Your Google Calendar has everything on it — work meetings, doctor appointments, personal reminders, events you're not sure you want to attend. When someone asks you to share the kids' soccer schedule or the family's weekend plans, you don't want to hand them access to all of that. You just want to share the relevant events.
Here are the two main ways to do it, and when each one makes sense.
Option 1: Create a second calendar just for shared events
Google Calendar lets you maintain multiple calendars under one account. You can create one specifically for events you want to share, keep it completely separate from your main calendar, and share it with whoever needs it.
How to set this up
- Go to calendar.google.com on your computer
- In the left sidebar, click the + icon next to "Other calendars"
- Select Create new calendar
- Give it a descriptive name — "Soccer Schedule," "Family Events," "Kids' Activities"
- Click Create calendar
Now, whenever you add an event that belongs to the shared calendar, make sure to select it (not your default "personal" calendar) when creating the event. The calendar selector is the colored dot you click when creating or editing an event.
Share that calendar
- Hover over the new calendar in the sidebar and click the three-dot menu
- Select Settings and sharing
- Scroll to Share with specific people or groups
- Enter the email addresses of whoever needs access
- Choose the permission level — "See all event details" is usually right for family members who just need to know what's happening
They'll get an email invitation and the calendar will appear in their Google Calendar once they accept.
The catch
This approach requires you to manually add every event to the shared calendar. If a coach texts you the updated practice schedule, you're typing each event in by hand. If the school sends a PDF of the semester calendar, you're going through it line by line.
That's manageable for a handful of events. For a full sports season schedule or a school's entire activity calendar, it becomes a real time sink.
Option 2: Create an iCal feed with only the events you choose
An iCal feed is a shareable calendar link that works in any calendar app — Google Calendar, Apple Calendar, Outlook, and others. People subscribe to the link once, and their calendar app pulls in the events automatically.
The key advantage over option 1: you can create a feed from a photo, PDF, or text — you don't have to enter events manually. If you have a PDF of the soccer schedule, you upload it and the events are extracted for you.
How CalHelper creates a shareable calendar feed
- Go to CalHelper and create a free account (it's free to start)
- Click Import and upload your schedule source:
- A photo you took of the paper schedule
- A PDF from the school or league
- A text message with event details pasted in
- AI reads the schedule and extracts each event — dates, times, locations, titles
- Review the events and fix anything that was misread
- CalHelper creates a calendar feed tied to that import
- Click Share to get your public calendar link
Share the link with family
Send the link to whoever needs the schedule. They subscribe to it in their calendar app:
Google Calendar: On your computer, click + next to "Other calendars" → From URL → paste the link
Apple Calendar (iPhone): Settings → Calendar → Accounts → Add Account → Other → Add Subscribed Calendar → paste the link
Outlook: Add calendar → Subscribe from web → paste the link
Once subscribed, the events appear in their calendar and stay there. Your personal calendar — your work meetings, your doctor appointments, your personal reminders — is never involved. The shared feed contains only the events you imported.
Why this works better for schedules from outside sources
If the schedule originates somewhere other than your head — a coach, a school, a club — you shouldn't have to retype it. CalHelper reads the schedule directly from whatever format it comes in and handles the conversion.
This is especially useful for families dealing with:
- Youth sports schedules handed out on paper or sent as a PDF
- School event calendars posted on a district website
- Activity schedules from camps, tutors, or after-school programs
- Event lineups from clubs or community organizations
Which option is right for you?
| Situation | Better option |
|---|---|
| You're creating the events yourself | Second Google Calendar |
| The schedule comes from a coach, school, or organization | CalHelper iCal feed |
| Recipients use different calendar apps (iPhone, Android, Outlook) | CalHelper iCal feed (works everywhere) |
| Recipients need to add their own events to the shared calendar | Second Google Calendar with edit access |
Both approaches keep your personal calendar private. The difference is how much manual work is involved and where the schedule originates.
If you're managing events yourself (like adding family birthdays or planning a trip), a second Google Calendar is the right tool. If you're distributing a schedule someone else created — or one that lives in a photo, PDF, or message — CalHelper removes the step where you have to retype everything.