Are you sharing too much information on Google Calendar?

We all use Google Calendar and it’s really useful when you share your calendar with others so that they can see when you’re available, and book meetings with you instead of asking over email when you’re free. But are you sharing your Google Calendar correctly or could you be sharing private events with everyone in your company?

It’s not immediately obvious, but did you know that by giving people permission to “Make Changes” to your calendar your actually given them administrative access, which in turn gives them the ability to see your private events.

When you share your Google Calendar within your organization or with others outside, there are four privilege levels available. But did you know that anything that says “Make changes” gives people the ability to see and edit your calendar events marked as “private”?

Google Calendar

How to make private events really private

There are a few suggestions on how to make private events truly private, but they require a little work. The first is simple, only give a lower level of permission when sharing your calendar. “See all event details” should be the highest permission you want to grant, however, this may not be ideal as you may like delegating your calendar to others so they can update and change events.

The second option is to create a new calendar or use a personal account for private and personal events, however, this can be time-consuming. We’d recommend using a personal account such as your gmail.com account for personal events and share this with your business account.

Unfortunately, Google doesn’t do a great job of making the permissions obvious when you share a calendar, however, this is this support article which details exactly what is what.

Below we’re taken the key points from this article so it’s easier to digest.

Make changes to events

• Add and edit events
• See details for all events, including private ones
• See the time zone setting for the calendar
• Restore or permanently delete events from the calendar’s Trash

Make changes AND manage sharing

• Change sharing settings
• Add and edit events
• See details for all events, including private ones
• See the time zone setting for the calendar
• Permanently delete the calendar
• Restore or permanently delete events from the calendar’s Trash

We hope this help. It’s not a great story, but it is what it is.