Setting your working hours in Google Calendar tells coworkers when you're available and warns people if they try to book you outside those times. You can set different hours for each day and even add where you're working from. This guide covers turning on working hours, customizing them per day, and the account requirement to know about.
Do you have access to working hours?
Working hours is not available on personal @gmail.com accounts. It requires an eligible Google Workspace account (work or school). If you don't see the option in Settings, your account type doesn't support it — there's no workaround within Google Calendar itself.
This is a web-first feature. You set it up on the web; the limits you set are then respected when others try to schedule you.
Turn on working hours
- Open Google Calendar on a computer.
- Click the gear icon in the top right, then Settings.
- In the left menu, click Working hours & location (under General).
- Tick Enable working hours.
Google fills in a default span (often 9:00 AM–5:00 PM, Monday–Friday). You can adjust it next.
Set different hours per day
You're not stuck with one block for every day.
- Under Working hours, each weekday has its own row with start and end times.
- Click a time to change it for that specific day.
- Use the + on a day to add a second block (handy if you take a long midday break — for example 9:00–12:00 and 1:00–5:00).
- Untick any day you don't work to mark it as off.
Changes save automatically.
Add your working location (optional)
If your Workspace plan includes it, you can also tell people where you're working.
- In the same Working hours & location section, enable Working location if shown.
- Choose a default like Home, Office, or a custom place per day.
- You can also set location for a single day directly from the main calendar grid by clicking the day header.
Working location helps hybrid teams coordinate in-office days. Availability is still driven by your working hours, not location.
What working hours actually do
| Behavior | Effect |
|---|---|
| Someone schedules you outside your hours | They see a warning that it's outside your working hours |
| Find a time / scheduling tools | Prefer slots inside your working hours |
| Your own events | You can still create events anytime — it's a signal to others, not a hard block |
Working hours are a courtesy signal, not an enforcement. People can still book over them; they just get nudged.
Tips
- Keep them honest. Set the hours you actually want to be booked, not the hours you're technically online.
- Block focus time separately. Working hours define availability; for protected deep-work blocks, create real events and color them boldly — see how to change event colors.
- Traveling across zones? Pair working hours with a second time zone display so you read availability correctly.
If your team spans Google and Outlook, nocal shows everyone's availability in one combined timeline — see how.
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