How to Share a Google Calendar

29 Jul 2026 · by Peter Grillet

Sharing a Google Calendar is useful when colleagues need visibility over your availability. But if the real goal is letting clients, prospects, candidates, or customers book time with you, a calendr.so booking page usually gives you more control.

If you want someone to see your availability inside Google Calendar, sharing your calendar is the right place to start.

If you want someone to book a meeting with you, it may not be enough.

That distinction matters. Calendar sharing is mainly about visibility and access. A booking page is about helping someone choose the right meeting, at an allowed time, with the right information collected before the appointment. Those are related jobs, but they are not the same job.

So let us start with the practical answer first.

The cleanest way to share a Google Calendar is from a desktop browser. Google's own calendar sharing guide sets out the current flow, but the basic steps are straightforward.

Open Google Calendar on your computer.
On the left, find the My calendars section.
Find the calendar you want to share.
Click the three-dot menu beside that calendar.
Select Settings and sharing.
Go to the Shared with section.
Click Add people and groups.
Enter the email address or Google group you want to share with.
Choose the permission level.
Click Send.

The person you share with should receive an email. They need to accept or open the link from that email before the shared calendar appears for them.

There are two important caveats. First, if you are using a work or school Google account, your administrator may limit what you can share. Second, you can only share a calendar you own or one where you have permission to manage sharing.

You can also share a calendar from the Google Calendar app on Android, iPhone, or iPad.

Open the Google Calendar app.
Tap the menu icon.
Go to Settings.
Select the calendar you want to share.
Under Shared with, choose Add people or groups.
Enter the person or group you want to share with.
Choose the permission level.
Send the invite.

If you are not sure where a setting has moved, use the desktop version. It is usually easier to check sharing, permissions, public access, and group settings from a full browser.

Which Google Calendar permission should you choose?

This is the part worth slowing down for.

When you share a calendar, you are not just sending someone a link. You are deciding what they can see and, in some cases, what they can change. The right permission depends on the relationship.

See only free/busy: best when someone only needs to know when you are unavailable, without seeing meeting names or details.
See all event details: useful for close colleagues who need context, but too open for many external relationships.
Make changes: appropriate only when someone is trusted to edit events on your behalf.
Make changes and manage sharing: full administrative access. Use this carefully.

If the person only needs to know when you are free, start with free/busy access. It gives useful visibility without exposing the details of your meetings.

Be especially careful with public calendar sharing. Making a calendar public can expose information far beyond the one person you meant to help. For most business scheduling situations, public calendar sharing is not the right answer.

Google Calendar sharing is useful when the other person is part of your internal operating rhythm.

For example, it can work well when:

A colleague needs to see when you are busy.
An assistant needs to manage your diary.
A manager needs visibility across team calendars.
A project team needs to coordinate internal meetings.
A shared team calendar needs to show holidays, rota coverage, or internal events.

In those cases, calendar sharing solves a visibility problem. People can see the calendar, compare availability, and plan around existing commitments.

But a lot of business scheduling problems are not visibility problems.

Sharing a calendar does not automatically create a clean booking process.

If you share your calendar with a client, prospect, customer, or candidate, they may be able to see when you are busy, but they still do not necessarily know which type of meeting to book, how long it should be, what information you need beforehand, whether a video call or phone call is expected, or which person on the team should host it.

That creates a familiar kind of admin drag. Someone can see enough to suggest a time, but not enough to book the right appointment properly. You still end up sending emails, clarifying the meeting type, creating the calendar event, adding the right location, asking for details, and sometimes moving the meeting because the wrong slot was chosen.

The problem is not Google Calendar. Google Calendar is doing what a calendar should do. The problem is using calendar sharing when the job is really appointment booking.

Use a booking page when the other person needs to choose a time

Example Booking Page for sharing Google Calendar

If someone needs to book time with you, a booking page is usually cleaner than sharing your calendar.

A booking page lets you decide the rules before anyone chooses a slot. You can set the meeting type, duration, available hours, booking window, location options, and the questions someone should answer before the appointment is confirmed.

That is the difference between saying:

"Here is my calendar. Try to work out what might be possible."

And saying:

"Here is the correct booking page for this meeting. Choose one of the available times."

The second version is easier for the person booking and safer for your diary.

Where calendr.so fits

calendr.so connects to Google Calendar so your booking pages can respect your real availability. The point is not to replace Google Calendar. The point is to add the booking layer that Google Calendar sharing does not always provide.

For example, you can create different booking pages for different appointment types. A discovery call, client consultation, onboarding call, support appointment, interview, and internal handover should not all expose the same slots, ask the same questions, or use the same meeting length.

With availability controls, you can decide when each booking page should be available instead of showing every free gap in your calendar. With booking forms, you can collect useful context before the meeting. With embeddable booking pages, you can let people book from your website instead of asking them to email you for a time.

If more than one person on your team takes the same kind of meeting, round robin scheduling can distribute bookings across the right people. If a meeting needs more than one internal person, multi-host booking can help coordinate availability before the appointment is confirmed.

A simple rule of thumb

Share a Google Calendar when someone needs visibility.

Use a booking page when someone needs to take action.

That action might be booking a sales call, choosing an onboarding slot, arranging a client review, scheduling an interview, or finding time with a support team. In all of those cases, the person does not need access to your calendar. They need a clear, controlled way to book the right meeting.

The best setup is often both: Google Calendar remains the source of truth for your diary, and calendr.so gives clients, prospects, candidates, and customers a better route into it.

Create a test booking page in less than 3 mins

Let people book time without sharing your whole calendar

Use calendr.so to connect your Google Calendar, create controlled booking pages, set availability rules, collect useful details, and let people book the right appointment.

Start a free trial

Growing Small Businesses

#Google Calendar #Calendar sharing #Booking links #Appointment scheduling #Calendar sync