Recurring lesson schedules are the most common source of calendar clutter in schools. A full weekly timetable — one recurring event per lesson, per class, per teacher — can generate thousands of individual event instances over the course of an academic year.
At the end of the year, those events need to go. But Google Calendar has no simple way to remove hundreds of recurring series at once. This guide explains the most efficient approach.
In Google Calendar, each recurring lesson is a series — a master event that repeats on a set schedule. To delete a recurring series manually, you need to:
For a single lesson this takes 10 seconds. For a full school timetable with 40 different subjects, multiple class groups, and teacher calendars — it takes hours. And if lessons are spread across multiple shared calendars, the task multiplies further.
Rather than deleting each recurring series individually, the most efficient approach is to set a cut-off date and remove everything before it in a single operation — across all affected calendars at once.
WipeAway handles recurring series automatically as part of its bulk deletion process. When you set a cut-off date, WipeAway identifies every event — both individual and recurring — that falls before that date and removes them all together. You do not need to find and delete each lesson series one by one.
WipeAway processes all selected calendars and removes every event before your cut-off date, including all recurring lesson series, without affecting the calendar structure or sharing permissions.
Recurring events that extend past your cut-off date are handled correctly — only the past occurrences are removed. If a recurring event somehow carries over into the new academic year, those future instances are left untouched.
Some schools load timetables in September and October separately, or add additional recurring events mid-year. WipeAway's cut-off date handles this cleanly — anything before the date is removed, anything after is preserved. If you set the cut-off to the last day of term, any events you have already added for the new academic year will be left intact.
Once cleared, your timetable calendars are ready for the new year's schedules to be loaded. Many schools import timetables directly from their MIS (Management Information System) — the cleared calendars accept this import without any issues since the calendar structure and integrations remain unchanged.