Fastmail offers a full-featured calendar that lets you easily schedule events and coordinate with others.
This guide explains how to view and create events, manage invitations, and set reminders for upcoming events.
- Creating an event
- Event invitations
- Viewing and editing an event
- Invitation handling
- Event reminders
Creating an event
You can create a new event by going to Calendars. Select New event, or double-click the day you wish to schedule the event.
When you're not viewing the Calendars screen, you can create a new event in your mailbox by clicking the arrow on the Compose button, then clicking New event.
You can also create a new event by opening your sidebar, navigating to the Calendar tab, and clicking the plus icon.
From the event creation screen, you can set your event information:
- What: The name of your event.
- Where: The location of the event. Once the event has been saved, this will turn into a link to view the location in a map or obtain directions.
- Calendar: Choose which of your Fastmail calendars you would like to save this event to, if you have more than one.
- Color: Use the color picker to select a color that will help the event stand out. By default, the color of the parent calendar will be selected.
- Show as: Mark yourself as Free or Busy. If you mark the event as Free, you can have multiple events at the same time.
- When: The time and duration of your event. You can also change the time zone for the event. For more information on time zones, please see our How to set your time zone help page.
- Repeat: If the event will happen more than once, you can toggle this option and set how you want the event to repeat. More info on creating a repeating event is available at our Repeating calendar events help page.
- Who: Add guests' email addresses, and they will receive an invitation to the event when you click Save.
- Organizer: After adding guests, you can select the identity you'd like to use to send the event.
- Reminders: Set email notifications or browser alerts to send you a reminder before the event at the time(s) of your choosing.
- Notes: Any additional notes about this event. These are shared with other invitees.
- Attach file: Any additional files related to this event. These are shared with other invitees.
Duplicating an event
If you want to create a duplicate of an event that is already in your calendar, you can do so by right-clicking the event and selecting Duplicate. This will open a new event screen with the event's details pre-populated. Once you are done making any edits, be sure to click Save. You can also create a duplicate of an existing event by holding down the Alt key, then dragging and dropping the event to the desired day/time.
Event invitations
Receiving an invitation
When receiving an invitation in Fastmail, you will be able to see the following details:
- The name of the event
- The date, time, duration, and time zone of the event
- The location of the event, and a link to view the location in a map or obtain directions
- All invitees to the event
- Notes or attachments added by the sender
- RSVP buttons
Clicking Going, Maybe, or Not going will send a response to the sender via email.
You can click the Add to calendar button to view the event in your sidebar. (If you have already sent an RSVP to the event, this button will say View in calendar.)
This is what an invitation to you will look like in your email:
If you have not yet responded to a sender's invitation or invitation update, the event will be displayed in your calendar with a faded color and dashed outline to differentiate from your confirmed events.
Sending an invitation
When creating an event, you can add guests by scrolling down to the Who section, clicking Add guest, entering the guest's email address in the field, and clicking Invite.
If you'd like to change the email address that is used to send the invitation, you can do so using our address picker: Click the dropdown menu labeled Organizer and select the desired address.
If you would like to add a guest to an event that you have already created, you can do so by finding the event in your calendar, clicking the Edit button, and adding the guest from there.
After a guest has been added, clicking Save will send them an email invitation to your event.
Guests can respond to your invitation by selecting Going, Maybe, or Not going. When a guest responds, you will receive their RSVP via email.
This is what their RSVP to you will look like in your email:
RSVP on the web
When sending an invitation to a guest who does not use Fastmail, the appearance of the invitation may look different, depending on how their email provider or client displays invitations. If the guest's email provider or client does not support calendars, they may not be able to RSVP directly from the email.
RSVP on the web allows guests to open the invitation in a Fastmail-hosted web page that is separate from the email. Your guest can click the View event status link to open the web page, view the event details, and send their RSVP, regardless of their email provider. If updates are made to the event's details, the web page will update automatically.
Note: The event status link is specific to your guest's RSVP. Sharing the event status link with anyone other than the intended guest could allow that person to modify your guest's RSVP. For this reason, you and your guest should avoid sharing an event status link or forwarding email invitations.
The event status page will look like this to your guest:
Viewing and editing an event
You can click on any event in your calendar to view the event's information.
Right-clicking an event will show the following options:
- Go to previous occurrence: If this is a repeating event, you can jump to the last time this event occurred in your calendar. (If there are no previous occurrences, this option will be greyed out.)
- Go to next occurrence: If this is a repeating event, you can jump to the next time this event is scheduled to occur in your calendar. (If there are no future occurrences, this option will be greyed out.)
- Duplicate: Create a duplicate of this event. This will open a new event screen with the event's details pre-populated, ready for you to edit. Be sure to click Save.
- Download: Download this event as an .ics file that can be shared or imported elsewhere.
- Email everyone invited to this event: This will open your Compose screen with a new draft, pre-populated with the email addresses of every guest on the event (including those who have not yet responded).
- Edit: Edit the event's information. If this is a repeating event, you will be prompted to select whether you wish to edit this event only, or all occurrences of the event. Note: If you are the organizer of the event, all information will be editable. If you are not the organizer, you will be able to edit the event color, free/busy time, and event reminders.
- Delete: Delete this event from your calendar. If this is a repeating event that you have already RSVPed to, you will be prompted to select whether you wish to delete this event only, this event plus all future occurrences, or all occurrences of the event.
For information on navigating or customizing how events in your calendars are displayed, please see our Calendar views and navigation help page.
Invitation handling
By default, Fastmail will automatically update your calendar events when you receive an invitation or RSVP. If you prefer, you can choose to update your calendar manually instead (see the Manual calendar updates section below).
Events on more than one calendar
The same event can appear on more than one of your calendars. This most often happens when someone shares their calendar with you and also invites you to their meetings: the event is on their calendar, and a copy is added to yours when you receive the invitation.
Instead of showing the event twice, Fastmail displays it once in your calendar. The event is striped in the color of each calendar it belongs to, so you can see at a glance which calendars it’s on.
If you need to edit or delete an event that appears on more than one of your calendars, we will prompt you to select which calendar’s copy you want to change.
If you’re the organizer of the event, you’ll also be asked whether you want to:
- Change the event for everyone, which updates the event details and notifies all attendees, or
- Change only your own alerts and settings, which won’t affect the event for anyone else.
Automatic calendar updates
To set up automatic calendar updates, go to Settings → Calendars. Click on the Calendar options tab at the top and scroll to the Invitations section. This is where you can choose how new invitations are handled, as well as calendar updates and RSVPs.
Under When I receive events by email, you can choose one of the following options:
- We'll automatically update your calendar with new events (even if you have not responded yet) as well as any changes to events you've sent an RSVP to.
- We'll only automatically update your calendar with changes to events that you've sent an RSVP to. We will not automatically add any new events that you have not responded to yet.
- We will not automatically update your calendar with new events or changes.
You can use the dropdown menu under Add new events from to select whether you'd like us to automatically add new events sent from anyone, contacts only, or a particular group of contacts.
You can use the dropdown menu under Add to calendar to select which calendar you'd like to automatically add the events to. Note: If you are part of a multi-user account, do not select a calendar that is shared to you. This will cause the calendar system to record the event as the calendar owner's, rather than yours.
When you RSVP to an event, we can automatically mark the message as read and file it into the folder of your choice. To enable this option, toggle the button next to Also mark the message as read and file it, then choose the folder from the dropdown menu that appears.
Manual calendar updates
For new events:
Your calendar does not update until you click the Add to Calendar button on the email. When this happens, the button changes to now say View in Calendar.
To set your RSVP status you can either:
- Set your attendance in the email itself, or
- Update the event in the calendar to respond on whether you're attending or not.
Deleting the event email is now safe as the changes are stored in the calendar.
For existing event updates:
Your calendar does not update until you click the Update Calendar button on the email. When this happens, the button changes to now say View in Calendar.
- For events you're organizing and the event mail is a participant RSVP, the update button sets their status in your event.
- For updates to an existing event, the update button applies the changes to your calendar.
Deleting the event email is now safe as the changes are stored in the calendar.
If you edit an event, all attendees are notified that the event has been changed.
Note: If you create an event in a synced calendar, its invitations will be from the other account synced to Fastmail. All RSVPs to the event will also be sent to this other account.
If you find you are having to do this frequently, consider migrating your calendars to Fastmail, or creating your events in your external account.
Setting an event reminder
An event can send you a reminder (or even multiple reminders) before it begins. It can send you an email or display a browser alert (you need to be logged in to see these).
For each alert, choose how you'd like to be contacted and how much time before the event you'd like to receive the notification.