Personal → Work, shown as Busy

Your work calendar shows when you're unavailable, and nothing else about your personal life.

Works on: Free.

When this is for youCopy Anchor Link

Colleagues book over your personal commitments because your work calendar looks empty — but you don't want them reading what those commitments are.

Before you turn it onCopy Anchor Link

• Every copy is titled "Busy" — no title, description, location, or guests cross over.
• The copy keeps the original's free/busy state. An event you marked Free shows as Free, so people can still book over it — set "Free or busy" to "Always busy" on the sync if you want everything to block time.
• Nothing is ever written back to your personal calendar; this direction only goes one way.

How it worksCopy Anchor Link

SYNCDATE reads your personal calendar and writes a copy of each event to your work calendar, titled Busy, with no description, location or guests. Your personal calendar is never changed. The work calendar needs to allow SYNCDATE to add events to it.

What you'll pickCopy Anchor Link

• Your personal calendar (1 calendar; copies come from here): The one with the real detail. Nothing is written to it.
• Your work calendar (1 calendar; copies land here): Where the Busy blocks appear.

Setting it upCopy Anchor Link

1. Pick your personal calendar as the source. Nothing is written to it.
2. Pick your work calendar. The Busy blocks appear here.
3. Leave the title on "Busy", and leave Description, Location and Guests on "Leave out".
4. Look at "Free or busy": on "Same as original", a source event marked Free can remain Free even when the copy is titled Busy.
5. Check it worked: add one test event to your personal calendar, then open your work calendar. The copy should show the same time, the title Busy and none of the details.

VariationsCopy Anchor Link

You can add these to this sync at any time, without starting over.

Sync everything except all-day eventsCopy Anchor Link

Add an "All-day events" exclude rule and holidays, birthdays and travel banners stay out of the calendar you sync into. It also catches birthdays from a subscribed calendar, which "Special dates from contacts" cannot — those arrive as ordinary events, so only the all-day rule sees them.

Only invitations you've acceptedCopy Anchor Link

Set "Invitations" to "Only yes" and meeting requests you haven't answered stay out of the calendar you sync into until you accept them.

Set this upCopy Anchor Link

Start with this recipe opens the sync screen with this recipe's direction and common settings already filled in. You pick the calendars, and you can change any setting before anything syncs.

Start with this recipe

Related

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.

Mirror or Push: which one do you need

Push feeds one calendar from another and never touches the source. Mirror goes both ways. How to choose, and what switching later deletes.

How to sync two Outlook calendars from different accounts

Choose a combined view, one-way availability copies or a two-way Mirror between Microsoft accounts. Check access, privacy and the actual result.

How to sync iCloud Calendar with Outlook

Choose the right iCloud–Outlook setup for a combined view, a read-only subscription or private Busy copies in your Microsoft 365 calendar.

Three useful rules for Google and Outlook

Join link in Location, guests in the description, personal events as Busy at work. Rules for syncing Google Calendar and Outlook; rules need Plus.