How to fix Google Calendar events not showing in your Microsoft Outlook shared calendar

Summary

This guide helps you troubleshoot and resolve: How to fix Google Calendar events not showing in your Microsoft Outlook shared calendar. Follow the steps below to fix the issue.

Common Causes

When you share a Google Calendar with a colleague who uses Microsoft Outlook via Microsoft 365, events can sometimes fail to appear even after the calendar has been successfully added. This is usually caused by the way Outlook caches internet calendar subscriptions, the sharing method used in Google Calendar, or a mismatch in time zone settings. This guide walks you through the most effective fixes in order, from quick checks to more detailed configuration changes.

Quick Fix Steps

Start with these rapid checks before moving to more involved troubleshooting. In many cases, one of these will resolve the issue within minutes.

1. In Outlook, switch to the Calendar view and press F9 to force a send/receive refresh.
2. Right-click the shared calendar in the left-hand calendar list and select Refresh.
3. Close Outlook completely and reopen it. Check whether the missing events now appear.
4. Open Google Calendar in a web browser and confirm the events are visible there. If they are not, the issue is on the Google side, not Outlook.
5. Check the time zone setting in Google Calendar under Settings > General > Time zone, and compare it with Outlook under File > Options > Calendar > Time zones.

Detailed Instructions

Check how the calendar was shared from Google

The sharing method used in Google Calendar determines how Outlook receives updates. If the calendar was shared using the wrong method, events may appear initially but fail to update.

1. Open Google Calendar in a web browser and sign in.
2. In the left sidebar, locate the calendar you are sharing. Hover over it and click the three-dot menu, then select Settings and sharing.
3. Scroll to the Access permissions for events section and confirm that Make available to public is selected if you are using a public link, or that the specific person has the appropriate permission level.
4. Scroll to the Integrate calendar section. Copy the URL under Secret address in iCal format — this is the correct URL for Outlook.

Re-add the calendar subscription in Outlook

If the calendar was originally added using an outdated or incorrect URL, removing and re-adding it often resolves missing events.

1. In Outlook, go to the Calendar view.
2. In the left-hand calendar list, right-click the shared Google calendar and select Delete Calendar. Choose Yes to confirm.
3. Click File > Account Settings > Account Settings.
4. Select the Internet Calendars tab.
5. If the old Google calendar subscription is still listed, select it and click Remove.
6. Click New and paste the secret iCal URL you copied from Google Calendar.
7. Click Add, then Close.
8. Return to the Calendar view and check whether the missing events now appear.

Verify the subscription update interval

Outlook checks internet calendar subscriptions on a set schedule. If the interval is too long, new Google Calendar events may not appear for hours or even days.

1. In Outlook, click File > Options > Advanced.
2. Scroll down to the Send and receive section and click Send/Receive….
3. In the All Accounts group, ensure that Schedule an automatic send/receive every is set to a reasonable interval, such as 5 minutes.
4. Click Close, then OK.

Troubleshooting

Events appear in Google Calendar but not in Outlook after re-adding

This indicates that Outlook is receiving the calendar feed but not displaying all events. The most common cause is a filter or view setting in Outlook.

• Check that no Filter is applied to the calendar view. In the Calendar view, click View > View Settings > Filter and ensure Show all is selected.
• Confirm that the shared calendar is ticked in the left-hand calendar list. An unticked calendar is hidden from the combined view.
• Look for the events in a different date range. Outlook may be displaying a different week or month than you expect.

Events show as “No information available” or have incorrect times

This typically points to a time zone mismatch between Google Calendar and Outlook, or a permission issue with the shared calendar.

1. In Google Calendar, go to Settings > General > Time zone and confirm it matches the time zone set on the computer running Outlook.
2. In Outlook, go to File > Options > Calendar and verify the time zone under Time zones.
3. If the calendar was shared with restricted permissions, ask the calendar owner to change the permission to See all event details rather than See only free/busy.

The calendar subscription disappears after restarting Outlook

This can happen when the Outlook profile is corrupted or when the subscription was added under a different profile.

1. Close Outlook and reopen it. Check whether the calendar reappears after a manual send/receive (F9).
2. If the calendar does not reappear, create a new Outlook profile via Control Panel > Mail > Show Profiles > Add, then re-add the Google Calendar subscription in the new profile.
3. If the problem persists, the issue may be with the Google Calendar feed itself. Generate a new secret iCal URL from Google Calendar and use that instead.

Events created in Outlook do not appear in Google Calendar

This is expected behaviour. An internet calendar subscription in Outlook is read-only. Outlook cannot write events back to Google Calendar through an iCal feed.

• To create events that appear in both Google Calendar and Outlook, create them in Google Calendar and allow Outlook to sync them via the subscription.
• Alternatively, use a third-party synchronisation tool such as Calendar Sync or gSyncit to enable two-way synchronisation.
• For a fully integrated solution, consider migrating the calendar entirely to Microsoft 365 and sharing it from there.

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