Google Calendar is a great app. I can access it from any computer, sync it with my smartphone, sync with my desktop mail app, and more. It is easy to use and has many features. One of the nice features I’ve recently started using is Google Calendar Sharing.
When you share your Google calendar, you can quickly share controlled access to your events with a colleague, family member, or friend. In this article, I’ll show you the different methods of publishing your calendar and give you some tips along the way.
Public calendar versus private calendar
The first thing you need to understand is the difference between a public calendar and a private calendar. Your personal calendar is visible only to you, which means that all your events will be visible only to you.
This means that if you create an event on your personal calendar and then try to post the event and send someone a link, they won’t be able to view the event. This is because the calendar is private. When you publish it, you can share it with individuals or with the whole world.
When the calendar is public, you will be able to share events and select different privacy levels, which I will explain below. The best way to separate private and public calendars is to create a new calendar that you can share with individuals or everyone.
Share your calendar
After creating a new calendar or selecting an existing calendar to post, sign in to Google Calendar and hover over the calendar.
You will see three small vertical dots that will give you options for that particular calendar. You need to click on Settings & Share. In addition, a plus sign next to the Add Friend’s Calendar box indicates that you can add a new calendar.
On the next screen, the sharing options are in the middle of the page. There are access permissions that allow you to make the entire calendar public. Most of the public calendars are created by organizations such as schools, universities, etc.
If you check the Make public box, you will receive a warning that the whole world can view your calendar. You can also choose between Show Free / Busy Only (hide details) or View all event details.
If you only need to share your calendar with a few people, it’s easier to add them to the Share with Specific People section. Tap ADD PEOPLE and enter the email address of the person you want to share the calendar with.
You can also choose the permissions the user should have: view only free and busy time information (hide details), view all event details, make changes to events and make changes, and manage sharing.
One thing should be noted here. If you share with certain people, they should also use Google Calendar. If you want to share your calendar with someone who doesn’t use Google Calendar, then the only option you have is to make the calendar public.
The invitation will be sent and the user will just have to click the link and your calendar will appear in their list of calendars. Once you make your calendar public, you can start adding events to it. You will also notice that each event has its own visibility option: public or private.
Depending on how your calendar is shared (private, only to certain people, or public), people will either see the event as busy or be able to see all of the event details. Google has a full page that describes all the different combinations of options, which can be a little confusing. For example, if your calendar is public, but you choose private for a particular event, then it will only show that time block as busy, but no one can see the event title or any details.
There is also an option sometimes called “Only me”. This activity will not be visible to anyone but you and will not even appear as busy.
At this point, you can start inviting people to your events. Once you’ve created an event, you can click on it in Google Calendar and then click on the three vertical dots.
One of the options is Publish an event. You will need to copy the HTML code, which can then be pasted into the website, or simply copy the URL, which can then be emailed or shared on social media, etc.
You can also click on the pencil icon on the left to edit the event and add guests to the right.
You can choose whether guests can edit the event, invite others to the event, or view the guest list.
So these are pretty much all ways to share your Google calendar and events with other people or with the whole world. This can be a little confusing, but if you play around with the settings, it’s not hard to understand. Enjoy!
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