Gmail – Email Formatting Guidelines for Google Calendar

gmailgoogle-apps-emailgoogle-calendar

Does Google provide any documented, official recommendations about how to format an email that will easily import the event into a user's Google Calendar?

Let's say that I want to send an email about an event to a Gmail user. I might be sending this email using Outlook, Gmail, mailx, etc. The recipients are using Gmail.

I know this email can be formatted in a way so that Gmail can easily import this event into Google Calendar. Google describes this feature at Automatic event recognition in Gmail, and at Help articles › Access options › Other Google products › Gmail.

However, this feature doesn't always work.

I've tried many different formats, placed different text in different email bodies, in the subject line, etc. Sometimes they work, sometimes and don't.

  • Sometimes there is a "Add to Calendar" link on the right side of the Gmail page.
  • I can also go to the menu "More: Create Event". This will bring me to a Google Calendar page to create the event. Sometimes the fields are automatically populated with information from the email, but often these fields are all blank.

Here are some examples:

One with a location and day:

Meet me at the circus this Thursday

Date, time and location:

Meet me at the Circus at 2198 University Ave, Berkeley, CA on Aug 10, 2011 at 3:00PM

Event, date and location labelled as such:

What: Meet at the Circus
Where: 2198 University Ave, Berkeley, CA
When: Aug 10, 2011 at 3:00PM

Are there any recommendations or guidelines about how to format these emails so that they are automatically recognized by Google Calendar?

Is there a difference between 'normal' Gmail vs. Google Apps?

Best Answer

I have had limited success with the following format:

Subject: My test event

Email body says:

This is my test event!

When: May 7, 9-10AM
Where: 123 Main Street, Berkeley, CA

Using the keyword "Location" instead of "Where" seems to work also.

In Google Calendar, this will populate the Subject, the body and the event time and the event location (The field labeled "Where").

I have been using the above format with my personal Gmail account, and my institution's Google Apps account. It usually works with the "Add to Calendar" button, and with the "More: Create event" menu option.

Related Topic