Google Calendar notifications not working? Fixes

Quick diagnosis

Work this list on a computer first, then the phone. If the event is missing on calendar.google.com, fix the invite or sync problem before you change alerts.

1. Open the event. Next to Notifications, confirm there is still a notification or an email.
2. In Settings, open that calendar under Settings for my calendars. Check Event notifications and All-day event notifications. Each calendar has its own defaults.
3. Under General → Notification settings, check desktop notifications and Notify me only if I have responded Yes or Maybe.
4. If the browser asked to let calendar.google.com show notifications, allow it. Keep Calendar open.
5. Check you are in the Google account that owns the event, and that the calendar is turned on in the left list.
6. On Android or iPhone, open Menu → Settings for that same calendar. Do this for each account.

Google Calendar Help steps checked Nov 3, 2026.

Event vs calendar defaults

Google Calendar Help says your calendar-level settings determine your notifications for new events, unless you customize them for a specific event. Those settings are personal to your account. No one else can change them, including people you share the calendar with.

On a computer, under Settings for my calendars, each calendar you own has Event notifications and All-day event notifications. You can add, edit, or remove a notification, and choose a notification or an email. Open one event, click Edit event, and use Notifications to change only that event: Add notification or Remove, then Save.

If later events on that calendar have no alert, the calendar default is empty. If only one event is silent, that event's Notifications were removed.

Google Calendar Help steps checked Nov 3, 2026. Cited from Change Google Calendar notifications.

Email vs on-screen

Help says you can get event notifications by email, as desktop notifications, or as alerts. Email arrives in your inbox. Desktop notifications pop up outside your web browser when Calendar is open. Alerts show up within your Google Calendar window.

On a computer, choose a notification or an email next to Notifications on the event, or under Event notifications for the calendar. Other notifications — categories such as Changed events or Event responses — are Email or None. If you do not use Calendar, Help says you get emails when someone creates, updates, or deletes an event you are invited to.

Google Calendar Help steps checked Nov 3, 2026. Cited from Change Google Calendar notifications.

Invites vs events you create

Help says event guests get notifications based on their own settings. Your defaults do not change anyone else's alerts. On a computer, Notification settings includes Notify me only if I have responded Yes or Maybe. If that box is on and you have not responded, or you responded No, you may get no alert for that invite.

Guests respond Yes, No, or Maybe in Calendar or in the invitation email. If the invite never appeared, that is not a notification setting. See Google Calendar invite not showing up? Fixes.

Google Calendar Help steps checked Nov 3, 2026. Cited from Change Google Calendar notifications, Respond to event invitations, and Track responses to your event.

Changed events and responses

People look for a setting named notify me when events are added or changed. Google Calendar Help does not use that name. What it does document, on a computer:

1. Open Google Calendar.
2. At the top right, click Settings menu Settings.
3. On the left, under Settings for my calendars, click the name of the calendar.
4. Click Other notifications.
5. Next to each category, such as Changed events or Event responses, click the dropdown menu.
6. Select Email or None.

Event responses can also be turned off for one event with Get an email when guests respond. Help says a work or school admin can make changes to events on your calendar, and when they do, you don't get a notification.

Google Calendar Help steps checked Nov 3, 2026. Cited from Change Google Calendar notifications and Track responses to your event.

Computer and browser

Desktop notifications are a computer Help flow. Important: you need to open Calendar in a web browser, like Chrome or Safari. If you're asked to let calendar.google.com show notifications, you need to allow it.

To change how notifications work for all your events:

1. On your computer, open Google Calendar.
2. At the top right, click Settings menu Settings.
3. On the left, under General, click Notification settings.
4. Click the Notifications drop-down and select how you want to receive notifications.
5. To adjust snoozed notifications, turn on Desktop notifications, then click Show snoozed notifications. Help says you can get snooze notifications only on Chrome.
6. Click the box next to Notify me only if I have responded Yes or Maybe if you want that limit.

If desktop notifications still do not appear, Help says to update your browser settings so Google Calendar can send notifications, turn on desktop notifications, and keep Google Calendar open.

In Google Chrome:

1. On your computer, open Google Chrome.
2. At the top right, click More Settings.
3. Click Privacy and security Site settings Notifications.
4. Next to Allowed to send notifications, click Add.
5. In the Site field, enter calendar.google.com.
6. Click Add.

For Firefox, Safari, or Edge, Help says to check that browser's support site, open its notification preferences, and add permissions for calendar.google.com.

The browser permission is not the same as the computer's own notifications. Windows Focus or Do Not Disturb, or macOS Focus, can hide an alert the site is allowed to send. Help does not name those operating-system menus. Check them generally after Calendar and the browser are allowed.

Google Calendar Help steps checked Nov 3, 2026. Cited from Change Google Calendar notifications.

Android

Google Calendar Help for Android says any changes you make on your phone also sync with your computer notifications. You can change default notifications for events that happen once and events that last all day, and you can get them on your device, by email, or both.

For a specific calendar:

1. On your Android phone or tablet, open the Google Calendar app.
2. At the top left, tap Menu.
3. At the bottom, tap Settings.
4. Select one of your calendars, then a notification.
5. Select No notification to remove it, choose when you want the notification, or select Add a notification or Add another notification.

If you have more than one account or calendar, do these steps for each one. For sound and vibration: Menu → Settings → General, then Calendar notifications. The Calendar settings page lists Calendar notifications, Tasks notifications, and Tasks overdue notifications.

To turn off notifications only on your phone, Help documents the Android Settings app: Notifications → App notifications → Calendar. You still get them on your computer and through email. Settings can differ on each device. Help does not document battery optimization or Do Not Disturb as Calendar notification steps.

If events are missing on the phone, that is a sync problem. See Google Calendar not syncing? How to fix it on iPhone, Android, and desktop. Refresh is documented in Sync Google Calendar with your phone.

Google Calendar Help steps checked Nov 3, 2026. Cited from Change Google Calendar notifications (Android) and Change Google Calendar settings (Android).

iPhone and iPad

Google Calendar Help for iPhone and iPad documents the same idea: phone changes sync with computer notifications. You can change defaults for events that happen once and events that last all day.

For a specific calendar:

1. On your iPhone or iPad, open the Google Calendar app.
2. At the top left, tap Menu.
3. At the bottom, tap Settings.
4. Select one of your calendars.
5. Select Add another notification.

To change or remove one event: select the event, tap Edit, tap a notification in the Notifications section, or tap Add another notification, then Save. To turn notifications off for a calendar: swipe left on a notification and tap Delete. Do this for each account or calendar.

If another calendar app is sending the same alerts, Help says to open the Settings app and turn off notifications for that other app. Those steps might differ for your device. Help does not name an iOS notification-permission label or a Focus menu for the Google Calendar app. Check generally that the device allows the Calendar app to show notifications, and that Focus is not silencing them.

Google Calendar Help steps checked Nov 3, 2026. Cited from Change Google Calendar notifications (iPhone & iPad).

Reminders and Tasks

Event notifications are the alerts on a calendar event. They are not Tasks. If Google Calendar reminders are not showing, decide which of those you mean.

Google Calendar Help documents Tasks separately. If you add a date and time to a Task, you get notifications at the scheduled date and time. For Tasks without a time, notifications appear at 9 AM. For Tasks with a deadline, you get a notification on the deadline day at 9 AM in your local time. Tasks with a date also appear in the Calendar app. Turn on the Tasks calendar to see them. Android Help for Tasks matches that notification timing.

Google Calendar Help also documents that Google Keep reminders migrate to Google Tasks. You no longer get reminder notifications from Keep. To receive those notifications on a mobile device, Help says to install Calendar or Tasks and allow notifications for that app.

Google Calendar Help steps checked Nov 3, 2026. Cited from Create & manage tasks in Google Calendar, Create & manage tasks (Android), and Learn about Google Keep reminders in Google Tasks.

Multiple Google accounts

Help says notification settings are personal and apply only to your account, whether you use a personal, work, or school account. Notifications fire for the account and calendar where the event lives. A meeting on a work account does not notify or block time on a personal account unless that calendar is added or shared there.

Check the account in the top right. Switch accounts on the web is one account per tab. In the Calendar app, add another account and turn that calendar on. Setup for viewing both is in the multiple accounts guide.

A wrong time zone can make a reminder fire at the wrong clock hour. See the time zone guide.

When Resync helps (and when it does not)

Use the steps above when the problem is Event notifications, All-day event notifications, desktop or Chrome notifications, email versus on-screen alerts, Notify me only if I have responded Yes or Maybe, Other notifications such as Changed events, Android or iPhone calendar defaults, Tasks, or a hidden calendar. Resync does not change those settings, send reminders, or fix a silent phone. It does not sync Outlook, Apple Calendar, or iCloud.

Use Resync when you need the same busy time on another of your Google calendars. Resync only creates Google-only private Busy holds between a user's own Google Calendars. The holds it writes set reminders so the calendar default is not used and there are no reminder overrides, so those Busy events do not fire event notifications. It does not copy titles, attendees, or locations from the source. $1.50/month or $9/year after a 30-day free trial, no credit card required.

• Holds are titled Busy. Description, location, attendees, and conference data are left empty, so source meeting details stay on the source calendar.
• When you mark calendars as both source and mirror, a booking on either calendar becomes a Busy hold on the others. That is two-way blocking between those Google calendars.
• If a source event moves, Resync updates the hold. If the event is cancelled, marked free, declined, or is a working-location event, Resync does not keep a hold.
• Resync looks 90 days ahead when it reads source events. Holds it writes are marked so they are not copied again.
• Resync watches source calendars with Google push notifications and updates holds when those events change. A polling fallback also runs about every 5 minutes.
• If you delete or edit a hold, including adding reminders to it, Resync records that and does not recreate it for the same source event on that mirror.
• Read-only calendars cannot be mirrors. Resync currently syncs Google calendars only.

Set up Resync

1. Sign in with GoogleOpen Resync and sign in with the Google account you want as your primary account. You land on setup.
2. Connect another Google accountChoose Connect another Google account and finish Google's permission screen. Resync needs at least two Google accounts before you can start.
3. Start syncingWhen a second account is connected, setup shows bidirectional mirroring as the intended default: real events on either side become private busy blocks on the other. Choose Start syncing to open the dashboard.
4. Mark sources and mirrorsIn Sync configuration, turn on Source to read busy time from a calendar and Mirror to receive Busy holds. A calendar can be both. Read-only calendars cannot be mirrors because Resync needs write access to create holds.

FAQ