Have questions about paid ads, campaign optimisation, or platform features? Browse our knowledge base for step-by-step guides, FAQs, and expert insights to help you succeed.
Share your calendar with someone
On This Page
Screenshots are being updated. The pictures that were here were loaded from Google’s own help pages rather than hosted by us, so they have been removed. The steps below are complete without them.
Google Calendar sharing runs on one idea: you choose who, and separately you choose how much they can see or do. Those are two different decisions and the second is the one that matters. There is a large difference between somebody seeing that you are busy at two o’clock and somebody being able to see, edit and cancel everything in your diary.
The usual case is the simplest one. If you are sharing with us so we can book a meeting without the back and forth, See all event details is plenty. We do not need to change anything in your calendar, and you can withdraw it at any time.
Two things worth knowing first
- Sharing has to be done on a computer. The Google Calendar phone app cannot share a calendar. You can view and use a shared calendar on your phone afterwards; you just cannot set it up there.
- You can only share a calendar you own. If it is somebody else’s, you need them to give you “Make changes and manage sharing” first.
Sharing your calendar with a specific person
- On a computer, open Google Calendar.
- On the left, find My calendars. Click the arrow to expand it if the list is collapsed.
- Hover over the calendar you want to share. Click the three dots that appear, then Settings and sharing.
- Scroll to Share with specific people and click Add people.
- Enter the email address, then choose the permission level using the table below.
- Click Send.
- The other person has to click the link in the email they receive. Until they do, nothing appears in their calendar, which is the usual reason a share seems not to have worked.
Which permission level to choose
| Level | What it means, and when it fits |
|---|---|
| See only free/busy | They see blocks of time marked busy, with no titles, guests or locations. Right when somebody only needs to find a gap, and the most private option. |
| See all event details | They see titles, times, guests and locations, and can change nothing. Right for sharing with us, and for most colleagues. |
| Make changes to events | They can create, edit and delete events in your calendar. Right for an assistant who books on your behalf. |
| Make changes and manage sharing | Everything above, plus they can share your calendar onward with anyone else. Give this out rarely. |
Full access is broader than it sounds. Somebody with full access can respond to invitations as you, edit and delete events, pass your calendar on to other people, and delete the whole calendar. It is worth a few seconds choosing the level rather than accepting the default.
Do not use “Make available to public” to share with one person. It appears in the same settings screen and looks like a shortcut, but it publishes your calendar to anyone who finds the address, and public calendars can be picked up by search engines. If you want one person to see your diary, add that person. Public is for things like a venue’s event listings, never a working diary.
Making a separate calendar instead
Often the better answer to “I do not want to share everything” is a second calendar, shared while your main one stays private.
- On a computer, open Google Calendar. On the left, next to Other calendars, click +, then Create new calendar.
- Give it a name and description, then click Create calendar.
- Find it under My calendars, open its Settings and sharing, and share it using the steps above.
- Put only the events you are happy to share on that calendar.
You can rename it, recolour it or hide it from your list at any time from the same three-dot menu.
Adding somebody else’s calendar to yours
- On the left, next to Other calendars, click +, then Subscribe to calendar.
- Type their email address and press Enter.
- If they have already shared with you, it appears under Other calendars straight away. If not, Google offers to send them a request, and it appears once they approve it.
If a newly added calendar looks empty, give it a moment. Refresh the page first. Subscribed calendars can take a while to fill in, and a public calendar added by address can take up to twelve hours. It is almost never actually broken.
Stopping sharing
- Open Settings and sharing for the calendar.
- Under Share with specific people, find the person and remove them with the X.
- To hide somebody else’s calendar without unsubscribing, just untick it under Other calendars. It stays available to switch back on.
When to email us instead
- The sharing options are missing or greyed out. On a work account an administrator can restrict sharing outside the organisation, and that is settled in the Workspace admin console rather than in Calendar.
- You shared with us and we still cannot see it. Usually the invitation link has not been clicked yet, and we can tell you which side it is stuck on.
- You think a calendar may have been made public by mistake. Worth checking straight away, and quick for us to look at.
Related guides
Still haven’t found what you’re looking for?
Let us know and we’ll do our best to help out!