How to share a calendar in mello

Two ways to share

Share with a person when you know who should see the calendar, and maybe change it. Publish a link when the people who need it aren’t on mello, or when you don’t know them all, like the members of a club.

Share with someone on mello

1. In the mello webmail, open Calendar. Your calendars are listed under Calendars.
2. Point at the calendar you want to share and choose the people icon, Share. It shows only on calendars that are yours.
3. Under People, type the person’s address in Add by email.
4. Choose Can view or Can edit, then Share.

The person is added to the list below, with their access. The calendar shows up on their side right away. mello doesn’t send them an email about it, so let them know yourself.

You can share one calendar with up to 100 people. If someone has private addresses, any of them works: the calendar goes to the account behind it.

View or edit

• Can view. They see every event, with its time, place, notes and guests. They can’t add, change or delete anything, nor rename the calendar. When they open an event, mello says This calendar is shared with you to view only.
• Can edit. They can add events, change them and delete them, just like you. Both of you see the same events, and a change on one side shows on the other.

In both cases they can’t delete the calendar itself, and they can’t share it on with others. That stays with you.

To change someone’s access, share it with them again with the other choice: their access is replaced. To stop sharing, choose Remove next to their name. The calendar disappears from their side.

What the other person sees

In their webmail, your calendar appears in their Calendars list next to their own, marked view only or shared. Its name is yours, followed by your address in brackets, for example “Family (you@mello.mx)”.

With edit access, they can rename it and pick their own color. That only changes their view: you keep your name and color. With either access, they can hide it from their calendar by clicking its color.

They don’t need to set anything up on their phone or computer either. A shared calendar sits in their account like one of their own, so Apple Calendar, Thunderbird or DAVx⁵ on Android pick it up with the rest. A view-only calendar shows as read-only there too. If they haven’t set up their devices yet, set up an iPhone or Mac and set up Android explain how.

Publish a read-only link

1. In Calendar, point at the calendar and choose Share.
2. Under Public link, choose Create link.
3. The link appears below. Choose Copy, and send it to whoever needs it, or put it on your website.

The link ends in .ics. People add it to their own calendar app as a subscription, by URL:

• Apple Calendar: in the File menu, add a new calendar subscription, and paste the link.
• Google Calendar: next to Other calendars, choose the plus sign, then add a calendar from a URL.
• Outlook: add a calendar and choose to subscribe from the web.

Their app then checks the link for changes on its own. How often depends on the app: some refresh every few minutes, others only every few hours. That’s set on their side, not in mello.

What a public link shows

A public link needs no login. Anyone who has it sees every event in the calendar: titles, times, places, notes and guests. The link is long and random, so nobody finds it by guessing, but it can be passed on like any link.

So publish only a calendar that holds what you’d show anyone. A good habit is a calendar made for it: in Calendar, choose New calendar, call it “Club dates”, say, and publish that one rather than your personal calendar.

If what you want to share is when you’re free, a public calendar isn’t the right tool. A booking page shows only your free times, never your events, and lets people pick one.

Turn a link off

1. Open Share on the calendar again.
2. Under Public link, choose Turn off.

The link stops working at once, for everyone, and subscribed apps stop getting updates. If you create a link again later, it’s a new one: the old one doesn’t come back. That’s also the way to change a link that went further than you wanted. Turn it off, create a new one, and send the new one only to the people who should have it.

Good to know

• People must be on mello. You can share with a person only if they have a mello account. For anyone else, publish a link: it’s read-only, but it works in every calendar app.
• Sharing is managed in the webmail. Apple Calendar, Thunderbird and other apps show shared calendars, but you can’t share one from them. The mello command line and the assistant don’t share calendars either. Use Share in the webmail.
• Calendars, not address books. Contacts can’t be shared yet.
• Very large calendars. A public link stops adding events past 10 MB, which is many thousands of events. If you reach that, split the calendar.