I need an RRULE for every other Saturday except the last week of the month. I tried to create one with a weekly frequency, but didn't know how to apply an exception for the last week of the month:
RRULE:FREQ=MONTHLY;INTERVAL=1;BYDAY=SA
I also tried creating a rule with a monthly frequency, which allowed me to skip the last week of the month, but I didn't know how to make it every other week:
RRULE:FREQ=MONTHLY;INTERVAL=1;BYDAY=SA;BYSETPOS=-2,-3,-4,-5
I looked through the specification, but I'm not seeing anything that makes this possible.
The secret to the solution here is that BYMONTHDAY can be negative like BYSETPOS. This allows one to exclude the last 7 days of each month even though the number of days in the month varies. Your DTSTART should be on a SATURDAY, so one doesn't really need the BYDAY=SA
This rrule works in google calendar (if DTSTART is on Saturday and generally for any every 2nd week but not the last week rule for any day of week specified by the DTSTART):
RRULE:FREQ=WEEKLY;INTERVAL=2;BYMONTHDAY=-8,-9,-10,-11,-12,-13,-14,-15,-16,-17,-18,-19,-20,-21,-22,-23,-24,-25,-26,-27,-28,-29,-30,-31
See test calendar: https://calendar.google.com/calendar/u/0?cid=ZXBwdWE4N2RwZm5xODVic3JydDJzaXFsY3NAZ3JvdXAuY2FsZW5kYXIuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbQ
Spec: https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc2445#page-43
and https://icalevents.com/2447-need-to-know-the-possible-combinations-for-repeating-dates-an-ical-cheatsheet/ for the expansion & contraction (limiting) rules & combinations