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May 9, 2011

Google Calendar Adds Event Colors

Google Calendar still doesn't offer support for labels, but you can now pick a color for each event. By default, each event inherits the calendar's color, but you can change it by clicking the event and using the small drop-down displayed next to the event's title.

"Color Coded Events lets you assign specific colors to certain events: put pink on your daughter's soccer practice or make your lunch dates red. It's a great way to stay organized, keep track of recurring events, and add a little flair to your calendar. Color coding is private to you and anybody who can edit your calendar," explains Google.



If you want even more options, go to Google Calendar Labs and enable "Event flair" to be able to add icons to your events.

{ Thanks, Brahm. }

34 comments:

  1. If it worked with Google Calendar Sync, it will be great. My business calendar on Exchange is much more readable with those colors. It will be great to sync those changes to Google Calendar too.

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  2. Wow, they're working on Calendar again...

    I hope this is a sign of things to come, a feature-full calendar with labels etc would be great!

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  3. Event flair
    By Dave M - Mar 2010

    Bring life to your calendar and organize your events with icons for things like flights, vacations, parties and meals. Note: icons added to events you organized will be visible to all attendees. After you enable this feature, click on an event and look for the "Calendar flair" gadget to activate.

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  4. PLEASE Check this out! (and spread)

    http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Calendar/thread?tid=6c0453dfb5b06650&hl=en&start=240

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  5. Wow, about time.

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  6. Sorry for post so laconic above.

    Event Flair is a current calendar Lab feature.

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  7. Does anyone actually have access to this? I don't seem to have it.

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  8. but still no labels !!! its in gmail and why not calendar? colors only is just lame

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  9. This is nice, but it would be great if you could share the colors in embedded calendars (not just with those users who have edit permissions).

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  10. Same problem as Jeremy said. We need to show colors in embedded calendar too. Please fix it.

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  11. the same, we need to show colors of different events in the calendar that we embedded in our website. Please, when do you suppose to set up this function?

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  12. I have develop an iPhone application in which i sync Google calendar with my iPhone applicaiton and it works fine.

    Now i want to get Google Calendar Event Color. When we create a event on web there are options to select color for that event, so how can i got that color in my iphone application ?

    I am using this API for sync http://code.google.com/p/gdata-objectivec-client

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  13. One more vote in favor of...COLORING LABELS TO BE SHARED with other people when shared under the permission setting (See ALL event details). The word "ALL" refers to ALL event details, including such details as the color labels.

    Also, THANK YOU for making color labels available in the first place.

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  14. Hey All, I found a quite livable workaround to get different colors for different events on an embedded calendar. Just create separate calendars for different events or event types, and then when you export your html, select all the calendars you want to include, and they will all display with their respective calendar colors. I created a master calendar with a neutral color, then a special events calendar with a bright color. You can create as many different calendars as you like, and they will all display as one, with as many different colors as you would like.

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  15. The new pastels suck. I didn't want different colors, I want a wider choice of colors. Everybody has their own system, and color coding has long been a respected GTD tool. Can we please have a real color-picker, please, please, please?

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  16. agree the pastels are not what was desired. and not enough options of colors. come on google, if you can monitor all google search activity and report it to the govt. surely you can get your colors in order

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  17. Ditto on the pastels... We want more color choices please!

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  18. yes the pastel colours need changing, I want colours like the previous choices which clearly differentiate from one to the next

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  19. yes, the pastel colours don't work at all for me, the previous set showed the differentiations much more clearly! Please can we have them back?

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  20. i agree. the new colors are too subtle and don't highlight different event types enough for me - bring the old ones back!

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  21. Once a week I am looking for a way to get back to the brighter colors. The pastels are awful!!!!!!! Please give us more options with changing the colors!

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  22. I remember one day a few weeks ago checking in and getting a pop up from google saying something like: "26 new colors". After that it changed to these girly wuss colors and I have not been able to locate any other colors. Did I read it wrong? Where are the colors!

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  23. Looking for ways to label the different colors so they can be organized by different topic groups. Colors only is almost useless unless you keep the labels in your head.

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    Replies
    1. have you found a way to do this yet? I am the same as you! I like to organize mine by certain functions! Otherwise perfectly pointless!

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  24. yeah - I would like to know where the new colors are too!

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  25. Will google api calendar for java known this feature?
    Thanks

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  26. i have google calendar on all my computers for all my staff. I got some new colors so I went through and changed the next 2 months of my calendar only to log on in another computer (not a phone) and it still has only the lame pastel colors, not the new ones. It shows the changes I made on the other computer but does not give the option to to either edit or create new appointments with the new colors.!!!!!!

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  27. Google calendar is truly great but I agree with some of the above comments, the event colors need to be in embedded calendars. I have a lot of web clients using Google calendars and they could really benefit from the event colors being visible in their embedded calendars. Please Google, I am begging you.....

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  28. My problem with the colors comes when you are sharing a calendar among multiple people. When someone on a shared calendar adds an event and sets the color, that color overrides the default for that calendar.

    On my display, I have personal calendars in shades of red/pink, "Project A" calendars are in blues, "Project B" calendars are in greens. But if someone in Project B adds an event to a shared calendar and chooses to color it red, that makes it red on my screen. I can go in and edit it back to the default color, but that changes it on my colleague's calendar.

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  29. Hoping for a rich text editor for the event details.

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  30. Can someone explain to me exactly how I change the color of all events. For instance I'd like to make every birthday on my calendar purple. On the left under new calenders there are many color options. When I click the arrow to the left of an individual event there are only about 8 color choices.
    I don't want to have to change events one by one as that seems ludicrous.

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    Replies
    1. Use multiple calendars and change the color for each calendar in the left sidebar.

      Delete
  31. nice stuff in your article I really feel speechless, because it is quit pretty article. Beside this it is also a long after reading lasting article. Thanks for giving me such type of useful information..
    event staffing

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  32. Comon google let others a least see the colours for events

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