SYNCDATE DocsAppearance: how copied events look
Every setting that decides what a copy looks like when it lands: title, availability, privacy, colour, guests and reminders.
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This group decides what a copy looks like when it lands. It's the second section of the sync screen, What copies look like. It starts folded; click its title to open it.
Every setting here describes the copy. None of them change the original event.
Title, Description, Location, Privacy and Free or busy each have a Custom tile. It lets you write the text yourself with pieces of the original dropped in, and on Plus and above add if-this-then-that rules. It's covered in full on Custom text and rules; the rest of this page covers the ordinary choices.
Title
Four choices, and they only affect the words shown on the copy.
| Setting | The copy's title reads |
|---|---|
| Busy | the word "Busy" |
| Original | the real event name |
| Text first | your text, then the real name — "🔒 Personal Doctor appointment" |
| Custom | text you write yourself, with variables from the original, and rules on Plus and above |
Text first joins with a single space, and the real title still shows. If you're hiding what the meeting is, that's the wrong choice — use Busy or Custom. Both text choices need text: Start stays greyed out while the box is empty. For a title built from your own words and pieces of the original, such as "[Work] " followed by the title, use Custom and see Custom text and rules.
Free or busy
This is the setting that decides whether the copy blocks your time. The title setting doesn't, no matter what it says.
Same as original is the default. A copy carries the same free-or-busy status as the original: an event you marked Free stays Free. Always busy makes every copy count as Busy regardless of the original.
The two settings are independent, which produces one result worth understanding before it confuses you: a copy whose title reads "Busy" can still count as Free time, so colleagues can book over it. That's the default combination, and it's usually what people want — the meeting stays private, the time stays honestly free.
If you want the label and the time to agree:
- Pick Always busy under Free or busy. Every copy then counts as Busy. You lose the real Free/Busy signal in exchange.
- Or pick Original under Title. Both then match, at the cost of the privacy mask.
On Plus and above, Custom on Free or busy can also decide per event, for example making events with many guests Busy and leaving the rest as the original. A Custom result here is Same as original or Busy; it can't make a copy Free. See Custom text and rules.
Privacy
Five choices: Calendar default, Always private, Always public, Match source and Custom. This sets the copy's own privacy flag in the destination calendar, which is what controls whether other people in your organisation can open it.
Calendar default is the default. It sends no privacy flag, so the destination calendar's own behaviour applies. It's the right choice unless you have a reason otherwise. Always private and Always public put that flag on every copy. Match source gives each copy the privacy of the event it came from.
Custom on Privacy lets a rule choose per event, for example Private for events whose title contains a word you pick. It's on Plus and above; see Custom text and rules.
Color
Three choices. Calendar default gives copies the colour of the calendar they land in, exactly like events you create there yourself. One color gives every copy the swatch you pick. Same as original gives each copy the colour of the calendar it came from.
A colour is useful when copies land in a calendar you also use for other things — the colour is what marks them as coming from elsewhere. If you rely on per-calendar colours to read your week, Calendar default is what gives that back.
Colour is approximate between providers and sometimes doesn't apply at all — see What SYNCDATE can't do.
Same as original is on Pro. It decides the colour by where an event came from rather than where it lands, so everything from your work calendar is one colour wherever it goes.
Description and Location
Both are off by default, and each has two choices: Copy and Leave out.
With Description on Copy, the description text travels with the copy. Leave it out if descriptions contain things you don't want on the other calendar — meeting notes, dial-in details, client names.
With Location on Copy, the location or video link travels with the copy, which is what makes a synced copy joinable.
Both also have Custom. It's how you put the venue into Location when a feed keeps it in the description, or show only the meeting link in the description. A Custom result isn't cut to fit: a location over 255 characters means that event isn't copied, and the sync shows "Location could not be applied". Details are on Custom text and rules.
Guests
Leave out, As text, or Full list.
- Leave out — the copy has no guests.
- As text — the guest names go into the description.
- Full list — real attendees on the copy.
Full list is the one to be careful with. Real attendees on a copy means the destination calendar may notify them, so people can receive mail about an event they were already invited to. As text gives you the information without the side effects.
Reminders
Off, Calendar default, or Same as original.
Off is the default and the one that produces exactly one reminder. The copy carries none of its own; you still get whatever the original event has.
Calendar default leaves the copy's reminders unset, so the calendar it lands on applies its own default — which is usually 10 or 30 minutes, and usually produces the second alert you were trying to avoid. It reads like the safe neutral option and isn't.
Same as original copies the original's reminders across. Useful when you get no notifications from the source account at all.
Branding
Show or Hide. Show is on for Free plans, and Hide is locked there. Plus and Pro can hide the "Synced by SYNCDATE" line from copy descriptions.
Known limitations
- Changing a setting doesn't repaint existing copies immediately. They re-render on the next run. To push it through now, open the sync's menu and choose Re-sync. Give it a moment — back-to-back runs are ignored for 30 seconds, so clicking again straight away does nothing.
- These settings apply to every destination calendar, unless you're on Pro, where the Settings for chips (settings for one calendar) can vary them per calendar.
- Always busy isn't neutral. It means "everything lands as Busy", not "stop managing this".
Related
Custom text and rules: decide what each copy says
Write a copy's title, description or location yourself with pieces of the original dropped in, and use if-this-then-that rules for text, privacy and free or busy.
Different settings per destination calendar
Set a shared default for a sync, then override it for one destination calendar. What you can vary, what you can't, and which way round it works.
Why your free slots show as Busy
Free or busy decides whether a copy blocks your time; the title setting doesn't. Which one you actually want, and what to check when it's already on.
Stop synced events overriding your calendar's colour
Give your calendar its own colours back, colour copies by where they came from, and fix Outlook copies that arrive grey.
Duplicate reminders on synced events
Choose reminder behavior for copies, identify which event sent each alert, and check existing copies before changing calendar-wide settings.
Direction: one-way or two-way
Push copies one way and never touches the source. Mirror goes both ways. How to tell which one you need, and what changing it later deletes.
Custom text and rules: decide what each copy says
Write a copy's title, description or location yourself with pieces of the original dropped in, and use if-this-then-that rules for text, privacy and free or busy.