Google Calendar
How to Create a Recurring Event in Google Calendar
Google Calendar handles the common patterns with one dropdown and the unusual ones with a Custom recurrence dialog. This guide shows both, plus the part most people get wrong later: editing one occurrence without breaking the whole series.
Step-by-step
- Create the event as usual: click a time slot (or Create → Event), enter a title, and set the date and time of the first occurrence. Everything in the series is calculated from this one.
- Click Does not repeat just under the date. Pick a preset: Daily, Weekly on [weekday], Monthly on the [first/second/…] [weekday], Annually on [date], or Every weekday (Monday to Friday).
- For anything else choose Custom…. Set Repeat every (1 to 99 days, weeks, months or years), tick the weekdays for weekly patterns, and choose how the series Ends: Never, On a date, or After a number of occurrences. Click Done.
- Add guests, location and description as normal, then Save. Guests receive one invitation for the whole series.
Custom recurrence recipes
| You want | Set it up like this |
|---|---|
| Every other Tuesday | Custom → Repeat every 2 weeks → tick T. Start the event on a Tuesday. |
| Last Friday of the month | Start the event on the last Friday of this month, then choose the preset Monthly on the last Friday (Google only offers "last" when the start date is in the final week of the month). |
| First and third Monday | Not possible in one rule. Create two events: Monthly on the first Monday and Monthly on the third Monday. |
| Every weekday for 8 weeks | Custom → Repeat every 1 week → tick M T W T F → Ends After 40 occurrences (or On the Friday of week 8). |
| Quarterly, on the 1st | Start on the 1st of a month → Custom → Repeat every 3 months → Monthly on day 1. |
| Twice a day | Not possible in one rule. Create two daily events with different times. |
| Birthday / anniversary | Preset Annually on [date]. For birthdays of contacts, Google's Birthdays calendar does this automatically. |
Editing a recurring event (and choosing the right scope)
Open any occurrence, make your change and click Save. Google then asks which events the change applies to:
- This event — only the occurrence you opened. It becomes an exception; the rest of the series is untouched.
- This and following events — splits the series at this point. Earlier occurrences keep the old details; this one and everything after get the new ones. This is the right choice when a meeting moves from Tuesdays to Wednesdays from next month.
- All events — rewrites the whole series, including past occurrences. Use it for fixing a title or adding a guest, not for moving times.
Changing the recurrence rule itself (the dropdown) is always applied to the whole series or to "this and following"; a single occurrence cannot have its own rule.
Skipping or moving one occurrence
Open the occurrence you want to skip, click the trash icon and choose This event. The series continues around the gap. To move one occurrence, drag it to the new slot (or edit its time) and pick This event when asked — it becomes an exception and stays where you put it even if you later edit "all events".
If you delete with This and following events the series ends at that point; that is the quickest way to stop a recurring meeting without touching its history.
On Android and iPhone
The mobile apps offer the same presets: create an event, tap Does not repeat and choose a pattern or Custom. The custom dialog supports intervals, weekdays and an end date or occurrence count, so you rarely need the desktop version. Scope choices when editing ("This event", "This and following events", "All events") work the same way.
Common gotchas
- Time zones and daylight saving — a recurring event is pinned to the time zone it was created in. A 9:00 AM weekly call created in New York stays at 9:00 AM New York time; participants in London see it move by an hour for the two or three weeks when the US and Europe are on different daylight-saving rules. See our time-zone guide.
- The start date defines the pattern — "Monthly on the second Tuesday" is only offered if the first occurrence is a second Tuesday. Change the start date before you pick the rule.
- Guests and exceptions — if you edit a single occurrence to add a guest, that guest is only on that one occurrence.
- Appointment schedules and Tasks are different features: recurring tasks are set in the Tasks panel, and bookable time uses Appointment schedules.