How to Publish and Share an Outlook Calendar

Outlook gives you two distinct ways to let others see your calendar: sharing it with specific people who sign in to view it, and publishing it as a public feed anyone with the link can subscribe to. Choosing the right one—and the right permission level—keeps your schedule visible to the people who need it without oversharing. This guide covers both, plus how to revoke access later.

Share vs. publish: which to use

If you want a feed to plug into another app, you want publishing—see How to Get Your Outlook Calendar's Published .ics URL.

Share with specific people

New Outlook for Windows and Outlook on the web (outlook.office.com or outlook.com) use the same steps.

1. Open the Calendar.
2. In the left pane, hover over the calendar you want to share, select the More options (…) menu, and choose Sharing and permissions.
3. Enter the email address of each person you want to share with.
4. Choose a permission level for each person (see below).
5. Select Share. They receive an invitation to add your calendar.

Permission levels

• Can view when I'm busy — free/busy only, no event details.
• Can view titles and locations — adds titles and locations.
• Can view all details — full event details.
• Can edit — view and change events.
• Delegate — edit plus receive meeting invites on your behalf (work/school accounts).

Give the lowest level that does the job.

Classic Outlook desktop

1. Open Calendar and select Share Calendar on the ribbon (choose the calendar if prompted).
2. Add recipients and pick a permission level.
3. Send the invitation. For finer control, use Calendar Permissions on the ribbon to set per-person access.

Publish publicly

Publishing creates a read-only feed at a fixed web address.

1. In new Outlook or on the web, open Settings (gear) → Calendar → Shared calendars.
2. Under Publish a calendar, pick the calendar and a permission level (Availability only, Limited details, or Full details).
3. Select Publish, then copy the HTML link (a viewable web page) or the ICS link (a subscribable feed).

Anyone with the link can view the calendar without signing in, so choose the least revealing detail level.

Revoke access

Stopping access is just as important as granting it.

Stop sharing with a person:

1. Open Sharing and permissions for the calendar (new Outlook/web) or Calendar Permissions (classic).
2. Find the person and remove them, or lower their permission level.

Unpublish a public calendar:

1. Go to Settings → Calendar → Shared calendars.
2. Under Publish a calendar, select Unpublish. The existing links stop working.

If a published link was ever exposed, unpublish and republish to generate a fresh URL—the old one cannot be selectively re-secured.

Common gotchas

• Publishing is missing or grayed out. Your organization may have disabled it. Check Which Calendar Do You Have? and ask your administrator.
• Sharing across organizations. Sharing full details with people outside your company may be restricted by IT policy; you may be limited to free/busy.
• Changes lag. Subscribers to a published feed see updates on a delay, often a few hours.

Once your calendar is shared the way you want, nocal brings your Outlook and Google calendars into one timeline — see how.