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October 14, 2007

Create Google Calendar Events from Gmail

You probably know that Gmail detects some patterns that could be associated with an event and offers to add that event to your Google Calendar. But not all the messages contain these patterns and sometimes a mail could trigger a great idea for an event. So how to add an event related to a Gmail message? While this is not a new feature, it's not very easy to discover and it has a very interesting side-effect.

In the "More actions" drop-down, select "Create Event" and then enter the details of the event. Unfortunately, Google Calendar doesn't add snippets from the message to the event, so you'll have to copy-paste some relevant fragments. Once the event is created, you'll see it in Gmail's sidebar, next to the message. This could server as a reminder when you get a reply or read the message again in the future.

It's not very clear whether Gmail shows only one event associated with a message or all of them because the behavior isn't consistent. Gmail should also offer a way to add annotations to a message and link to an email message from a calendar event or personal document.

30 comments:

  1. I posted a bookmarklet that will take care of this here

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  2. Steve - thank you for a relevant comment. The bookmarklet is very helpful.

    Google guy - this is very old news you are posting. Got anything good, useful, helpful, insightful or just reruns?

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  3. There is also a good firefox extension for adding events to Google Calendar Delegate to Gcal

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  4. @Michael

    I don't see you operating a blog with (more than) 12,000 subscribers, so shut up. If you don't like what is here, you have no obligation to read it, so you can't complain. Besides, this guy is doing you a service, for FREE, so you have no right to be demanding anything.

    Some people are assholes; you're one of them.

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  5. Thanks for the reminder! I never remember to add events using the drop down ...

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  6. @Michael:

    This is not quite a rerun because I don't remember ever writing about it. The main reason I found this interesting is that Gmail actually displays the event you've just created in the sidebar. I've always thought that this feature is equivalent with creating an event from Google Calendar, but the integration is a little deeper.

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  7. Once the event is created, you'll see it in Gmail's sidebar, next to the message. This could server as a reminder when you get a reply or read the message again in the future.

    This does not seem to be happening, I guess. I created an event,as you described but after that the calendar event never appears on the sidebar.

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  8. This feature is not documented in Gmail's help center and it's not very consistent.

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  9. Strange. I don't have that option in "More actions...". It's a feature that I have always thought would be great.

    Anyone else that don't have it? I'm running Gmail in swedish (why would that matter?).

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  10. I think this might be in the US English locale only - I definitely don't see it in the UK English one - this has been the case before with a few other features (chat being a notable example) - the new functionality took a while to percolate from US English to other locales.

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  11. That's one of the rules of the (Google?) internationalization: if you want the latest features, go with the US English version. I always choose English for any software, operating system, website, even if it's not my native language and I don't live in the US.

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  12. Nice idea but how does it filter out the major traffic/events if you are not in the .com area

    For instance thanks giving would not be a major event or relevant to your calender if you are in .com.au

    Oppo
    http://www.dragonlasers.com

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  13. I am using English - US and I still don't see Create Event as an option under the More Actions... menu. Any thoughts why?

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  14. I have no add event link either...

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  15. Yeah - I have no create event feature either. Right now I'm thinking that Outlook is a better mail / calendar application 'cos I CAN turn an email into an event. Please sort this out Google

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  16. To mikebros: but you can't access you mail from any computer and you don't have all the nifty Labs apps (like "Forgotten Attachment Detector", "Sender timezone", "Undo Send", "Suggest more recipients" etc.) for Outlook as Gmail has.
    An alternative way to easy create an event is to use the firefox addon: "Integrated Gmail"

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  17. I miss the "Add to Calendar" feature/link from the 'More options' dropdown as well. I use US localized - still no go.

    - Have disabled all Labs features - still no go.
    - Have disabled all FF extensions - still no go.
    - Have tried in IE8 and Chrome - still no go

    Man - on an annoyance scale from 0-10 this is a clear 9/10

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  18. Has Google removed this option?

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  19. wouldn't it be great to have a firefox extension that added event information that's coming up from a website to google calendar?? that plugin would become big so fast..

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  20. Google did not remove this option. I believed it may br only in US English version for this option

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  21. Can anyone HELP. I have created an event in calendars in g mail and it has repeated it for the next 5 months. How do I delete the event and why has this happened.

    Thanks for any help

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  22. I would say Google is the best among all explorer. i can always learn a lot here.

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  23. seems like it doesnt work anymore...

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  24. i agree to you alex bony ..google is such a user-friendly . . .it helps me a lot in my research paper etc =]

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  25. I'd like to have this feature.. makes me disappointed to see that it has been removed..

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  26. I want to link emails to events and tasks easily. From the gmail web page, and from my phone and ipad.

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  27. Where is add event button?

    gone.

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    Replies
    1. This feature only works if your language is set to English (US) - I've been missing it for ages, then I switched back to US English and it's back straight away!

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  28. Go to the gear select settings then the labs tab. I selected several, can't tell you which one did it, but the event option was made available in the more option drop-down.

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  29. Google found results telling me it would be in the right sidebar. Nope. In the more dropdown. Nope. Use the above bookmarklet. Redirected, broken link. Just use the Delegate to GCal extension. Disabled, gone. Really, this is annoying. What I'd *really* like to be able to do is create a filter that automatically creates reminder events for me to follow up on something. I'll keep looking.

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