To share a Google Calendar with your spouse, open the calendar's settings, go to Shared with, add their email address, choose a permission, and send. They get an email and have to click the link in it to add your calendar. That covers a husband, wife or partner on iPhone or Android, and for most couples the best setup is a separate shared calendar with "Make changes and see event details," so your own calendar stays yours.
The steps below come from Google Calendar Help, checked in November 2026. Labels can change a little as Google updates its apps. The Google Calendar app is listed as free on the App Store.
How do you share a Google Calendar on a computer?
Step 1. Open Google Calendar in a browser.
Step 2. On the left, click My calendars.
Step 3. To the right of the calendar, click More (the three dots), then Settings and sharing.
Step 4. On the left, click Shared with.
Step 5. Under Shared with, click Add people and groups.
Step 6. Enter your spouse's email address.
Step 7. Choose a permission. The next section explains which.
Step 8. Click Send.
How do you share it from an iPhone or Android phone?
Google's iPhone and iPad steps and Android steps match.
Step 1. Open the Google Calendar app, tap Menu at the top left, then tap Settings.
Step 2. Select the calendar you want to share.
Step 3. Under Shared with, tap Add people or groups.
Step 4. In the search box, enter and select your spouse's name.
Step 5. Choose the access level.
Step 6. Tap Save.
What does your spouse have to do?
Your spouse gets an email and must click the link in it to add your calendar. That step gets missed a lot, because it looks like something you can ignore.
If the email does not show up, Google suggests checking that you used the right address, asking them to check spam or trash, and searching their mail for your email. If that fails, remove them from the sharing list and add them again.
Which permission should you choose?
Google offers five levels. Here is what each one means for a couple.
- See only free/busy (hide details). They can see when you are busy, but no event names or details. This suits your work calendar: your spouse can see you're busy at 3pm without seeing the client's name.
- See event details. They can see all details, such as names, times, places and descriptions, but cannot change anything. This suits a calendar you keep and they just read.
- Make changes (see private events as free/busy). They can edit non-private events, and not private ones. Private events marked Busy show as a block without details, and private events marked Free do not appear.
- Make changes and see event details. They can edit events and see who else the calendar is shared with. This is the usual choice for a calendar the two of you run together.
- Make changes and manage sharing. They have full control and can share the calendar with others. For a shared calendar, this makes sense for both of you, since it's as much theirs as yours. For your own calendar, it is more than most people need.
To change this later, go back to Settings and sharing, click Shared with, and use the drop-down next to the person's name. To stop sharing, click Remove next to their name.
One thing to watch: broader settings win. If your calendar is public with "See event details," anyone can see those details, even a person you gave free/busy access.
What setup should a couple use?
Most couples do well with three calendars, and only one of them has to be shared in full.
- Your own calendar. Shared with your spouse as free/busy, or not at all.
- Their own calendar. The same.
- A new shared calendar, named something like "Us." You both have "Make changes and see event details" or higher.
To create one, on a computer open Google Calendar, select the add option next to Other calendars, choose to make a new calendar, give it a title, and click Create calendar. Google says you can only create new calendars from a browser. Once it exists, it shows in the app too. Then share it with the steps above.
How do you keep some events private?
You can make a single event private even on a calendar your spouse can see. Open the event, click the pencil to edit, choose Default visibility, select Private, then click Save.
Private is not absolute, and Google lists a few limits.
- People with "Make changes and see event details" or higher can see private events' details.
- Other viewers see a block labeled Busy.
- Private events can still reveal their start time, end time and creator if you invite guests or book rooms.
- A repeating series has one visibility setting, so changing one changes them all.
So if you want to plan a surprise birthday, the simplest thing is to keep it on a calendar you have not shared with edit access.
Should you use the Google family calendar instead?
Google also has a built-in option. When you create a family group, a calendar called Family is created automatically, and everyone in the group can see it in Google Calendar on devices where they are signed in.
It's quick, but it comes with conditions.
- Anyone in the family can change events, manage sharing and rename the calendar.
- A family group includes up to six people, you can only be in one, and you can only change family groups once every 12 months.
- If someone leaves the family group, they lose access to the family calendar.
- The manager and all members must share the same Google Play country.
If you already share a Google family group for storage or purchases, the Family calendar is the easy answer. If not, a plain shared calendar is simpler, and it does not tie you into anything.
What about work and school accounts?
If your calendar is on a work or school account, your administrator decides whether you can share it, and Google notes your administrator may be able to find your calendar's details whether you share it or not. It's usually better to keep family events on a personal account, and only share free/busy from work if you're allowed to.
What belongs on the calendar you share?
Use a simple test: if it needs the other person to do something, change something, or know something, it goes on. For example:
- "Away Tues to Thurs. Who has school pickup?"
- The vet appointment that needs the car.
- The dinner you both said yes to.
- The renewal date for home insurance.
- Your date nights, so they stop getting bumped.
Leave off anything that doesn't involve them. A calendar full of each other's work meetings gets ignored quickly.
Who keeps it current?
Sharing a calendar doesn't share the work of running one. Every household job has four parts: notice, plan, do, and follow up. The same goes for a calendar.
Take a kid's dentist appointment. Someone notices it's been six months, and someone plans it by finding a slot and booking it. Someone does the drive, and someone follows up on the next visit. If one spouse does the first two and the other only sees "Dentist, 4pm, you," you've shared the driving and not the mental load.
A way to fix this is to give each area a whole owner. One person owns medical, including the booking, the calendar entry and the follow-up. The other owns school. The owner adds the events, and the other person can read them without having to ask. For more on that, see the four jobs in every chore and how to split chores fairly.
Then take ten minutes each week to look ahead together. This is where double-bookings get caught. Our weekly check-in page has a format, and couples calendar has more on the habits.
What might this look like in your house?
Two jobs, no kids. One shared "Us" calendar, plus free/busy on each work calendar if your employer allows it. That's enough to plan a weekend without seeing each other's meetings.
Parents. Consider separate shared calendars for "Us" and "Kids," so that you can hide one when you're planning a night out. The parent who owns each area adds its events.
One person works shifts. They add their shifts to the shared calendar in one go, whenever the roster comes out. It takes a few minutes, and it replaces a dozen questions.
One person travels for work. Add each trip to the shared calendar as soon as it is booked, with a note on what it changes at home, such as "Away Tues to Thurs, you have school pickup and bins." That is more useful than a bare "Away," because it says what the other person needs to do, and they can object early if it does not work.
What should you say when you suggest sharing?
A calendar invite with no conversation can read as "I'd like to monitor you." Say what you want first.
"I keep getting surprised by things we've both got going on. Can we make one calendar for what affects both of us? I don't need to see all of yours."
Or, if your spouse's calendar habits are the problem:
"When plans aren't on the calendar, I end up finding out at the last minute, and that's hard for me. Can we agree that anything involving both of us goes on by Sunday?"
Sharing is meant to help both of you. If a spouse insists on seeing your calendar in order to track you, or you feel you can't say no, that is not a calendar problem. Our safety page has support resources.
What if you need more than a calendar?
Google Calendar is very good at events. It doesn't do a great job with the repeating work around them. Google's own shared tasks cannot repeat, and they are created in a Chat space or a Doc. For chores with owners, you might look at the shared to-do apps we compared. A shared grocery list in Google Keep is free and pairs nicely with a shared calendar.
If you would like tasks, chores, a calendar and a weekly check-in in one place, Tiptoe does that on iPhone and web. It's free for both of you for your first 30 tasks and chores, and a feed to Google Calendar is part of Pro.
Without any app, a paper wall calendar and ten minutes on Sunday do the same job. It's old-fashioned, and it works because you are both looking at the same page.