Python code to manually remove events from a calendar (best used for large birthday calendars)

remove_events_from_ics.py

CAL_START = """
BEGIN:VCALENDAR
PRODID:-//Google Inc//Google Calendar 70.9054//EN
VERSION:2.0
CALSCALE:GREGORIAN
METHOD:PUBLISH
X-WR-CALNAME:Birthdays
X-WR-TIMEZONE:America/New_York
X-WR-CALDESC:Imported from Facebook
BEGIN:VTIMEZONE
TZID:America/New_York
X-LIC-LOCATION:America/New_York
BEGIN:DAYLIGHT
TZOFFSETFROM:-0500
TZOFFSETTO:-0400
TZNAME:EDT
DTSTART:19700308T020000
RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;BYMONTH=3;BYDAY=2SU
END:DAYLIGHT
BEGIN:STANDARD
TZOFFSETFROM:-0400
TZOFFSETTO:-0500
TZNAME:EST
DTSTART:19701101T020000
RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;BYMONTH=11;BYDAY=1SU
END:STANDARD
END:VTIMEZONE
"""

CAL_END = """
END:VCALENDAR
"""

lines = []
with open("oldCalendar.ics", 'r') as fp:
  lines = fp.readlines()

keepEvents = []
newCalendar = []
lineHold = []
recordEvent = False
for line in lines:
  # if we see the begining of an event start recording
  if "BEGIN:VEVENT" in line:
    recordEvent = True
  # if we are recording then record the line
  if recordEvent:
    lineHold.append(line)
  # if we see the end of an event, add the lineHold and stop recording
  if "END:VEVENT" in line:
    newCalendar += lineHold
    lineHold = []
    recordEvent = False
  # if we see the name, ask if we want to keep
  if "SUMMARY:" in line:
    friendName = line.replace("SUMMARY:","").replace("\n", "")
    userIn = input("Type anything to remove [" + friendName + "] to the calendar: ")
    # if the user enters anything but a blank line, remove the user
    if userIn != "":
      lineHold = []
      recordEvent = False
    else:
      keepEvents.append(friendName)

with open("keepEvents.txt", "w") as fp:
  fp.write("\n".join(keepEvents))

with open("newCalendar.ics", "w") as fp:
  fp.write(CAL_START + "".join(newCalendar) + CAL_END)