From time to time most of us face the task of scheduling things with others. It can become especially challenging when the scheduling is extensive. For example, because of medical issues I periodically have doctor appointments. Some months there have been several. My wife goes to my appointments with me (she really is the best). My wife and I started running into issues with appointments sneaking up on us and having to reschedule. We needed a solution.
She had a great idea that I am going to share with all of you. I use Google Calendar to keep my life straight. Between Calendar and Keep, I have found a winning combo. I keep track of events in Calendar and notes in Keep. One day my wife asked if I can share the appointment entries in my Google Calendar with her calendar. That turned out to be a winning idea. In this post, I am going to show you how to share your Google Calendar with those that you need to schedule anything with.
What is Google Calendar?
Google is a brand with many services. One of them is Calendar. You have your own if you have a Google account. You can find it on the Google Calendar website. It offers several calendar view options:
- Day
- Week
- Month
- Year
- Schedule
- 4 Days
With it, you can keep track of appointments, tasks, birthdays, deadlines, or whatever you want. You can even set reminders. If you have a Google account it’s yours and free to use.
Reasons you may want to share Google Calendar with others:
- To schedule and keep track of rides to appointments.
- To keep everyone on the same page when it comes to the date and time of an important event.
- To mark important deadlines and even receive reminders.
- For whatever other reasons that you would find useful.
How to Share Your Google Calendar
Before you begin:
- You must either be the owner of the calendar or have make changes and manage sharing permission.
- The person you are sharing with must have a Gmail account (unless you are opting to make your calendar public).
Keep in mind that you can’t share your Google Calendar using the app, you have to do it from the web.
You have two sharing options:
- Share with a specific person
- Make public
Share Your Google Calendar with Specific People
This is a great option if you are sharing your calendar with a single person.
- Go to the Google Calendar website.
- On the left side of the screen, look for the calendar that you want to share. It will be your name or something that you previously named it.
- Select the three vertical dots that appear when you hover the mouse pointer over the calendar name.
- Click Settings and sharing.
- Make sure that the right time zone is selected for this page before continuing. That way everyone that you share the calendar with will be able to access all of your events at the appropriate time.
- Scroll down to the share with specific people section and click Add people.
- Enter the email address of the person that you want to share with and set their permissions. The permission options are to see only the free/busy listings (hide details), see full event details, make alterations to the events, and make adjustments and take control of sharing.
- Click Send.
- The person that you are sharing with will receive an email in their Gmail account inviting them to access your calendar. They will then need to click a link in the email that they just received.
Make Your Google Calendar Public
This can be a good option if you have a group that you need to share your calendar with and don’t have any private information on it.
- Go to the Google Calendar website.
- On the left side of the screen, look for the calendar that you want to share. It will be your name or something that you previously named it.
- Select the three vertical dots that appear when you hover the mouse pointer over the calendar name.
- Click Settings and sharing.
- Make sure that the right time zone is selected for this page before continuing. That way everyone that you share the calendar with will be able to access all of your events at the appropriate time.
- Under the access permissions for events section put a checkmark next to Make available to public.
- You will receive a warning that says: “Making your calendar public will make all events visible to the world, including via Google search. Are you sure?” Click Ok.
- Set permissions. Your options are to see only the free/busy listings (hide details) and see full event details.
- Click Get Shareable link.
- Copy the link and share it with those to whom you wish to share.
A word of caution about making your calendar public. If you make your calendar public all events will be visible to everyone and possibly even searchable on Google.
I hope you found this information useful and that it helps in some way to make your life easier. Just keep in mind to be cautious about what you share and who you share with.