Google Calendar

Quickly add events to Google Calendar based on your emails with Gemini in Gmail

You can now quickly add events to your Google Calendar directly from Gmail. Gemini will spot calendar-related content in your emails and show an "Add to calendar" button. Clicking this opens the side panel for confirmation; however, it's currently only in English on the web.

Know who an event is shared with when using shared Google Calendars

Users with "Make changes to events" permission can now see the members of shared calendars in the Calendar Settings screen. This enhancement provides clarity about who events are shared with, improving the user experience. 

Introducing a new look and feel for Google Calendar on the web

Google Calendar on the web is getting a facelift with modern and accessible buttons, new typefaces and fresh iconography. You will also be able to switch between light and dark mode via the Settings icon and Appearance option.

Pre-configure meeting notes, recordings, and transcripts from the Calendar invite

Meeting hosts can now pre-configure meeting notes, recordings and transcripts from the original calendar invite, to ensure these options are enabled automatically when the meeting starts. 

Find out more in our how-to video:

Updates to appointment scheduling in Google Calendar

Google has made some improvements to appointment scheduling in Google Calendar, including adding co-hosts and using secondary calendars. 

Find out more in our how-to video:

View full-screen tasks in Google Calendar

You can now  see all of your tasks and task lists in a single full screen view in Google Calendar on the web.

Set everyone as a viewer for a Google Meet event

You can control how your guests can join a Google Meet from a calendar event. If you are hosting a large meeting, for example, you may want all attendees to join as viewers only, without the ability to share audio and video. 

Note that viewers will be able to use Meet features such as Q&As and polls, but will not be able to use in-meeting chat or emoji reactions.

Find out more in our how-to video:

Set your Chat status to Do Not Disturb in Focus Time

When setting focus time in your calendar, you can now set your chat status to Do not disturb automatically for the duration of the focus time. This will mute all chat notifications during this time and show you as unavailable to your chat contacts. 

Suggested working locations in Google Calendar

Google Calendar will suggest working locations for you based on the recent locations you have set. When you choose a location, you will be able to select from suggested locations, or choose a specific other location as normal.

View calendar availability when setting up appointment schedules

When setting up calendar schedules to share your availability, you can now view any number of calendars to check your availability for these schedules.

Find out more in out how-to video

Categorise your Google Calendar events by colour for better time insights

If you use time insights in Google Calendar, you can now set specific labels for the different types of event in your calendar, and categorise all events using these colours to see a meaningful breakdown of how your time is spent. 

Find out more in out how-to video

Set your office building in your working location in Google Calendar

As well as being able to indicate if you are working from home or the office in your calendar, you can now select a specific building as your working location. This building is taken into account for meeting room suggestions and allows other people viewing your calendar to see where you are working each day. 

Find out more in out how-to video

Add meeting invitations to your calendar only from known senders 

To help keep your Google Calendar free from spam, you can now select an option to display events on your calendar only if they come from a sender you know. If you select this option, you still get email event invitations from unknown senders, but they appear on your calendar only after you accept them. 

Senders that you know include:

• People in your same company domain

• People in your contacts list

• People you’ve interacted with before

Improved interface for work locations in Google Calendar

In Google Calendar, your working location now appears above any all-day events in your calendar, and is formatted differently to make it stand out in the calendar.

New layout for emails sent from Google Calendar

Google has introduced a new layout for emails sent from Google Calendar e.g. meeting invitations. The new layout will make it easier to find important information about an event, and clearly show which information has been updated, if the event has been modified. 

Appointment schedules to share available calendar time

If you need to share your availability for a meeting with a colleague, you can now do so without sharing your entire calendar. Appointment schedules allow you to share your free time between two specific dates - the person you share your schedule with will be able to select the meeting that suits their own time, even if they don’t have a Google account.

Find out more in our how-to video:

Control how invitations appear in Google Calendar

You can now control whether all meeting invitations are added to your calendar, or only those that you have specifically responded to.  You can also choose whether meeting invitations show to people that have access to view your calendar.

Find out more in our how-to video:

Set focus time in Google Calendar

You can set focus time in your calendar to block out time that you will be working on tasks individually, to ensure that your colleagues do not try to schedule meetings with you during this time. If you have blocked time out as focus time, you can automatically decline any meeting invitations received for this time. 

Find out more in our how-to video:

Create meeting notes in Google Calendar. 

You can now quickly start and share a meeting notes document for your Calendar events - this will automatically populate the document with the event information and attach the document to the event in your calendar, allowing it to be accessed via Google Meet too. 

Find out more in our how-to video:

Chat with all meeting participants in Google Calendar

You can now start a chat conversation with all guests in a particular meeting in your Google Calendar. Click on the meeting, then click on the Chat icon to start a group conversation. 

Show where you’re working in Google Calendar

You can now indicate in your calendar where you’ll be working each day. You can add a weekly schedule of locations and edit your location each day if your plans change.

Find out more in our how to video:

Understand how you spend your working day

You can use Time Insights in Google Calendar to see how your time is spent across meetings and collaborators.

Find out more in our how to video:

Show how you plan to join a meeting in Google Calendar

With hybrid working becoming the new normal, meetings will often include attendees working at home and in the office. You can indicate how to intend to join a meeting in your calendar to show if you are joining in person or virtually. 

Find out more in our how to video:

Choose which holidays show in your calendar

When adding the holidays of a country to your calendar, you can now choose to add only official public holidays, or all holidays including unofficial holidays such as Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day.

Find out more in our how to video:

Use the Maps side panel in Google Calendar

You can use the Maps side panel in Gmail and Google Drive but it is particularly useful in Google Calendar where you can view information about event locations, and add driving directions as new appointments in your calendar. 

Find out more in our how to video:

Snooze event notifications in Google Calendar

You can now snooze Google Calendar desktop notifications directly from the notification itself. 

By default, snoozed notifications will reappear one minute before the scheduled meeting - you can change this timing in your Calendar settings. 

Find out more in our how to video:

Email confirmation of shared notifications in Google Calendar

When you share your calendar with others, they have the option to subscribe to changes you make in your calendar. Google will inform you via email if someone subscribes to be notified about any changes to events in your calendar. 

Find out more in our how to video:

Set repeating out of office events

Out of Office events can be used to set time in your calendar when you are not available for work, and you can now set Out of Office events that repeat every day, week, month or year. 

You can set these events to automatically decline any invitations that are received for meetings during these times, notifying the meeting organiser that you are unavailable and keeping the time clear in your calendar. 

Find out more in our how to video:

Split your working hours into multiple segments per day

You can now set your working hours to include multiple segments in your calendar, to show exactly when you are working and when you are unavailable. Working hours can be set individually for each day of week.

Find out more in our how to video:

Automatic meeting room replacement

If you have booked a meeting room for an event in your calendar, and the room becomes unavailable, Google Calendar will now find and book a replacement room that is the same size, in the same building and has the same meeting equipment if possible. 

Offline calendar access

You can now enable offline support for Google Calendar on Google Chrome from your computer. When enabled, you can view your calendar and events from four weeks prior or any time in the future by week, day, or month. This is particularly useful when you’re offline or have unreliable internet access.

Find out more in our how to video:

Create and view tasks in the Google Calendar mobile app

You can now create and view tasks in Google Calendar on Android and iOS devices. 

Print and display updates in Google Calendar

In Google Calendar, events that are less than 25 minutes in duration will show less space in your daily calendar view, or if you print your calendar. 

You can also now also print your calendar in full colour, and can print one day or one week per sheet.

Group Calendars

When a user joins a Google Group, they’ll now receive an email listing the shared calendars they can access as a result of their group membership.

This will make it much easier for new team members and employees to discover relevant calendars and eliminate the need for existing group members to share those calendars manually.

More quick event options in Google Calendar

When you create a new calendar event, you will be able to set more options in the calendar pop-up window, without the need to edit the event in more detail. 

You will be able to set guest permission, add attachments, choose an event colour, customise notifications and set free/busy information. You will also be able to use the Find a time option to show guests calendars to help you quickly pick the best time for everyone.

Find out more in our How To video:

The new scheduling features in Google Calendar let you quickly schedule a meeting with specific guests by viewing their calendars and selecting an appropriate time. You can add all important meeting details in the pop-up rather than viewing the meeting screen in full.

Find out more in our How To video:

You can set your working hours in Google Calendar, to warn colleagues that you may not be available if they schedule a meeting with you that is outside your working hours. 

Find out more in our How To video:

It is now impossible to double-book a meeting room, even if you have direct access to the calendar of a room. If a room has already accepted a meeting, creating a new meeting in the room at the same time will result in the automatic decline of the conflicting meeting. 

If you have been forwarded a meeting invitation by someone with permission to add guests to the original meeting, you will be able to respond to the meeting to RSVP Yes, No or Maybe. 

Hangouts are now presented in a different way when you view an appointment that has a hangout added: 

If you view the calendar of a resource e.g. a meeting room, you can click on an event booked in that resource to view the event creator’s name. 

Google administrators can allow Google Calendar users to book Microsoft Exchange calendar resources, such as meeting rooms, when they schedule a meeting.

Once this option is enabled on your domain, you will see both Google Calendar and Exchange resources displayed as bookable options in a calendar event.

Starting on January 7, 2019, SMS notifications from Google Calendar will no longer be available. 

You will still have the option to receive email or pop-up notifications for calendar events:

You can now add a date to a task in your Google Task list to show the task in your calendar. When you click on the calendar entry for the task, you can edit it to change the task name and description, or to mark the task as complete. 

Watch our how-to video to find out more about adding tasks to the calendar:

As in the new Gmail interface, Docs and Calendar now have a side-panel that provides quick access to your calendar, tasks and Google Keep. 

Watch our how-to video to find out more about the side panel:

If you are sent an invitation to a meeting, and would like to attend but can’t make the schedule meeting time, you can propose a new time to the meeting organiser. The organiser will receive your proposal and can accept it to change the meeting time, or reject it to leave the meeting time as is. 

Watch our how-to video to find out more about proposing meeting times:

When you change a meeting in Google Calendar, you can now add a short description of the amendments you have made, to let attendees know what has changed.  After you send the message, other guests will see your message in the email they receive alerting them to the updated meeting details.

You can see the process in the following animation:

In another calendar update, you will now be able to see at a glance in your calendar when no invitees have accepted a calendar event that you have scheduled: 

You can click on the event to cancel it, reschedule it or dismiss the indicator that shows that no-one else will be attending. 

Whenever you hover over a name or profile picture in any of the Google Workspace apps, you will now see an information card for that person, giving you their job title, desk location, department and contact information. 

You will be able to add that person to your contacts, or quickly start a video or chat hangout with the person. You will also be able to send them an email or meeting request. 

New contact cards are currently available in Google Calendar, Google+ and the new GMail interface. They will be rolled out to all other Google Workspace apps over the next few months. 

Last month, Google rolled out the new Calendar interface, making it easier to view and create events, share calendars and more. If you use the new Calendar interface, you can now copy Hangout Meet links between calendar events, allowing you to use the same hangout code for different meetings in your calendar. This is especially useful if you schedule non-recurring meetings with the same team of participants. 

Watch our how-to video to find out more about copying Hangout links between calendar events. 

A new interface has been introduced for Google Calendar on the web, modernising the look and feel and making it look more like the mobile interface available on Android and iOS.  As well as introducing new functionality such as adding formatting and hyperlinks to a meeting, most of the old functionality is available in the new Calendar, allowing you to create events and meetings, share calendars and view meeting information quickly and easily. 

Watch our how-to video to find out how to use the new Google Calendar

Watch our how-to video to find out how to create events and meetings in the new Google Calendar:

Watch our how-to video to find out how to share in the new Google Calendar:

Google Calendar has an update that makes it easier to schedule and manage large meetings with 200+ users. If a Google Group has been invited to a new event, Google Calendar will automatically invite any new group members who join after the invite was sent, and will similarly remove members from the meeting that are removed from the group. You can also view all meeting responses in a Google Sheet, to see exactly who has accepted or declined the invitation, and any notes they have added or additional people they have invited.

Find out more in our How To video: