchange community for their contributions. Visit these links for original content and any more details, such as alternate solutions, latest updates/developments on topic, comments, revision history etc. For example, the original title of the Question was: Google Calendar - get an event by ID in python script Also, Content (except music) licensed under CC BY-SA https://meta.stackexchange.com/help/l... The original Question post is licensed under the 'CC BY-SA 4.0' ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... ) license, and the original Answer post is licensed under the 'CC BY-SA 4.0' ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... ) license. If anything seems off to you, please feel free to drop me a comment under this video. --- Introduction When working with the Google Calendar API in Python, you might want to create an event with a custom identifier (eventId) and then retrieve it using that ID. However, this straightforward approach can cause confusion and errors if the API is not used correctly. The Problem Inserting a calendar event using service.events().insert() with eventId set in the event body leads to a 404 Not Found error when trying to retrieve it by that ID: [[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]] Why does this happen? Understanding the Google Calendar API Behavior The eventId cannot be set inside the event JSON body when using the insert() method. Google Calendar automatically generates an event ID unless you specify it explicitly in the request URL. The insert() method does not accept an eventId parameter to set a custom ID. The Correct Approach: Use update() with a Custom eventId To create an event with a custom eventId, do the following: Prepare your event body without an eventId field. Use the update() method, which allows creating an event with a specific eventId if it doesn't exist yet. Example: [[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]] Key Takeaways Do not set eventId inside the event body for insert(). Use update() with eventId to create an event with a custom ID. After creating with update(), you can fetch the event by its eventId. This approach ensures you avoid the 404 error and correctly manage events by their custom IDs through the Google Calendar API. Additional Tips Always handle exceptions for API calls to catch errors like HttpError. Use OAuth2 credentials with proper scopes (https://www.googleapis.com/auth/calendar) for full access. Remember that custom eventId must be unique within the calendar. By following this method, you can reliably create and retrieve Google Calendar events using custom IDs in your Python scripts.