How to send certain events to a different calendar

A connection copies events from one calendar to another. Usually every event that syncs lands on the same destination. A rule set to send to a different calendar changes that for the events it matches: they go to a calendar you pick instead, and nothing is put on the usual destination.

For example, on a Work → Family connection, a rule matching "Personal" in the title can send those events to your Personal calendar. Your family sees work events; your personal ones land where you keep personal things.

What you need

• A Premium or Pro plan (or the older Professional plan). Free and Basic accounts see the action on the Sync Rules page but can't turn it on, and neither does the older Freelancer plan.
• A connection between Google or Outlook calendars. It isn't available on a connection that uses a Cronofy calendar.
• Somewhere to send them: any of your own Google or Outlook calendars that you can add events to, on any of your accounts. (Not a team member's calendar: theirs has rules of its own about what lands on it.) It doesn't have to be on the same account, or even the same provider, as the connection's usual destination.

Setting one up

On the Sync Rules page, pick the connection, choose what the rule matches on, and choose Sync, but send it to a different calendar as the action. Then pick the calendar. You can also add the rule while creating a connection.

Some calendars in the list can't be chosen, and say why:

• It's read-only — we can't add events to it.
• It's where the connection already sends, or where the events come from.
• It already receives this calendar through another connection. Two connections putting the same events on one calendar would each think they own them, and removing one could remove the other's.
• Another rule already sends events from this calendar there. Same reason: only one connection can look after a given event's copy.

What happens to events already synced

Rules reach backwards. When you save the rule, events it matches that are already on the usual destination move: they're removed there and added to the new calendar, usually within seconds. Before you save, you'll see how many will move.

The same happens in reverse. If you delete the rule, turn it off, or change the calendar it sends to, the events move back or on accordingly.

A repeating event moves as a whole series, not one occurrence at a time.

How it works with other rules

• A rule that stops an event syncing still wins. That event goes nowhere.
• Rules that hide details, mark private, add a label or category, set importance, or add a prefix or suffix still apply — to the copy on the new calendar. If the new calendar is on the other provider, a label becomes a category (or the other way round), matched by name on that calendar.
• Only one calendar per event. If two send-to rules match the same event, the one you created first wins.
• If you copy or link the rule to another connection, the calendar is checked again for that connection. It might be fine for one connection and not allowed for another.

Things to know before you rely on it

• Events sent to a calendar stop there. If that calendar has its own connections — say Personal already syncs to Work — the events we sent into it are not passed along. Events you create on Personal yourself still sync as normal. This is deliberate: it keeps an event from travelling somewhere you didn't choose.
• If the calendar stops working, events are held, not sent to the usual destination. If the calendar is deleted, its account is disconnected, or we lose permission to add to it, matching events are put nowhere until it's fixed. The rule is marked as needing attention and we email you, with a reminder each week while it lasts. We never fall back to the usual destination, because that's usually the calendar you were keeping these events off. Reconnect the account or point the rule at another calendar, and the held events are added. If Google or Outlook tells us the calendar no longer exists or is no longer shared with you, we try again once a day, and the events go there as soon as it's back.
• Downgrading turns the rule off. If you move to a plan without this action, the rule stops applying and the events move back to the connection's usual destination. We'll email you when that happens.
• One copy only. The action sends events instead of the usual destination, never as well as. To put the same events on two calendars, use two connections.

What this doesn't do

It doesn't change anything on the source calendar, and it only affects the one connection the rule belongs to. Like every rule, it only reaches events inside your plan's sync window — see how far back and forward does calendar sync go.