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Public access

Publish read-only calendar links and control who can open them.

A public calendar is a calendar with an unguessable link that anyone can open without an account, subject to the visibility rules below. The link is read-only and can be revoked at any time.

Publish a calendar

  1. Right-click the calendar in the sidebar and choose Share….
  2. Turn on Public read-only link.
  3. Copy the link, which looks like https://your-server/c/<token>.

From the same dialog you can:

  • Rotate link — issues a new token. The old link stops working immediately; use this if a link leaks.
  • Turn the toggle off — disables the public page entirely.

A public calendar page shows the calendar in read-only Month and Week views. If the owner has enabled time requests, the page also offers Request a time… (see Availability and scheduling).

RSS feed

Every public calendar has an RSS feed at /rss/<token>.xml. It lists events in the next 90 days and follows the same visibility rules as the calendar page. The feed is available whenever the public link is enabled; there is no separate toggle for it yet.

There are three settings that decide whether an anonymous visitor or a signed-in user can open a public calendar. They resolve in order, from most specific to least:

  1. Calendar — the calendar’s own Who can view setting, from its Office hours dialog.
  2. User — the owner’s account-level Privacy setting (Settings → My Account → Privacy).
  3. Instance — the server default set by an administrator under Admin → Privacy, configured with app.publicAccess.

Each level can be:

ValueMeaning
publicAnyone with the link, including anonymous visitors.
signed_inOnly people signed in to this instance.
inheritUse the next level up (not valid at the instance level).

The first non-inherit value wins. If every level inherits, the built-in default is public.

Two additional rules apply:

  • A calendar owned by a private organization is always treated as signed_in, and non-members cannot open it even when signed in. Public organizations do not impose this restriction.
  • The public-link token is a capability: anyone who has it and passes the visibility check can view the calendar. It is read-only, so it cannot be used to edit anything.

What visitors see

  • Anonymous visitors get the read-only calendar grid and can submit a time request or RSVP when the owner has enabled those and the calendar is public.
  • Signed-in users get the same page plus Follow, which adds the calendar to their sidebar. See Sharing and following.
  • The calendar owner is identified by display name, and the calendar’s description is shown.

Public calendars also appear in the directory and on the owner’s profile at /u/{username}.

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