In Google Calendar, you can change the visibility of individual events and tasks to control what others can find.
There are 3 visibility settings:
|
Visibility setting |
Description |
Example |
|
Default visibility |
The "Default visibility" setting follows the main sharing settings for your calendar. If you share your calendar with colleagues and give them the "See event details" permission or higher, they can find details about your event. However, if you only share your calendar with "See free/busy" permission, they will only see you as busy. To change the main sharing settings for your calendar, learn how to choose what others can do with your calendar. |
Regular meetings: Use this setting for your standard team syncs, working blocks, or project check-ins that follow your normal calendar sharing rules. |
|
Public |
Anyone who has access to view your calendar can find all the details of this specific event or task, even if your overall calendar is restricted to only show free or busy. |
Social or out-of-office events: Use this for a team lunch or an out-of-office block where you want everyone to know where you are or how to reach you in an emergency. |
|
Private |
This setting hides all details from everyone except you and people you've given "Make changes to events and see all event details" and higher access permissions. Others looking at your calendar will see a block labeled "Busy." |
Appointments or confidential meetings: Use this setting for personal appointments, performance reviews, or sensitive project meetings where the topic should remain confidential. |
Change event visibility
- On your computer, go to Google Calendar.
- In your calendar, open an event.
- Click Edit event
Default visibility.
- Select a visibility setting:
- Default visibility
- Public
- Private
- Click Save.
Change task visibility
Important: If your task has a start and end time, you can change its visibility. Tasks without a start or end time are always private and are never visible to others.
- On your computer, go to Google Calendar.
- In your calendar, open a task.
- Click Edit task
.
- Select a visibility setting:
- Default visibility
- Public
- Private
- Click Save.
Compare visibility settings
Use the table below to understand how visibility options interact with your primary calendar. If there’s a checkmark , it means that all event details are shown to anyone with access to your calendar.
| Visibility setting | Permission | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| See free/busy | See event details | Make changes (see private events as free/busy) | Make changes and see all event details | Make changes and manage sharing | |
| Public | |||||
| Default visibility | Free / busy only | ||||
| Private | Free / busy only | Free / busy only | Free / busy only | ||
Learn more about visibility settings
Understand event visibility- If you don't share your calendar or make it public, your events:
- Aren't shared with others
- Are only visible to you
- If you set your calendar to only show events as Free or Busy for everyone, event details can be visible to others to whom you assigned different sharing permissions. To limit the visibility of individual events, set the event to Private.
- If you grant someone the “Make changes (see private events as free/busy)” permission, they see your private entries differently based on their status. Any private event or task marked as Busy appears as a busy block. Those marked as Free are hidden from their view of your calendar grid.
- When you invite someone to an event, they can control how your event shows on their calendar.
- If your event is set to Default visibility and your invitee has shared their calendar with others, those people can find the event details on the invitee's calendar.
- If your event is set to Default visibility and you book a meeting room or other resource, people with access to the resource's calendar can also find the event details.
- Even if you set your event as private, some details might still be visible to others when you invite guests or book rooms. These details may include:
- Event start time
- Event end time
- Event creator
- Recurring events can only have one visibility setting. All events in a series must be entirely default, private, or public. Any attempt to change the visibility for a single instance or a subset of events in a series applies to the entire series.
- By default, even if you share your calendar, your tasks with a start and end time stay private unless you give others the “Make changes and see all event details” permission or higher to your calendar, or you set a different visibility for a specific task.
- If you set the task with a start and end time to Busy, your task becomes visible to others. However, the task details are hidden unless you give others the “Make changes and see all event details” permission or higher to your calendar, or you set a different visibility for this specific task.
- When you change calendar sharing settings, these apply to future tasks that you create.