How To Create A Shared Family Calendar

My family would not function without our family calendar. Would. Not. Function. Everything that anyone needs to know, from school events to evening runs to working late to boys' night out. Everything goes on the calendar. And there is much grumpiness when we forget to add an event, because if it is not in the family calendar then for all intents and purposes, it does not exist.

This has truly been a game changer in my family, and I've even created separate calendars for my extended family (granny etc). I'm incredibly lucky that they are very involved with helping with my kids, so having a calendar that shows them what's happening on a given day helps manage everyone's expectations.

How to create a family calendar

Although it may feel a bit intimidating, creating a shared calendar is actually really easy. I'm using Google in today's post as it's one of the most ubiquitous account types out there.

Important note: You have to use the website console to set up a shared calendar. The app won't accommodate it at the moment.

So first, open up your calendar.

Next scroll down to Other calendars and click the + sign to bring up the menu.

Click on the + next to other calendars to bring up the context menu

Click on create new calendar, which will show you the following page.

Give your calendar a name and a description.

Then click Create calendar.

Confusingly, once the calendar has been created it stays on this page and gives you a new blank form. So if you miss the "Calendar has been created successfully – Configure" message that pops up briefly at the bottom you might think you have done something wrong. You haven't.

Hit the back arrow to go to the main calendar page and you'll see your new calendar in the menu.

How to share your calendar

Next I want to configure it. Hover over Family calendar to reveal the options, then click on the 3 dots to configure.

Configure your calendar by clicking on options.

You'll see you have some quick options available, like changing the color of your calendar, but as I need this calendar to be available to my family, I'm going to click on settings and sharing.

Quick options in the context menu, or click through for full settings

Which brings up the following:

Calendar settings menu — This looks familiar

All calendars have a lot of settings, which can seem confusing. Fortunately we can mostly leave the default settings as they are and head straight down to "Share with specific people".

As the calendar owner and creator you will already be listed with full permissions. Now it's time to another person by clicking "Add people".

Share your calendar with people you trust.

You only need to do two things on the sharing menu – first add the email address of the person with whom you want to share, and second change the permissions.

By default the permission will be set to See all event details, but I want my husband to be able to edit and add events as well, so I'm going to give him full permission.

List of people with access to the family calendar

And done. Chris (my husband) will now get an email letting him know he's been added to the calendar, and he'll be able to see it in his calendars. Note that once you've created the calendar on your computer you'll be able to see it on your Google Calendar app on your phone as well.

How to add events to the family calendar

Now I want to add events to the calendar.

To do this I simply click on the time on the calendar to bring up the event context menu. Then at the bottom I click on the little arrow next to my name and I select Family calendar. Fill in the rest of the details, click save, and we're done.

It will automatically appear for everyone you've shared the calendar with, no invitations necessary.

How to see your calendar on your mobile

It's all well and good to be setting everything up on the computer, but most of us live on our phones. Fortunately for us, getting our calendars on our phones is a non-issue.

The easy way

There are a number of ways you can get access to your family calendars – the easiest being the Google Calendar app (Android or Apple). Just download, install, log in, and your family calendar will be there. And if it's not you just tap the hamburger menu (did you know that was the name for the three horizontal lines indicating a menu on a phone app?) and you can select which of your calendars you wish to view.

The other way (also fairly easy)

The next way is to sync your calendar with your phone's calendar, or with your app of choice. A little more complicated, and given the variations depending on your device, or app of choice I'm not going to delve deep into it right now. But the basic steps are as follows:

Open the calendar app
Go to settings or preferences
Add account
Select Google account and sign in (you'll need to give the app permissions to see your data)
Follow any other steps to completion

Quick tip – if you don't want to open an all every time to see your events, try adding a widget. A widget is a mini app that runs on the home screen and shows a view of your data. You can add widget by tapping and holding on the home screen and then selecting the Widgets menu and choosing your app (Android) or adding them to the Today view (Apple).

How to share a calendar with someone not using google

This method works great if you and your partner or family member both have Google accounts, but what if they don't? No problem thanks to the magic of iCal.

What the heck is iCal? Simply put it is a calendar file type (like a word document for calendars). What it does is to let you view or subscribe to calendar, instead of adding another calendar account.

And where do you find this magical file? Under Integrate Calendar on your Google calendar settings you will find a number of URLs. The one you want is Secret address. If you choose Public address then you have to make your whole calendar public, which means that your calendar is searchable on the web o_O.

Send your dearly beloveds the secret iCal URL, and to add it they need to add it to their calendars.

For Apple, go to Go to Settings > Passwords & Accounts > Add Account > Other > Add Subscribed Calendar

If they use Google (and annoyingly you have to do this through the computer web browser, not through the app) click on the + next to Other Calendars > From URL

Finally, for Outlook (also via the browser on your computer) go to the calendar view, click Add Calendar > Subscribe from web

In closing

A family calendar can really help to take away all the headaches with keeping a busy family's schedules aligned. And it doesn't have to end with family. Work, school groups, friends, any situation where you are trying to co-ordinate or inform a large group of people can benefit from a shared view of what's going on.

If you haven't used one before then give it a try, if you have then I'd love to know your favorite (and worst) tips and experiences in the comments of on Facebook.

And if you're looking for more family-friendly productivity tips, then look no further than the At Home category. As always I hope you have an amazing and productive day.