Google Calendar: Adding Attachments

I’m attending a workshop at a nearby college in a couple weeks, and the organizer has already emailed me a parking pass to print and bring with me. As I was thinking about where to save the parking pass so I won’t forget it, I thought, “I wish I could just save it in my calendar.” After a little investigation, you can do that in Google Calendar.

Go to settings by clicking on the cog icon, and select “Labs”.

Scroll down to “Event attachments” and click “Enable.”

Now when you create a new event or edit an existing one, you have an “Add attachment” option.

Clicking “Add attachment” generates a pop-up window. The initial view is your “My Drive”, formerly Google Docs. If the file you want to add isn’t in Google Docs, click on “Upload”.

If your file is on your desktop or in a folder, just click and drag it into this space. Click the “Upload” button, and the file will be automatically copied to Google Drive and attached to your calendar event.

Here’s what the event looks like with the attachment.

Other attendees

If there are “guests” associated with the calendar event and if you grant them access to the file by “sharing” it in Google Drive, then they’ll be able to download the file as well.

Closing note

I’ve also created a FollowUp.cc reminder for the day of the event that tells me to print out the parking pass that’s in my calendar. [Read more about FollowUp.cc in this earlier blog post.]

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9 thoughts on “Google Calendar: Adding Attachments

  1. Please can you assist?

    If you establish a new account with Google, including Drive, Gmail etc the Attachment Link is not an option in the Labs section to add as a feature – this is driving me crazy – I have other Google accounts with this lab option but cannot find out why I cannot include it in me new Google account – Please can you assist?

  2. Same problem here- and yes accessing labs through the calendar. It’s not shown as an option at all. This is a brand new account. Frustrating.

  3. You are absolutely correct- it does require a Drive account! Can’t believe I didn’t figure that out sooner- thank you! 🙂

  4. I am creating an event and adding a attachment . As soon as I send and save, the attachment goes missing and no one gets it . Any thoughts?

  5. I have an iPhone, in order for you to see the attachment in Google calendar, you have to view it as “desktop.” In your Calendar event, on the very bottom of the screen, there is a desktop link. Click on it and it takes you to the desktop version. However, the document cannot easily be scrolled. I hope this helps!

  6. The account I am using also has a Google Drive linked to it which has some docs in it but I still don’t get the enable attachments option in the Labs list. Very frustrating, such a basic feature.

  7. Quentin, that IS frustrating! Here are some suggestions that are merely guesses. But since I don’t have anything else…

    1. Try Chrome, if you’re not already using it.

    2. Close all of your browser tabs except for Calendar. Then log out of Calendar. Log back in.

    3. In the “make sure your computer is plugged in” category of tech help (sorry!), double check to make sure that the Drive account email address is the same one you’re using for Calendar.

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