How to share a Google calendar

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Cloud

Google Calendars are easy to share, but you need to know about one particular pitfall of the system.

If you work as a freelancer or contractor–or any job that requires you to make use of a Google Calendar–there may be instances where you either need or want to share a calendar with a client, customer, or another business entity. Should that occasion arise, you’ll be glad to know that the sharing of Google Calendar is actually quite easy.

So long as you have a Google account and a calendar to share, you can make this happen in less than a minute. Let me show you how.

SEE: Google calendar: Tips and tricks (TechRepublic download)

How to share a Google Calendar

Log in to your Google account and open the Calendar tool. In the left navigation you should see a listing of all your calendars.
Locate the calendar you want to share and click the associated menu button.
From the resulting popup, click Settings And Sharing.
In the new window, scroll down until you see Share With Specific People.
Click Add People and, in the new popup, type the email address of the calendar share recipient.
From the Permissions drop-down, select if the recipient is able only see event details, make changes to events, or make changes and manage sharing. Make that choice wisely, else you wind up giving too much control over a calendar. But don’t worry, if you give a recipient too much control over a calendar, you can always change it by simply selecting a different permission from the drop-down.
If the recipient is a Google address, that’s all there is to it. If the recipient is not a Google address, you’ll be asked if you want to invite them to have a Google account. Click Invite and that recipient will find an invite in their inbox.

If you opt to not invite a recipient without a Google account, the only way to share that calendar is to make it public. For that, go back to the specific calendar settings and click the checkbox for Make Available To Public. I do not recommend this option, as it will make that calendar visible to the world, including Google search. In other words, you should only be sharing calendars with those who have a Google account.

And that’s all there is to sharing your Google calendars with other users. It’s a simple solution to an all-too-often troubling task. As with much of their ecosystem, Google has made things pretty simple for end users.