Outlook: How to generate an add to calendar link to email

As we know, when you want to invite people to attend a meeting, usually most of you will send a meeting request in Outlook, then if the recipients accept, the meeting item will be added to their calendars. Here this tutorial introduces an alternative method to achieve this job by creating an add to calendar link in the message body.

Note: The methods provided in the tutorial are operated in Outlook 2021, if you are in other versions, there may be some differences in steps.

Generate an add to calendar link to email

Generate an add to calendar link to email

Firstly, create an appointment.

1. Shuffle to Calendar view, under Home tab, click New Appointment in the New group.

2. In the Appointment window, edit the title, start time, end time, location, and other information you need. Then click Save & Close.

Then, send an iCalendar attachment

3. On your calendar, find the appointment you created just now, click on it, then under the Attachment tab, click Forward > Forward as iCalendar.

Now a message window pops out and the appointment has been inserted as an .ics attachment.

Last, save the iCalendar in a shared location and add a link to the message body

4. Right-click on the iCalendar.ics attachment, click Save As from the context menu.

5. Choose a shared folder that all your recipients are allowed to view, and click Save to save the iCalendar in it.

6. Create a new email, after editing the recipients, subject, and body, then choose the text thatyou want the calendar link to be added to, then click Insert tab then click Link in the Links group.

7. In the Insert Hyperlinks window, click Exiting File or Web Page tab in the left pane, then choose the folder location in the Address textbox. Click OK.

Now the calendar link is added to the selected text. Click Send button to send the email to recipients.

Tip: if you want to add the calendar link to a picture, just insert a picture firstly by clicking Insert > Picture/Shape/Icons as you need, then repeat step 7 to add the iCalendar location to the picture,

When the recipient clicks on the linked text, a dialog pops out to remind you whether to open the folder, click Yes to open the iCalendar folder.

Then in the iCalendar folder, double click on the calendar you want to add to your calendar, then the Appointment window pops out, click Save & Close to add it to your calendar.