How to Get Rid of Google Calendar Spam

Watch out, everyone — there’s a new type of phishing scam in town: Google Calendar invites. Well, it’s not terribly new, but it does seem to be getting increasingly common. Here’s what it looks like — and what to do about it.

Google Calendar works with Gmail to automatically put event and event invites on your calendar. Most of the time, it’s convenient: You don’t have to go in there and do it yourself. But those events may be pulled from spam accounts — and they can be added to your calendar even if you don’t confirm. Even better? They can be added to your Calendar even if the email went to your spam folder.

Annoying? Yes. Who wants an inbox cluttered with invites to fake events? Who wants what basically amounts to advertisements or attempted theft in their Calendar?

But it’s not just annoying. It could also be dangerous, if a person accidentally or out of curiosity clicks on a link in one of those emails or in their Calendar, and that link contains malicious software. It’s just one more way that cyber criminals using phishing techniques can attempt to gain access to your personal information.

So how do you stop it? There are a few steps you can take to prevent these faux appointments showing up on your Calendar in the first place.

1. Stop automatic additions to your Calendar.

Your Google Calendar is set up to automatically add those appointments, even if you don’t confirm, for your convenience. You can change that so that only appointments you’ve confirmed go through to your Calendar.

  1. Click on the gear icon in the upper righthand corner of your Calendar web app.
  2. Click on Settings.
  3. Click on Event Settings.
  4. Click on Automatically add invitations and then, from the drop down, choose No, only show invitations to which I have responded.

In other words: Settings > Event Settings > Automatically add invitations > No, only show invitations to which I have responded

2. Stop automatic additions from Gmail.

You may also need to stop Gmail from automatically adding events to your Calendar.

  1. Click on the gear icon in the upper righthand corner of your Calendar web app.
  2. Click on Settings.
  3. Click on Events from Gmail.
  4. Uncheck Automatically add events from Gmail to my calendar.
  5. Click okay on the warning that pops up.

In other words: Settings > Events from Gmail > Automatically add events from Gmail to my calendar

3. Mark previous spam invites as spam.

If you’re here, you’ve probably already gotten some of these annoying “invites.” If you’re sick of seeing them crossed out on your Calendar, you can go through and mark them as spam. This will take them off of your Calendar and prevent that sender from hitting you up again.

To do this, you can go through and mark them individually. Or, you can:

  1. Click on the gear icon in the upper righthand corner of your Calendar web app.
  2. Click on Settings.
  3. Click View options.
  4. Uncheck Show declined events.

In other words: Settings > View Options > Show declined events

You may also have to do some additional work on your phone, as the web app won’t necessarily transfer to your phone app. To fix this:

  1. Tap the hamburger icon (three parallel lines) on the top left of the Calendar app.
  2. Tap Settings.
  3. Tap General.
  4. Toggle off Show declined events.

We know these steps are a little bit cumbersome, but for now — and at least until Google comes up with a more holistic solution — they’re all we’ve got. Good luck!

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