Summary
- Google Calendar update enhances user experience by differentiating events created from Gmail starting May 30, 2024.
- Distinct features for events from Gmail include a link back to the original email and restricted edits for integrity.
- Google suggests avoiding issues by ensuring code doesn’t apply restricted updates to “fromGmail” events.
Google Calendar is one of our favorite calendar apps, as it helps us manage our important events, meetings, and other work-related stuff. It’s also convenient for any user who tends to forget important dates, birthdays, anniversaries, and other stuff that might slip your mind and get you in trouble with your significant other. Creating new events and reminders is straightforward when you do so in the app, but things would get tricky when you added events from your Gmail address or other sources. However, that shouldn’t be a problem anymore.
Google’s starting to enable Calendar spam protection by default
Why weren’t things this way to begin with?
Google has introduced a new update that will significantly enhance your Calendar experience. This update, as shared on Google Workspace Updates, will enable the Calendar API to differentiate events created from Gmail. This means that starting May 30, 2024, you’ll be able to easily identify events originating from your Gmail account.
New and existing Google Calendar events scheduled to happen at a later date will appear with a new event Type, which will display “fromGmail” instead of the “default” label from before the update. We will also see the email recipient as the organizer of the event instead of “unknownorganizer@calendar.google.com,” and new “FromGmail” filters will be available for Events.list and Events.watch.
How can we tell the difference between the events created via Gmail and regular ones?
Events created from emails will now have distinct features that set them apart from regular events. For instance, they will include a link back to the original email that delivered the event invitation, making it easier for you to refer back to the context. Additionally, Google Calendar will now restrict edits for events from email, ensuring the integrity of the original event details. These changes are now available for Google Workspace customers, although it may take some time for them to be visible to all users.
Google also recommends a couple of extra steps to avoid any issues with your applications, which include:
- Ensure that your code does not apply restricted updates to events with the type “fromGmail”.
- Temporarily, updates on events with the type “fromGmail” are restricted to the properties reminders, colorId, visibility, status, and extendedProperties. Stay tuned to the Workspace updates blog for more information.
- Review your code if it filters by eventType for Events.list or Events.watch. Filtering by eventType “default” will no longer return events extracted from emails.