How to make Google Calendar events private (one event, by default, or all events)

Event visibility options

Google Calendar Help lists three visibility settings: Default visibility, Public, and Private. Busy or Free is a separate setting. It occupies the time or leaves it free. It does not hide the title.

• Default visibilityfollows the calendar's sharing settings. If you share with See event details or higher, people can find the event details. If you share with See free/busy only, they only see you as busy.
• Public lets anyone who can view the calendar find all details for that event, even if the calendar is restricted to free or busy.
• Private hides details from everyone except you and people with Make changes and see event details or higher. Others looking at your calendar see a block labeled Busy.

Google Calendar Help steps checked Nov 2, 2026. Cited from Change event & task visibility.

What others see

What a private event shows depends on that person's sharing permission, not only on the Private label.

• See only free/busy (hide details): they can only find out when you are busy. They cannot find names or other details.
• See event details: they can find names, times, places, and descriptions on ordinary events. A private event still shows as a block labeled Busy.
• Make changes (see private events as free/busy): they can edit non-private events. A private event marked Busy appears as a busy block with no event details. A private event marked Free does not appear on their calendar grid.
• Make changes and see event details or Make changes and manage sharing: they can still find private event details. Private does not hide the title from those permissions.

Public events show details even to people who only have free/busy access. If you do not share the calendar or make it public, Google Calendar Help says the events are only visible to you.

Google Calendar Help steps checked Nov 2, 2026. Cited from Change event & task visibility and Choose what others can do with your calendar.

Make one event private

On a computer:

1. Open Google Calendar.
2. Open the event.
3. Click Edit event, then Default visibility.
4. Select Default visibility, Public, or Private.
5. Click Save.

Google Calendar Help also documents the same three choices in the Calendar app on Android and on iPhone or iPad: open the event, tap Edit, tap Visibility settings, choose Default visibility, Private, or Public, and tap Save.

To hide a title, use Private. Do not rely on marking the event Busy. Busy occupies the time. It does not hide the name. Help does not document a labeled "Show as" control or a mobile path for changing Busy versus Free, so treat the exact editor label as something you confirm in your own Calendar.

Google Calendar Help steps checked Nov 2, 2026. Computer, Android, and iPhone pages were checked separately.

Make events private by default or all events

Google Calendar Help does not document a switch that changes every existing event on a primary calendar to Private. New events use Default visibility unless you change that event.

• To hide names and other details for someone's view of the whole calendar, share it with See only free/busy (hide details). That is a sharing permission, not a per-event Private stamp.
• A work or school administrator can set the default internal share to Only free/busy information (hide event details). Users can still change their own calendar when the admin allows it, and they can still mark individual events Private.
• Events imported from Gmail have a separate default. On a computer, Settings → Google Workspace smart features → Privacy of email events can be Calendar default, Private, or Only me. Google Calendar Help says you can apply that to new Gmail events or all Gmail events. That setting does not change events you created yourself.

If you need every existing meeting hidden from people who can already See event details, you change those events to Private one by one, or you lower that person's sharing permission. Help does not describe a bulk Private action for a primary calendar.

Google Calendar Help and Google Workspace Admin Help steps checked Nov 2, 2026. Cited from Change event & task visibility, Manage the visibility of events from Gmail, and Set Google Calendar sharing options.

Shared calendars and Workspace

Sharing settings live on each calendar. A work or school admin decides whether you can share a calendar, and can limit external sharing to free/busy or turn off permission settings. After that limit, people outside the organization only see events as busy, even if you would rather share details.

Secondary calendars you create have the same external-sharing options in Google Workspace Admin Help. Admins set those under Calendar General. They cannot set secondary-calendar external sharing per organizational unit the way they can for primary calendars.

On a computer, to change what one person sees:

1. Open Google Calendar.
2. In My calendars, open More, then Settings and sharing.
3. Under Shared with, next to the person or group, open the drop-down and choose the permission. Or add them first with Add people and groups.

Google Calendar Help documents these sharing steps on a computer. It does not describe the same Settings and sharing path in the mobile app, so keep this change on the web.

Google Calendar Help and Google Workspace Admin Help steps checked Nov 2, 2026.

Several calendars or accounts

Private, Public, and Default visibility stay on that calendar. They do not follow you onto another Google account. Sharing a work calendar into personal Gmail is still a view of the work calendar. It does not stamp Private onto personal events, and it does not write holds onto the calendar colleagues book.

Adding a work calendar as a view is in the work-calendar guide. Hiding details on one calendar is in the How to make Google Calendar show 'busy' instead of event details guide. Writing busy onto another account without sharing names is in the busy-time guide.

When to use Resync

Use Private or See only free/busy when people look at this calendar and you want them to see Busy instead of the title. Use Resync when a different Google account's calendar should treat that busy time as busy — for example a personal Gmail calendar and a work Google Calendar.

Resync does not share calendars with each other. It reads when you are busy on Google calendars you mark as sources and writes hold events onto Google calendars you mark as mirrors. $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 and updates holds when those events change. A polling fallback also runs about every 5 minutes.
• If you delete or edit a hold, 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.

What is and isn't copied

Resync copies the source event's start and end so the hold occupies the same window. It does not copy meeting details.

• Copied: start time, end time, and time zone. The hold is titled Busy and marked so Resync can find it later.
• Not copied: source title, description, location, attendees, conference data, or attachments. Those stay on the source calendar.
• Not mirrored: events marked free, events you declined, and working-location events. Holds Resync already wrote are skipped so Busy blocks are not copied back.
• If you delete or edit a hold, Resync records that change and does not recreate a hold for the same source event on that mirror.
• People with free/busy access on the mirror see a Busy block. People who can see event details still see the title Busy, not the source meeting name. If the source event is Private, the hold is Private. Otherwise the hold uses default visibility.

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