Using Reminders and Notifications

You can receive reminders of upcoming events via your cell phone or pop-up messages on the Google Calendar Web page. Or you can choose to receive notifications of upcoming events and other Google Calendar events via e-mail messages. Select the option that bests suits your needs. To customize the reminder settings, click the Settings link at the top of your Google Calendar Web page.

Enabling Notifications

Click the Notifications tab in the Calendar Settings form to display the many notification and reminder options. First, choose when you want to be notified. You can select times between ten minutes before an event and one week before an event by choosing from Event reminders drop-down list. You can be reminded of events by e-mail, SMS, and Pop-up messages. Google reminds you of upcoming events only by pop-up. All the notifications are by e-mail or SMS only. These notifications include the following:

• New Invitations: This option notifies you when someone invites you to an event.

• Changed Invitations: This option notifies you when someone changes her mind about event details.

• Cancelled Invitation: This option notifies you when someone cancels an event or cancels your invitation to the event.

• Invitation Replies: This option notifies you when someone replies to your invitation to attend your event.

• Daily agenda: This option sends your agenda to you via e-mail but not via SMS.

Before you can use the SMS feature, you must first set up Google Calendar with your cell phone. Type the phone number of your cell phone, select the carrier from the drop-down list, and click Send Verification Code. When you receive the code via SMS message on your cell phone, you need to return to this page and type the verification code in the text box provided. Then click Finish Setup. The page displays a message that your phone number was successfully validated.

Disabling notifications

When you want to stop receiving Calendar e-mail notifications in your Gmail or other e-mail account, disable them by changing the settings set in the preceding section. Simply deselect the box next to the notification type, and you will stop receiving the notification. Be sure to click Save when you finish changing your notification methods.