Is it going to fill my calendar with sixty events before I get a look at them?

Not if you keep the last line of the wording in step four. Claude reads the PDF, lays out what it found, and stops there. Nothing gets written until you say go. And if a batch does land wrong, tell it so in the same chat and it can delete what it created.

Where does my kid's school calendar actually end up?

The PDF goes to Anthropic to be read, the same as any file you attach to a chat. The events go to your own Google account, through a connector you approved in Google's own sign-in window, and you can take that approval back any time from your Google account security page. None of it passes through GraniteAI. We never see the file.

We are an Outlook house. Does this still work?

Yes. Switch on the Microsoft 365 connector in the setup section instead of the Google one, and it handles the Outlook calendar the same way. Change one word in the step four wording: ask for your Outlook calendar where it says Google Calendar. One catch on a work or school Microsoft account: an IT administrator may have to approve the connection before it will go through.

Can I use Codex for this instead of Claude?

The setup section covers installing Codex, but these six steps are written for Claude Desktop, because the calendar connector is a switch inside that app. We have not run this workflow on Codex, so we are not going to sit here and tell you it behaves the same way over there.

What if mine is a scan, or a photo I took of the one on the fridge?

It usually reads fine. A PDF exported by the school's own system is the most reliable thing you can hand it. A phone photo works when the dates are legible, and it is worth checking a few more of them in step six than you otherwise would.

How long is this going to take me?

The setup above is the long part, around fifteen minutes, and you do it one time. After that a school calendar runs in a couple of minutes, most of which is you reading the list before you approve it.

Video guide

Read the school calendar once, then never again.

It comes home in a backpack or lands in a September email. One page, the whole year, every day off and early release and teacher workshop day printed in a grid you will end up squinting at in February. This guide walks you through handing that page to Claude and telling it which of those dates you want. It reads the PDF, asks you a few questions, shows you what it found, and then writes the dates onto your Google Calendar as real events with a reminder the day before.

See it happen in 75 secondsOn Instagram. The steps below stand on their own if you would rather read than watch.

Setup, once: 15 min
Steps to follow: 6
All you bring: 1 PDF
Dates in one pass: A year

Where this leaves you

One pass over the PDF, and the school year is sitting on the calendar you already look at every morning.

The dates off that grid in your calendar as real events, instead of a PDF you keep meaning to open
A reminder the day before, so the half day is something you planned around and not something you learned about at 11am
Only the kinds of events you asked for. It asks before it decides, so PTA nights go in or stay out on your say-so
Something you can run again when the revised calendar comes home in January

Before you start

Three things have to be true on your computer. Most people need about fifteen minutes for this part, and you only do it once. Every guide on this site starts here.

This part costs money. The assistants below run on a paid subscription, billed monthly by Anthropic or OpenAI. Nothing on this page asks you for an email address, and we take no cut of what you spend with them.

Pick one assistant

Windows, macOS, Linux or ChromeOS. The app is a free download. The subscription that makes it useful is paid.

01
Go to claude.com/download and get the installer for your computer. The page lists macOS, Windows, Linux and ChromeOS, and it usually picks the right one for you.
claude.com/download
On a Mac the page asks whether yours is Apple Silicon or Intel, and you drag Claude into your Applications folder. On Windows you run the installer and it puts itself in the Start menu.
02
Open the app and sign in. Use an email address you check, because signing in sends you a code.
03
Buy a subscription. Open the account menu and pick the plan page, then choose Pro. The free tier will not run the steps in these guides.
Settings → Plans
Pro is the entry paid plan. Max costs more and gives you more usage per day. Start on Pro. You can move up later without redoing any of this setup.
04
Check that the app is signed in and answering. Type hello into the message box and send it. A reply means the setup above worked.

Connect your email and calendar

The assistant cannot read your mail or write to your calendar until you hand it a connector. This is a setting inside the assistant, and you grant it from your provider's own sign-in screen, so your password never goes to Anthropic or OpenAI. Turn on the ones a guide asks for and leave the rest off.

A Google account. Personal Gmail and Google Workspace both work. Gmail, Google Calendar and Google Drive are three separate switches in the same list.

01
In Claude Desktop, open Settings and find the Connectors page.
Settings → Connectors
02
Find Gmail in the list and click the button to connect it.
Google Calendar and Google Drive sit next to it. Turn on the ones you want. Each is a separate grant.
03
Google opens its own sign-in window and asks which permissions to give. Read the list, then approve it.
This window belongs to Google. Claude never sees your Google password. You can revoke the grant later from your Google account security page.
04
Back in the app, ask it to find your most recent email. A correct answer means the connector is live.
If it says it has no access, close the app and reopen it. The connector list refreshes on start.

Stuck on this part? The rest of the page will still make sense to read. Come back to the setup when you have the fifteen minutes.

Setup steps checked: 29 August 2026

Do it once

Six steps. Finish the setup above first, and whatever you do, do not skip the connector in step two.

Claude Desktop on Windows or Mac, a paid plan, and the Google Calendar connector switched on. The setup section above covers all three.

01
Get the PDF onto your computer, somewhere you can find it again. It is usually on the district website under something like Calendars, or sitting in a back-to-school email from August. Your Downloads folder is fine.
A phone photo of the paper copy on the fridge often works too, though a real PDF reads more reliably.
02
Open Settings in Claude Desktop and switch on the Google Calendar connector. Google opens its own sign-in window and spells out what it is granting before you agree to it.
Settings → Connectors → Google Calendar
This is the step people skip, and skipping it is quiet. Claude will read your PDF happily and then have nowhere to put the events. Gmail and Google Drive sit beside it as separate switches, and you do not need either one for this.
03
Start a new chat and attach the PDF. Click the paperclip in the message box, or drag the file onto the window.
Paperclip → pick the PDF
04
Ask for what you want in ordinary words. Copy the wording below and change anything that does not match your school.
Read this school calendar and put the dates on my Google Calendar. Include days off, early releases, holidays and teacher workshop days. Anything else you find in there, ask me before you add it. Show me the whole list and wait for me to approve it before you create anything.
That last line is doing the real work. It makes Claude lay out what it found and stop, instead of writing sixty events you have never seen.
05
Answer its questions. It checks which calendar to write to, which kinds of events you actually want, and what hour to use for anything the PDF gives a date but no time.
Early release is always the one that needs an hour. The PDF gives you the date and nothing else, so tell it when your school actually lets out. And when it asks about the PTA meetings or the booster nights, that is your call to make. On the PTA? Say yes and they go in with everything else.
06
Approve the list, then open your calendar and check three or four dates against the PDF. One day off, one early release, and whatever the first event of the year is.
If something landed wrong, say so in the same chat and ask it to fix or remove those events. It can delete what it created, so you are not stuck cleaning up by hand.

Schools revise these things. When the new PDF comes home in January, attach it in the same chat, ask what changed, and let it move or remove the dates that shifted.

Questions people ask

Is it going to fill my calendar with sixty events before I get a look at them?
Not if you keep the last line of the wording in step four. Claude reads the PDF, lays out what it found, and stops there. Nothing gets written until you say go. And if a batch does land wrong, tell it so in the same chat and it can delete what it created.
Where does my kid's school calendar actually end up?
The PDF goes to Anthropic to be read, the same as any file you attach to a chat. The events go to your own Google account, through a connector you approved in Google's own sign-in window, and you can take that approval back any time from your Google account security page. None of it passes through GraniteAI. We never see the file.
We are an Outlook house. Does this still work?
Yes. Switch on the Microsoft 365 connector in the setup section instead of the Google one, and it handles the Outlook calendar the same way. Change one word in the step four wording: ask for your Outlook calendar where it says Google Calendar. One catch on a work or school Microsoft account: an IT administrator may have to approve the connection before it will go through.
Can I use Codex for this instead of Claude?
The setup section covers installing Codex, but these six steps are written for Claude Desktop, because the calendar connector is a switch inside that app. We have not run this workflow on Codex, so we are not going to sit here and tell you it behaves the same way over there.
What if mine is a scan, or a photo I took of the one on the fridge?
It usually reads fine. A PDF exported by the school's own system is the most reliable thing you can hand it. A phone photo works when the dates are legible, and it is worth checking a few more of them in step six than you otherwise would.
How long is this going to take me?
The setup above is the long part, around fifteen minutes, and you do it one time. After that a school calendar runs in a couple of minutes, most of which is you reading the list before you approve it.

Why a business is writing about school calendars.

GraniteAI builds and runs AI systems for small and midsized businesses, out of Manchester, New Hampshire. The job is mostly the one above, at a different size: find the thing somebody is retyping by hand every week, and hand it to a system that does it the same way every time. A school calendar is the small version. If the larger version is sitting somewhere in how your business runs, that is the work we do.

See what we build Browse the other guides