Share an iCloud calendar as free/busy only

iCloud does not offer free/busy-only sharing

Apple Calendar gives you two ways to share an iCloud calendar, and neither one has a busy-only mode:

• Share with specific people. You invite other iCloud users, and they see your full event details — titles, times, locations, notes. You can set them to view-only, but view-only still means viewing everything.
• Public Calendar. This produces a webcal:// link that publishes full event details to anyone who has it. There is no password and no detail-level setting.

Google Calendar has a “See only free/busy” permission and Outlook has an availability-only sharing level. iCloud has no equivalent.

CalendarBridge fills that gap directly: a public calendar feed with every detail field switched off is a shareable link that shows your busy blocks and nothing else. That is Option 1 below, and for most people it is the whole answer.

Option 1: create a busy-only public calendar feed

This is the closest thing to what iCloud is missing, and in most cases it is what you want. A CalendarBridge shareable calendar (also called a public calendar feed) is a read-only view of your calendars that you control the detail level of — including hiding every detail so only busy blocks remain.

1. Connect your iCloud account to CalendarBridge using an app-specific password.
2. Open your unified calendar and click Calendar Sharing in the left sidebar, then New Feed.
3. Name the feed, then under Event Details untick every field — Subject, Attendees, Location, Description, and Meeting Link. With all of them off, the feed shows only busy/free blocks.
4. Under Calendars, select the iCloud calendar or calendars you want included.
5. Click Create, then copy whichever link suits the recipient.

Every feed gives you three ways to share the same view:

• Web Feed URL — opens the calendar in any browser, no account needed.
• ICS Feed URL — a subscription link they add to Google Calendar, Outlook, or Apple Calendar so it stays current on its own.
• Embed Code — drops the calendar into a web page.

Two things this does that Apple’s public link cannot: it hides event details, and it can combine several calendars across different accounts into one feed — so a single busy-only link can cover your iCloud, Google, and Outlook calendars together.

You can change the detail level or the included calendars later and the URLs stay the same, so nobody has to be re-sent a link. Deleting a feed revokes access immediately.

Option 2: sync iCloud into a calendar you already share, with the details stripped

Use this when the other person should see your busy time inside a calendar they already look at — a work calendar, a shared family calendar — rather than at a separate link.

1. Create a one-way sync with your iCloud calendar as the source and the shared calendar as the destination.
2. In the privacy settings for that sync connection, leave Subject, Description, Location, and Attendees unchecked, so each event copy is simply “busy.”
3. If the destination is a work calendar and you also want the copies to read as busy in Outlook Scheduling Assistant or Google Find a Time, check All Private.

Unlike a feed, this writes real events onto the destination calendar, so they block time and count toward your availability in scheduling tools.

Option 3: send a scheduling link instead

If the reason someone wants your calendar is to find a time to meet, even a busy-only view is more than the job needs. A CalendarBridge scheduler gives them a booking page built from your real availability across every connected calendar, including iCloud, while showing them nothing but open slots.

You can refine which calendars and hours count toward availability, so a personal iCloud calendar can block time on your booking page without ever being visible.

Which one to use

• You want to hand someone a link that shows when you are busy and nothing else — Option 1.
• Your busy time needs to appear inside a calendar they already use — Option 2.
• They just need to book time with you — Option 3.
• They need the full details anyway — use Apple’s own sharing, or a feed with the detail fields ticked on.

See also: how to get an .ics URL for an Apple calendar — useful when you need the raw iCloud link, but remember that an iCloud public link always carries full event details, so it is not a free/busy solution.