26 Tricks to Help You Tame Google Calendar

Share and Share Alike

By default, only you can see events on your calendar. But you can make entire calendars--or just individual events--public if you like.

To change the default setting, click Settings in the upper right (or press s). Click the Calendars tab. Click the link under Sharing to open the appropriate calendar. Then use the checkboxes to instruct Google Calendar whether to share everything with the whole world or just a subset thereof. To share with specific people only, leave those checkboxes empty and use the controls underneath to add the names of the privileged few. Then click Save.

Seeing Multiple

You may need different calendars for different purposes--work life and social life, for example. To accommodate such divisions, click Add below the minicalendar on the left. Having multiple calendars lets you establishcustom privacy, sharing, and other settings for each one.

Living color: You can give the text of each of your calendars a custom color (use the pop-up menu to the right of the calendar name), or you can use the checkbox to the left of the name to show or hide events on that calendar. This color-coding makes all of the entries for a given calendar easy to identify at a glance.

Choose a calendar: When you have multiple calendars, Google Calendar adds a drop-down list to the New Event popup balloon so you can specify which calendar should display the new event. The Quick Add box is less flexible, however. If you use Quick Add (press q) to create an item, the program will add your event to your first (uppermost) or main calendar, even if you've hidden its events.

Switch calendars: To move an event from one calendar to another, click the event and then click edit event details. Choose another calendar from the Calendar drop-down list, and click Save.

Public calendars: You can make your calendar automatically display holidays, sports events, television shows, or other items of special interest to you. Just click Add above your calendar list, and choose Add a public calendar. In the 'Add a Public Calendar' page, select a category on the left, and then click Add to Calendar for each calendar you want to add. You have hundreds of options to choose from, ranging from schedules for your favorite sports teams to concert tour dates to campaign stops for political candidates.

Add iCal calendars: Want to integrate a Web-based calendar set up in the iCalendar format that Apple's iCal and Microsoft's Windows Calendar use? Just choose Add by URL from the Add menu, and type the desired Web address.

Change your mind? To hide or delete any calendar from your list, click Settings on the upper right (or press s) and click the Calendars tab. Then click Hide or click the trash can icon to the far right of the calendar that you want to suppress or zap, respectively.