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How to share a calendar on iPhone

Last updated: 2026-09-23

Open the Calendar app, tap the info button next to the iCloud calendar you want to share, tap Add Person, and enter their email address. Apple's own guide is explicit about the catch: you can share an iCloud calendar with other iCloud users, and your contact needs an email address. If the person you are sharing with does not have an iCloud account and will not make one, your only Apple option is Public Calendar — a read-only link they can view but never add to.

The steps

  1. Open Calendar and find the calendar list

    In the Calendar app on iPhone, tap Calendars at the bottom of the screen. Only iCloud calendars can be shared this way — a calendar synced from Google or Exchange is shared from that service instead.

  2. Open that calendar's info

    Tap the info button next to the iCloud calendar you want to share. If you want to keep your personal appointments out of it, make a new calendar first and share that one.

  3. Add the people

    Tap Add Person, then type a name or email address, or browse your contacts. Apple's guide notes your contacts must have an email address to share an iCloud calendar. Repeat for each person.

  4. Decide who can edit

    When you share a calendar, the people you invite can see it, and you can let them add or change events. You can also share a read-only version instead, which anyone can view but not change.

The two kinds of sharing are not the same thing

Apple offers two options from the same screen and they behave very differently. Sharing with specific people creates a genuinely shared calendar: invitees see it in their own Calendar app, and if you allow it, they can add and change events. Turning on Public Calendar gives you a link anyone can open — but it is read-only, so nobody on the other end can ever add anything.

Families almost always want the first one and end up with the second, because the first one asks for something the second does not.

The requirement that stops families: an iCloud account each

Apple's guide states plainly that you share an iCloud calendar with other iCloud users, and that the contact needs an email address. In practice that means everyone you want on the calendar has to have an Apple Account, be signed into iCloud, and accept the invitation on their own device.

For a household of iPhone users that is a non-event. It falls apart in exactly the cases families care most about: a parent on Android, a grandparent who has an iPad but has never knowingly signed into iCloud, or a relative who has an Apple Account but cannot remember the password and will not go through a reset to see a birthday.

There is no Apple setting that removes this. Public Calendar is the workaround, and it buys you a view-only link — which is fine for a school term calendar and useless for a family that needs everyone adding things.

When the account requirement is the blocker

If you have already tried and someone would not or could not set up iCloud, the fix is not another Apple setting — it is a calendar that does not require an account from every member.

We publish one, so treat this as the interested party talking: Family Magnet's calendar is shared by a six-digit invite code that stays valid for seven days. Only the person who creates the family needs an email address; everyone else types the code and becomes a full member who can add events, with no account, no password and no app store. It runs in a browser, so an iPad or an Android phone is fine.

That is a real trade: you give up iCloud's integration with the rest of the Apple ecosystem. If everyone in your family already has an iCloud account and uses it, the steps above are the better answer and you should stop here.

Common questions

Can I share an iPhone calendar with someone who has no Apple Account?

Not as an editable shared calendar. Apple's guide says iCloud calendar sharing is with other iCloud users. The only Apple option for someone without an account is Public Calendar, which produces a read-only link they can view but cannot add to.

How do I share an iPhone calendar with an Android user?

Apple's Public Calendar link works in any browser, but it is read-only. For a calendar an Android user can actually add to, either move the family to a Google Calendar, or use a shared app that does not require per-person accounts.

Can the people I share with edit my events?

That is your choice. When you share with specific people you can let them add or change events, or share a read-only version that they can view but not change.

Does Family Sharing give us a shared family calendar automatically?

Yes. Apple's Family Sharing guide says that once the invitations are accepted, Family Sharing is set up on everyone's devices automatically, including a shared calendar. Family Sharing is for you and up to five other family members, and each of them needs their own Apple Account — so it is the easiest route for an all-Apple household and no help for a relative who does not have one.

Why does the calendar I want to share have no Add Person option?

Only iCloud calendars can be shared from the Calendar app. A calendar that comes from Google, Outlook or Exchange has to be shared from that service's own settings instead.

Sources

The steps above come from the vendor’s own documentation on the date shown, not from a third-party tutorial.

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Specific questions, answered

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