Using the Graph CLI, How can I find all events in a date range including recurring instances?

Bertalan, Tom 0

I'm using a command like

mgc users events list --user-id me --filter "start/dateTime ge '2025-02-13T05:00:00Z' and end/dateTime le '2025-02-14T05:00:00Z'"

to retrieve as JSON my events for a day. However, this only surfaces events that are unique to that day, or first instances of recurring events. How can I also get recurrences to be included?

2 answers

Yakun Huang-MSFT 10,480 Microsoft Vendor

Hello Bertalan, Tom,

Thank you for reaching out to Microsoft Support!

For recurring events, you can use the List instances method, which lists instances of an event for a specified time range. The request command is as follows:

mgc users events instances list --user-id {user-id} --event-id {event-id} --start-date-time "2019-04-08T09:00:00.0000000" --end-date-time "2019-04-30T09:00:00.0000000" --select "subject,bodyPreview,seriesMasterId,type,recurrence,start,end"

See this document for more details:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/graph/api/event-list-instances?view=graph-rest-1.0&tabs=cli

Hope this helps.

If the answer is helpful, please click Accept Answer and kindly upvote it. If you have any further questions about this answer, please click Comment.

Bertalan, Tom 0 Reputation points

2025-02-14T02:41:31.89+00:00

Right, but to do this, I need to know the event-id. How can I find the event ids ... which would happen to have instances today? Do I need to maintain in my app a list of all recurring events that existed on my calendar at any time, just so that I can check whether today was one of their occurrences? Somehow I don't think that's the intended pattern of use.
Yakun Huang-MSFT 10,480 Reputation points Microsoft Vendor

2025-02-14T06:23:37.2966667+00:00

For event_id, you can get the event_id from the command you mentioned at the beginning, and you don't need to list all recurring events. The arguments start-date-time and end-date-time in the command will help you filter out instances in between.

Bertalan, Tom 0

But the command from the beginning doesn't return event_ids for a time range that only has recurrences rather than the original. See this sample usage--I created a daily recurring event starting 2/10, but only the 2/10 is returned:

(base) PS C:\Users\tbertala> mgc users events list --user-id me --filter "start/dateTime ge '2025-02-10T05:00:00Z' and end/dateTime le '2025-02-11T05:00:00Z'"
{
  "@odata.context": "https://graph.microsoft.com/v1.0/$metadata#users(\u0027[REDACTED]\u0027)/events",
  "value": [
    {
      "@odata.etag": "W/\u0022[REDACTED]\u0022",
      "id": "[REDACTED]",
      "createdDateTime": "2025-02-16T23:41:33.0743487Z",
      "lastModifiedDateTime": "2025-02-16T23:41:34.9462677Z",
      "changeKey": "[REDACTED]",
      "categories": [],
      "transactionId": "localevent:0a68a66d-2ecc-e13a-b191-215fbd27a256",
      "originalStartTimeZone": "Eastern Standard Time",
      "originalEndTimeZone": "Eastern Standard Time",
      "iCalUId": "[REDACTED]",
      "uid": "[REDACTED]",
      "reminderMinutesBeforeStart": 15,
      "isReminderOn": true,
      "hasAttachments": false,
      "subject": "Recurring Test",
      "bodyPreview": "",
      "importance": "normal",
      "sensitivity": "normal",
      "isAllDay": false,
      "isCancelled": false,
      "isOrganizer": true,
      "responseRequested": true,
      "seriesMasterId": null,
      "showAs": "busy",
      "type": "seriesMaster",
      "webLink": "https://outlook.office365.com/owa/?itemid=[REDACTED]\u0026exvsurl=1\u0026path=/calendar/item",
      "onlineMeetingUrl": null,
      "isOnlineMeeting": false,
      "onlineMeetingProvider": "unknown",
      "allowNewTimeProposals": true,
      "occurrenceId": null,
      "isDraft": false,
      "hideAttendees": false,
      "responseStatus": {
        "response": "organizer",
        "time": "0001-01-01T00:00:00Z"
      },
      "body": {
        "contentType": "html",
        "content": ""
      },
      "start": {
        "timeZone": "UTC"
      },
      "end": {
        "dateTime": "2025-02-10T16:30:00.0000000",
        "timeZone": "UTC"
      },
      "location": {
        "displayName": "",
        "locationType": "default",
        "uniqueIdType": "unknown",
        "address": {},
        "coordinates": {}
      },
      "locations": [],
      "recurrence": {
        "pattern": {
          "type": "daily",
          "interval": 1,
          "month": 0,
          "dayOfMonth": 0,
          "firstDayOfWeek": "sunday",
          "index": "first"
        },
        "range": {
          "type": "endDate",
          "startDate": "2025-02-10",
          "endDate": "2025-05-10",
          "recurrenceTimeZone": "Eastern Standard Time",
          "numberOfOccurrences": 0
        }
      },
      "attendees": [],
      "organizer": {
        "emailAddress": {
          "name": "Bertalan, Tom",
          "address": "[REDACTED]"
        }
      },
      "onlineMeeting": null,
      "calendar@odata.associationLink": "https://graph.microsoft.com/v1.0/users(\u0027[REDACTED]\u0027)/calendars(\u0027[REDACTED]\u0027)/$ref",
      "calendar@odata.navigationLink": "https://graph.microsoft.com/v1.0/users(\u0027[REDACTED]\u0027)/calendars(\u0027[REDACTED]\u0027)"
    }
  ]
}
(base) PS C:\Users\tbertala\OneDrive - Amgen\Documents\Projects\onedrive_api> mgc users events list --user-id me --filter "start/dateTime ge '2025-02-11T05:00:00Z' and end/dateTime le '2025-02-12T05:00:00Z'"
{
  "@odata.context": "https://graph.microsoft.com/v1.0/$metadata#users(\u0027[REDACTED]\u0027)/events",
  "value": []
}

Yakun Huang-MSFT 10,480 Reputation points Microsoft Vendor

2025-02-17T08:09:12.58+00:00
Yes, this is the expected result. For recurring events, your request through the mgc users events list is only likely to return one.

What you need to do next is to send the following request through the id of this event to get other instances:

mgc users events instances list --user-id {user-id} --event-id {event-id} --start-date-time "2019-04-08T09:00:00.0000000" --end-date-time "2019-04-30T09:00:00.0000000" --select "subject,bodyPreview,seriesMasterId,type,recurrence,start,end"
Bertalan, Tom 0 Reputation points

2025-02-17T22:53:44.5566667+00:00

But this is circular. I don't have the event-id. I start with only the user-id and date range.
Bertalan, Tom 0 Reputation points

2025-02-17T22:55:22.7+00:00

The task is, given user-id and date range, return a list of all events on that user's calendar in that date range, regardless of whether they're once-offs or the n>1th instance of some recurring event. We do not know any event-ids a priori.
Yakun Huang-MSFT 10,480 Reputation points Microsoft Vendor

2025-02-20T02:33:01.6933333+00:00
For your request, the return response contains the event_id, as shown below:

For your goal, you need to send two requests:

The first request, to get the id of a single event and a recurring event, is as follows:

mgc users events list --user-id me --filter "start/dateTime ge '2025-02-10T05:00:00Z' and end/dateTime le '2025-02-11T05:00:00Z'"

The second request, to obtain each instance of the loop event by its id, is as follows:

mgc users events instances list --user-id {user-id} --event-id {event-id} --start-date-time "2019-04-08T09:00:00.0000000" --end-date-time "2019-04-30T09:00:00.0000000"
Bertalan, Tom 0 Reputation points

2025-02-27T17:51:25.3466667+00:00
See my second command and its output--an empty list. I can't know the event ID unless I happen to query on its start date.

(base) PS C:\Users\tbertala\OneDrive - Amgen\Documents\Projects\onedrive_api> mgc users events list --user-id me --filter "start/dateTime ge '2025-02-11T05:00:00Z' and end/dateTime le '2025-02-12T05:00:00Z'" { "@odata.context": "https://graph.microsoft.com/v1.0/$metadata#users(\u0027[REDACTED]\u0027)/events", "value": [] }

The only workaround would be to query for some vast range of times (basically download all my events from the chosen day all the way to the mists of antiquity), filter after receiving for those that fill the "recurrence" information, and then re-query for all recurrences of each of those that actually are on the chosen day.
Bertalan, Tom 0 Reputation points

2025-02-27T18:19:28.1166667+00:00

Alternately, try to imagine the workflow for a "get my events for today" app--there is no way for it to get the eventids it needs without querying the whole calendar, going back in time.

Bertalan, Tom 0 Reputation points

2025-02-27T19:18:50.74+00:00

Well, I went ahead and wrote it this way. Get all the events ever, post process out the recurring ones, then, for each of those, do the users events instances list command to get recurrences in my actual desired time range. This requires way too many API calls, and the first one as I said basically redownloads the whole calendar every time the script is invoked, but it works, and takes only a couple minutes to run.
Please sign in to rate this answer.

0 comments No comments
Sign in to comment

Use comments to ask for clarification, additional information, or improvements to the question.

Share via

Using the Graph CLI, How can I find all events in a date range including recurring instances?

2 answers

Your answer

Share via

Using the Graph CLI, How can I find all events in a date range *including* recurring instances?

2 answers

Your answer

Using the Graph CLI, How can I find all events in a date range including recurring instances?