How to Share Your Calendar in Outlook (and Choose Who Sees What)

If your team spends half the week emailing “are you free on Thursday?”, sharing calendars will save a lot of back and forth. Outlook lets you show colleagues when you’re busy, or more detail if you want, without giving anyone access to your inbox.

This guide covers the new Outlook for Windows and Outlook on the web (the version you open in a browser at outlook.office.com). The steps are almost the same in both.

Before you start: choose how much people can see

When you share your calendar, you pick a permission level for each person. Microsoft offers these:

• Can view when I’m busy: they see the times you’re busy, but nothing about what you’re doing. Ideal for most colleagues.
• Can view titles and locations: they also see the name of each appointment and where it is.
• Can view all details: they see everything in the appointment, but can’t change it.
• Can edit: they can add and change appointments in your calendar (available in Outlook on the web).
• Delegate: they can edit your calendar and share it with others, and can manage meeting invitations for you. Usually only for a PA or office manager.

A good rule: give the least access that does the job. Keep “all details” or “edit” for the one or two people who actually book your diary.

How to share your calendar in the new Outlook for Windows

1. Open Outlook and select Calendar in the panel on the left.
2. On the Home tab, select Share calendar. If you have more than one calendar, choose the one you want to share.
3. Type the person’s name or email address, then select them from the list (or press Enter).
4. Select the drop-down next to their name and choose the permission level.
5. Select Share.

They’ll receive an email invitation. Once they accept it, your calendar appears in their Outlook alongside their own.

How to share your calendar in Outlook on the web

1. Go to outlook.office.com, sign in and select the Calendar icon.
2. On the toolbar, select Share and choose the calendar. You can only share calendars you own.
3. Enter the person’s name or email address.
4. Pick the permission level from the list.
5. Select Share.

How to see a colleague’s calendar

Accept the sharing invitation in the email, or add the calendar yourself:

1. Open Calendar in Outlook.
2. Select Add calendar and choose to add one from your organisation’s directory.
3. Search for your colleague’s name and add their calendar.

In the new Outlook, shared calendars don’t always show straight away. In the list of calendars, select Show all and look under People’s calendars. To see several diaries next to each other, turn on Split view.

How to keep a private appointment private

A confidential meeting doesn’t need to be on show, even to people who can see your calendar.

1. Open the appointment in your calendar.
2. On the Event tab, select Private.
3. Save it, or send the update if it’s a meeting.

A small padlock appears on the appointment. People who can view your calendar see that you’re busy, but not the details. Two things to know: a delegate can see private items if you’ve given them that option, and Microsoft advises not to rely on the Private setting alone for anything truly sensitive.

How to share with someone outside your business

You can share with clients, suppliers or a bookkeeper by entering their email address in the same way. A few things to bear in mind:

• Your Microsoft 365 settings may block sharing outside the business. That’s often deliberate, so check with whoever looks after your IT before changing it.
• If the other person doesn’t use Outlook (for example, they use Gmail), they’ll need a Microsoft 365 or Outlook.com account to accept.
• Think carefully before sharing more than “busy” times with anyone outside the business. Appointment titles often reveal client names and plans.

How to change or stop sharing

People change roles and leave, so it’s worth checking who can see your calendar now and then.

1. Open Calendar in Outlook on the web.
2. Under Calendars, right-click your calendar and select Sharing and permissions.
3. Find the person and either choose a new permission level or select the remove icon to stop sharing.

Once removed, they no longer receive updates from your calendar. This is a good step to add to your leavers checklist. Our new starters and leavers IT checklist covers the rest.

A quick word on “publishing” a calendar

Outlook can also “publish” a calendar as a link that anyone who has it can open. That’s fine for a public events diary, but not for your work calendar: anyone the link is forwarded to can see it. If you’ve published one by mistake, go to Settings, then Shared calendars, and select Unpublish.

Spotted a strange meeting you never accepted? Don’t click anything in it: see our guide to fake meeting invites.

Need a hand?

Calendar sharing saves a surprising amount of time once it’s set up properly. If you’d like help getting your Microsoft 365 permissions, shared calendars and shared inboxes tidy and secure, we look after this every day for businesses across Sussex as part of our IT support.

Book a free 30-minute call or IT audit and we’ll take a look.