Use the Calendar Integration

Available for

  • Beginner
  • Pro
  • Business

The Calendar integration enables you to see your Google Calendar events alongside your tasks in the Today and Upcoming views, making it easier to plan your day and week. It also lets you sync your time-blocked tasks to Google Calendar to mirror your schedule there.

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Set up the integration

Warning

  1. Log in to Todoist at https://app.todoist.com/
  2. Click your avatar at the top-left.
  3. Select Settings.
  4. Select the Calendars tab.
  5. Click Connect Google Calendar.
  6. Check all the required permission boxes.

Note

Todoist requests the full scope of Google Calendar permissions, so you can sync scheduled tasks as events. We neither store events in the Todoist databases nor access them in any way. We only store a reference of each calendar, so you can choose the calendars to view events from in Todoist.

Your Google Calendar events will now appear in the Today and Upcoming views.

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They're also displayed as read-only events, so they can’t be edited within Todoist. Instead, click an event in Todoist to open and edit it in Google Calendar.

View calendar events in Todoist

Calendar events will look slightly different depending on what layout you set for your task list.

If you’re using either the list or board layouts, events are grouped in an event stack at the top of your task list.

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If you’re using the calendar layout, your events will appear as blocks of time, depending on what duration you have given them.

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Note

Events for both today and future days are only visible to you and in Todoist. Event visibility and settings aren’t shared with anyone else in the project or team.

Access event details

Click the name of the event you want to have a closer look at. This will open the event in Google Calendar, where you will be able to access all information related to your event.

Hide specific calendars

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Todoist, by default, fetches events from every calendar in the connected Google Calendar account. However, you can decide which calendars you want to see in Todoist:

  1. Click your avatar at the top-left of Todoist.
  2. Select Settings.
  3. Open the Calendars tab.
  4. Enable or disable the calendars you want to see in Todoist.

Show events from multiple calendars

You can only connect one Google Calendar account at a time. However, you can view events from other calendars by subscribing to additional calendars with the Google Calendar you've integrated with Todoist:

  1. Open your Google Calendar.
  2. Click the plus icon next to Other calendars.
  3. Depending on what kind of calendar you want to show events from, you have two options:
    • Subscribe to a calendar: Select this option to show events from another Google Calendar account.
    • From URL: Select this option to show events from another calendar provider like iCloud Calendar.

Learn more in this Google help article.

For the integration to work, check that the calendars you're subscribing to have See all event details sharing permissions turned on for their account:

  1. Hover your mouse over the calendar you are subscribing to in the left-hand menu of Google Calendar.
  2. Click the three dots icon.
  3. Select Settings.
  4. Scroll down and find Share with specific people or groups.
  5. Set the share permissions to See all event details.

Sync time-blocked tasks to Google Calendar

With the Calendar integration, you can sync your assigned tasks with at least a date and time to Google Calendar. This lets you mirror your Todoist schedule to your calendar and makes it easier to find available time for new events or meeting invites.

To get started, turn the Sync tasks to calendar option on:

  1. Log in to the Todoist web app or any of the desktop apps.
  2. Click your avatar at the top-left.
  3. Select Settings.
  4. Click the Calendars tab.
  5. Toggle Sync tasks to calendar on. Events will be created in a new calendar named Todoist.

If you don't want to sync your tasks to your calendar, leave this option off. If you’ve enabled this option, and want to turn syncing off, the Todoist calendar and its events will automatically be removed from your calendar.

Your synced information

After setting up the integration, the initial sync is bounded to tasks with a time due today and in the future. You'll see specific information synced between Todoist tasks and Google Calendar events:

If in Todoist, youThen, in your calendar
add a task with due date, due time, and duration

a synced event is added (tasks with just a due date won't sync)

update the task namethe event's name is updated
update the task's due datethe event's start date is updated
update the task due time or durationthe event's start and end dates are updated
complete a non-recurring task

the event's name is updated with a checkmark ✔️ and it stays on the calendar

complete an occurrence of a recurring taskthe event's name remains as it is and it stays on the calendar
complete a recurring task foreverthe event's name is updated with a checkmark ✔️ and it stays on the calendar
remove the task due time or durationthe synced event is removed from the calendar
delete the taskthe synced event is removed from the calendar
If in Google CalendarThen in Todoist
the event name is updatedthe task name is updated
the event start date is updatedthe task due date is updated
the start and end dates are updatedthe task due time or duration is updated
the event's recurrence is updated and it applies to all succeeding eventsthe task recurrence is updated
the event's recurrence changes to a single instance ("This event only")❌ the task's recurrence won't update
the event is changed to an all-day event

the task's due time or duration is removed

the synced event is removed

the synced event is deleted❌ the task is not deleted
add a new event to the "Todoist" calendar❌ it won't create a task in Todoist

Limitations with recurring due dates

Recurring tasks with a due time will sync as recurring events in Google Calendar. There are a few exceptions in Todoist:

  • When a Todoist recurrence isn’t supported by Google Calendar (such as “every other” or “every N” day), Todoist creates a regular event for the current occurrence, then creates a new one when the next occurrence comes up.
  • Rescheduling the current task occurrence to a different time will not sync the change to the recurring event in Google Calendar.

From Google Calendar, updating the recurrence will generally sync back to Todoist, however, there are two scenarios that don't sync:

  • Updating a single instance of an event (“this event only”)
  • Complex custom recurrences (such as “every day except Friday”)

Lastly, it’s currently not possible to keep the completed recurring instance around with a checkmark in Google Calendar, like you see in Todoist.

Note

Adding new events to the “Todoist” calendar won’t create new tasks in Todoist. The integration only syncs changes to events linked to existing tasks. To create new tasks quickly when looking at Google Calendar, use the global Quick Add keyboard shortcut.

Time-block your week

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If you're on the Pro or Business plan, you can time-block (or timebox) your tasks around your events in the calendar view:

  1. Log in to the Todoist web app or any of the desktop apps.
  2. Open the Upcoming view.
  3. Click View at the top-right.
  4. Select Calendar.
  5. Click Week next to Layout. You'll see all your events for the week.

Here are some best practices when time-blocking your tasks:

  • Start a weekly review.
  • Add a due date, due time, and duration to important tasks you must accomplish next week. That’s as easy as dropping the task to a specific time.
  • Add a due date to other tasks you’d like to work on next week. When that time comes, drag each task from the “All day” section to a specific time block.
  • Adjust your weekly plans by dragging time-blocked tasks around your fixed events.
  • If you’ve enabled syncing tasks as events, your time-blocked tasks will appear in Google Calendar, so you get a full overview of your schedule. 

Sergio · Customer Experience Specialist

Check out this help center article on how to use time-blocking to do weekly reviews!

Disconnect your calendar

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If you no longer want to see your events in Todoist, you can easily disconnect the calendar:

  1. Click your avatar at the top-left of Todoist.
  2. Select Settings.
  3. Open the Calendars tab.
  4. Click Disconnect.

FAQ

Try to manually sync your Todoist data. If you’re still missing calendars or events, you may want to try to disconnect and reconnect the calendar integration.

It's not possible to edit events in Todoist, as they're read-only objects. However, you can click on an event to open it in your calendar app, where you will be able to edit it.

You can only sync Todoist to one Google Calendar account. As a workaround, you can subscribe to other calendars, so that their events will show up in your Google Calendar. These events will then sync to Todoist.

Google Calendar is the first calendar app that's supported. We are looking to add support for other calendar apps in the future.

These duplicate events were created by the legacy Google Calendar integration, and they're not connected to any other events or tasks in your Todoist account. It's safe to manually remove these duplicates.

Events are neither synced to other services nor do they appear in backups. Unlike tasks, events are read-only objects that are displayed within Todoist. This means they can't be edited in any way.

We neither store events in the Todoist databases, nor can we see them in any way. We only store a reference of each calendar, to make it possible for you to select which calendars you can view events from in Todoist.

The integration will stop working. To fix this issue, disable and enable the feature in your Todoist settings.

The integration doesn't support Google Calendar tasks. To have your Google Calendar content sync to Todoist, try creating an event instead.

If you've turned on “Sync tasks to calendar”, your time-blocked tasks create events in Google Calendar in a “Todoist” calendar. Make sure that the “Todoist” calendar is hidden in calendar settings to avoid seeing the synced events next to your tasks in Todoist.

If you're working in a company with strict security policies, some IT software might block the integration with Todoist if the tool isn't whitelisted by your employer. This would cause the integration to repeatedly disconnect. Reach out to your IT team and ask them to whitelist Todoist as a safe tool to resolve your issue.

Get in touch

If you’re experiencing any trouble with the Calendar integration, get in touch with us. We— Sergio, Keita, Marija, and any of our other 14 teammates—will make sure the integration works, and that you’re back on track.