Connect your calendar

Connecting your Google or Outlook calendar lets Groupthink see your meetings, attach pre-meeting context, and join calls automatically based on the attendance setting you choose.

Summary

• Connect Google Calendar or Microsoft Outlook from Today > Calendar & booking. You can connect several accounts, from either provider, to the same workspace.
• Connecting a calendar is free, and it brings in your past meetings: the last 12 months on the Free plan, up to 3 years during your trial or on Pro.
• Groupthink will not join anything until you pick an attendance setting, and having the notetaker join a meeting requires an active trial or paid plan.
• If sign-in stops at One more step and asks you to allow calendar access, click Grant Calendar Access and tick the calendar checkbox on Google's permission screen.
• If your calendar stops syncing, reconnect it with the same account. From the email, signing in to Groupthink is not the reconnect: click the red Reconnect button.

Without a calendar connection, Groupthink cannot auto-join scheduled meetings or build agendas from your events. You can still capture meetings with Private Desktop Recording and by adding the notetaker by hand. This is the place where you also decide how Groupthink shows up in your meetings, so it is the setting that the rest of the integration docs point back to.

Heads up: Connecting your calendar is free. Having the Groupthink notetaker join a meeting requires an active trial or paid plan. Once your trial ends, the notetaker will not join until you upgrade from your settings.

Google Calendar

1. Go to Today > Calendar & booking in Groupthink.
2. On the Connect to Google Calendar card, click Connect.
3. Google will ask your permission to allow Groupthink to access your Google Calendar. Approve the request to finish connecting.

You can revoke this permission at any time, either from Groupthink or from your Google account settings.

Outlook Calendar

Connecting your Microsoft Outlook calendar lets Groupthink see your scheduled meetings, read the conferencing details on each event, and join on time to take notes. You can connect during onboarding or any time afterward from your settings.

During onboarding

When you first set up Groupthink, the setup flow asks you to connect a calendar. Click the Connect your calendar card, click Connect Outlook Calendar, and approve the access request.

From settings

1. Go to Today > Calendar & booking.
2. On the Connect to Microsoft Outlook card, click Connect.
3. Microsoft will ask for your permission to let Groupthink access your Outlook Calendar. Approve the request. You can revoke this permission at any time.
4. Back in Groupthink, choose which calendars you want it to watch (see Choosing Which Calendars Feed Groupthink).

You can also connect either calendar from the Calendar source under Conversations. See Connect From Conversations.

Choosing How Groupthink Attends Meetings

After connecting your calendar, Groupthink will not join anything until you pick an attendance setting. Go to Today > Calendar & booking and find the heading How should Groupthink attend your meetings? It is a single choice that applies to all of your future meetings.

Option	What it does
Privately Take Notes	Groupthink records, transcribes, and takes notes privately through the desktop app. No bot joins the call and other participants do not see Groupthink. Notes and transcripts stay private to you.
Automatically Join All Meetings	The Groupthink notetaker joins your meetings as a visible participant, takes notes, and emails the recap to the agenda's Hosts and the people invited to the agenda. See Who gets the recap email?
Let Me Choose Each Time	Nothing joins automatically. You add Groupthink to specific calls yourself when you want notes.

Each mode controls when and how Groupthink shows up across all of your calendar events, so you do not need to manage meetings one by one unless you choose Let Me Choose Each Time. There are two exceptions, covered in When the Notetaker Does Not Join. Privately Take Notes needs the desktop app, and Groupthink asks you once whether the notetaker should join: see More About the Attendance Setting.

Auto-join starts off. However you signed up, the first calendar you connect has auto-join turned off. Your calendar is connected, but the notetaker will not join anything until you pick a default. A calendar you connect after that, Outlook or Google, copies the setting of your first one. You can change this any time in Today > Calendar & booking.

Changing Your Attendance Setting

1. Go to Today > Calendar & booking.
2. Find the How should Groupthink attend your meetings? section.
3. Select the option you want.
4. Your choice saves automatically and applies to all future meetings.

Choosing Which Calendars Feed Groupthink

The Your Calendars section lists the calendars from every account you have connected, grouped by the account each one belongs to. Each calendar has a checkbox.

• Leave a calendar checked to let Groupthink watch its events.
• Deselect any calendar you do not want Groupthink to watch, such as birthdays, holidays, or other non-essential calendars.

This keeps Groupthink focused on the meetings that matter and skips placeholder events. Each calendar also has its own Auto-join toggle: see Turning Auto-join On or Off per Calendar.

Connecting More Than One Account

You can connect several accounts to the same workspace, and they do not all have to be from the same provider. For example, a work Outlook account, a second Outlook account, and a personal Google account can all feed Groupthink together, so it sees everyone you meet with across all of them.

1. After connecting your first account, go to Today > Calendar & booking.
2. Click Connect another Google account or Connect another Outlook account. The two buttons sit side by side.
3. Sign in to the additional account and approve access.

The new account's calendars appear under their own heading in the Your Calendars list, so each account's calendars stay grouped together.

Once you have two calendars connected, you can pair them so a commitment on one holds the time on the other. See Keep your calendars in sync. A second account also feeds your booking links: see Calendars and Your Booking Links.

Your Past Meetings

Connecting a calendar also brings in meetings you have already had, so Groupthink knows who you have been meeting with from the start, not only from today on. Once a calendar's first sync finishes, Groupthink imports its past events in the background:

Plan	How far back
Free	The last 12 months
Trial or Pro	Up to 3 years

Past events fill in your people: who you met with, and when. They do not create an agenda for every old meeting.

What the import shows while it runs, and how to try again if it fails, is in What You See While Past Meetings Import and Checking on the Import Later, and Trying Again.

Syncing Your Calendar

Groupthink syncs as your calendar updates, so you should rarely need to do this by hand. If you want to pull in new events right away, open Today > Calendar & booking, find the Sync Events Now section, and click Sync Now.

Disconnecting Your Calendar

You can disconnect a calendar account at any time. Disconnecting stops Groupthink from accessing that account's calendars and, if it is the one Groupthink joins meetings from, from joining future meetings. It does not delete any past meetings, notes, or agendas.

Calendars are removed one account at a time, so if you have several connected you only ever remove the one you choose.

1. Go to User Settings > Connections. (The Calendars section of Today > Calendar & booking links here under Manage connected accounts.)
2. Find the Google or Outlook account you want to disconnect and click Remove on its card.
3. The Remove <account>? dialog names the account and tells you what removing it changes: whether Groupthink will stop joining your meetings, and how many busy-block sync pairs will be removed with it. Your events, notes, and recaps are not deleted.
4. Click Remove account to confirm, or Cancel to back out.

After removing the account Groupthink joins meetings from, it will stop joining your meetings until you connect another calendar. To close your Groupthink account and delete your data, see Close Your Account, which lists what is deleted and what is kept.

Calendar Access Is Required

When you sign in with Google or Microsoft, Groupthink asks for permission to access your calendar so it can see your meetings and take notes on them. If that calendar permission is left unchecked on the provider's screen, Groupthink can't finish connecting, so you'll land back on the sign-in page with a message headed One more step that asks you to allow calendar access, and a Grant Calendar Access button.

This is easy to run into because Google leaves the calendar permission unchecked by default on its consent screen. It's a quick fix.

1. On the One more step screen that asks you to allow calendar access, click Grant Calendar Access.
2. You'll be taken back to the provider's permission screen.
3. This is the important part: on Google's screen, tick the checkbox next to the calendar permission ("See, edit, share, and permanently delete all the calendars you can access") before you click Continue. On Microsoft, make sure the calendar access stays selected when you approve.
4. Finish, and you'll be returned to Groupthink, signed in with your calendar connected.

Tip: If you clicked Continue without ticking the calendar box, you'll simply be brought back to the same "allow calendar access" screen. Try again and make sure the box is checked this time.

What the permission is used for is in Why Groupthink Needs Calendar Access. If you're already in Groupthink and your meetings stopped appearing (rather than hitting this during sign-in), that's a different fix. See Reconnecting Your Calendar.

Reconnecting Your Calendar

When a calendar connection stops working, Groupthink can no longer see your meetings, so it will not join them or take notes until you reconnect. In every case the fix is the same: give Groupthink permission to see your calendar again. Why connections stop working is in Why Calendar Connections Stop Working. Nothing is lost: your past notes and meetings are all still there. You can reconnect the same way any time it happens.

You will know you are affected if you see a warning banner asking you to reconnect your Google Calendar, if your Calendar settings show a Google Calendar Connection Glitch with a button to fix it, if an account in your Your Calendars list says Reconnect needed, or if you got the Reconnect your calendar email.

One case looks like a broken connection and is not. If a calendar says it is "No longer shared with" your account, your account is still connected and reconnecting will not bring the calendar back. See When a Calendar Is No Longer Shared.

Reconnect in the App

If Groupthink stopped automatically joining your meetings, or your Google Calendar shows as disconnected, you can reconnect it in about 30 seconds. A Reconnect button on the warning banner, or on an account marked Reconnect needed, starts the fix right there (see Where the Reconnect Prompt Shows Up). The steps below start from your Calendar settings.

Note: When you reconnect, Google will show you a permission screen asking you to sign in and approve access. That is expected. It is the same screen you saw when you first connected.

1. Go to your Calendar settings: app.groupthink.com/today/calendar#calendars
2. You will see a Google Calendar Connection Glitch message. Click Reconnect Google Calendar.
3. Google opens its sign-in screen. Choose the account you use with Groupthink and approve access.
4. Groupthink brings you back to your calendar with a green confirmation that your calendar is reconnected and your meetings are syncing.

On the desktop app the steps are nearly identical. See Reconnecting in the Desktop App.

Reconnect From the Email

If you received an email from Groupthink with a subject like "Reconnect your Google Calendar to continue using Groupthink" (it names the connection that broke, such as Google Calendar or Outlook Calendar), your calendar connection has stopped working. Reconnecting takes about a minute.

1. Click the Reconnect button in the email. It names the connection too, for example Reconnect your Google Calendar. It takes you to that calendar connection's page in Groupthink. If you are asked to sign in first, sign in with the account you use for Groupthink.
2. On the connection page you will see a red warning, usually headed Invalid Token, with a red Reconnect button next to it.
3. Signing in to Groupthink is not the reconnect. This is the step people miss. Click the red Reconnect button.
4. Google or Microsoft opens its sign-in screen. Choose the same account shown on the connection page (the email address is listed near the top of the page).
5. Approve access on the permission screen. On Google, if there is a checkbox next to the calendar permission, make sure it is ticked before you click Continue. Google sometimes leaves it unchecked.
6. You are returned to Groupthink.

After you approve access, Groupthink brings you to your Today page. Your meetings reappear as the calendar syncs, and Groupthink goes back to joining meetings and taking notes automatically. If you return to the connection page, the red warning is gone.

Reconnect From Settings

If you no longer have the email, you can reach the same page from Settings:

1. Sign in at app.groupthink.com.
2. Click your name at the bottom of the left sidebar and choose User settings, then open the Connections tab. Direct link: app.groupthink.com/settings#connections.
3. Find your calendar under Connected accounts. Each row shows the connection's name (such as Google Calendar or Outlook Calendar) and the email address it belongs to. A connection that needs reconnecting is listed first, with a red label saying it is not working. Click the row to open the connection page.
4. Follow the steps in Reconnect From the Email, starting from the red Reconnect button.

Reference

What You See While Past Meetings Import

The import runs when a calendar first syncs, and how far back it reaches is set by your plan at that moment. If you upgrade later, Groupthink imports the older stretch your plan now covers. If the import is interrupted, it picks up where it stopped rather than starting over.

If you connect during onboarding, the Here's what Groupthink already knows step shows the import as it runs, for example Importing your calendar history: 250 events so far, up to March 14, 2026. The date is how far it has reached. The import works forward from your oldest meetings, so the date climbs toward today. On the Free plan, when your calendar goes back further than 12 months, the same step can tell you what is back there, such as There are 2 more years back there. 40 people you haven't logged. When the count stopped before reaching the end, the number of people starts with At least.

When the import finishes, the same step can show Your key people: up to ten of the people you meet most, and most recently. Each one says why, such as 12 meetings in the last year, last on October 3. Click Confirm on the ones who matter to you, and Hide on anyone who doesn't. A hidden person's row says they are hidden from your key people. Both come with Undo while the step is open.

When the import finishes, the same step says what came in, for example Imported 1,200 events from your calendar since October 2023. A very large calendar can have more history than one import fetches. Then the step says where it stopped instead, for example Imported 1,200 events from your calendar, from October 2023 up to March 14, 2026. Meetings from March 14, 2026 onward may be missing. New meetings still sync from here on.

Checking on the Import Later, and Trying Again

After onboarding, the import shows under each calendar in the Your Calendars list on Today > Calendar & booking:

• While it runs: Bringing in your past meetings… 250 events so far, up to March 14, 2026. The count climbs on its own.
• When it finished: how far back it went and what it found, for example We went back to October 2023 and found 1,200 events.
• When it stopped before reaching today: We went back to October 2023 and found 1,200 events, but stopped at March 14, 2026. Meetings after that may be missing. New meetings still come in from here on.
• When it failed: We couldn't finish bringing in your past meetings. New meetings still come in from here on.

A calendar with no line under it never had an import to run.

If the import failed or stopped short, click Try again next to that line. The row changes to the running line and counts up without a reload. An import that failed starts over; one that stopped short carries on from where it stopped. The same button appears on the onboarding step.

Two things to know about Try again:

• You can start it once an hour per calendar. In between, the row says when, for example You can try again at 3:40 PM.
• It brings in what your plan covers (the table in Your Past Meetings). It does not reach further back than that.

Only the person who connected the calendar can run its import again.

Connect From Conversations

Calendar is one of the sources listed under Conversations in the left sidebar. You can connect a calendar from there too:

1. In the left sidebar, click Calendar under Conversations.
2. The Calendar settings pane at the top of the page is open. If you closed it, click Source settings.
3. The Calendar card shows Not connected and two buttons: Connect Google Calendar and Connect Outlook Calendar. Click the one you use.

It is the one source with no feed of its own: nothing comes into the Conversations feed from it. The page says why: "Your calendar feeds meetings, and meetings live with their notes and recaps, not in this feed." Your meetings are under Recaps (or Past Meetings) in the left sidebar.

Once a calendar is connected, the Calendar card shows Connected. It names the calendar, for example "Google calendar is feeding meetings into Groupthink.", and has a Manage in Calendar & booking → link. Below the pane there is no list. There is the sentence quoted above and an Open your meetings link, which takes you to your meetings.

Turning Auto-join On or Off per Calendar

Each calendar in the list has its own Auto-join toggle. This lets you keep the notetaker on for one calendar while turning it off for another (for example, on for work and off for a personal calendar) without changing the overall attendance setting. Turning a calendar's toggle off stops Groupthink from automatically joining that calendar's meetings.

The toggle does nothing while Privately Take Notes is selected. No bot joins that calendar's meetings on its own, whichever way the toggle is set, unless you add the notetaker to a meeting yourself. A line under the toggle says so: "Privately Take Notes is on for this calendar, so no bot joins its meetings whether this switch is on or off."

More About the Attendance Setting

Privately Take Notes needs the desktop app. Private recording happens locally, so it is only available in Groupthink for Desktop. If you are on the web, Groupthink will prompt you to download the desktop app when you pick this option.

Groupthink asks you once. In the first 30 days after you connect a calendar, if you have not chosen yet, a banner at the top of the app asks whether the Groupthink notetaker should join your meetings. Saying yes turns auto-join on for that calendar. Saying no leaves it off, and Groupthink stops asking. Choosing not now changes nothing, and the question comes back the next day. If you answered during sign-up, you will not see it.

Telling Your Calendars Apart with Colors

When you connect calendars from more than one account, Groupthink shows each calendar's color, the same color you have set in Google Calendar, as a small dot. You will see it next to the calendar in the Your Calendars list, and next to events on your Today page, so you can tell at a glance which account an event came from.

There is nothing to set up: the colors are inherited automatically from Google Calendar. A calendar with no color set shows no dot.

Calendars and Your Booking Links

A connected calendar also feeds your booking links: open times are computed across every calendar you have connected, so a second account starts protecting your bookable time the moment it is connected. The exception is a calendar whose account has needed reconnecting for more than 7 days. Its events stop blocking your bookable time until you reconnect it, so someone can book over a meeting on that calendar. See Share your availability.

Where the Reconnect Prompt Shows Up

• A warning banner can appear on other pages in Groupthink. It says Groupthink lost access to your Google Calendar (naming the account, when it knows it), usually with a Reconnect button that starts the fix right there, and a Go to Settings button that takes you to your Calendar settings. If your organization has blocked Groupthink, the banner says so instead, because reconnecting will not work until that block is lifted (see If Reconnecting Did Not Work).
• On your Calendar settings page you will see a Google Calendar Connection Glitch message with a Reconnect Google Calendar button.
• In the Your Calendars list, when the account that needs reconnecting is not the one Groupthink joins meetings from, the calendar settings stay as they are. That account's heading shows Reconnect needed and a Reconnect button, with the line This account's connection expired. Until you reconnect, its calendars won't sync. Click Reconnect and continue from step 3 of the steps in Reconnect in the App.

Both paths lead to the same place.

Reconnecting in the Desktop App

The Groupthink desktop app uses the same settings as the web app, so the steps are nearly identical. The one difference: the Google permission screen opens in your default web browser rather than inside the app.

1. Open the Groupthink desktop app and go to your Calendar settings (Today > Calendar & booking).
2. You will see a Google Calendar Connection Glitch message. Click Reconnect Google Calendar.
3. Your browser opens Google's sign-in screen. Choose the account you use with Groupthink and approve access.
4. Return to the Groupthink desktop app. Your calendar shows as connected again, and your meetings will start syncing automatically.

Why Calendar Connections Stop Working

Calendar connections stop working from time to time. The usual causes:

• You changed the password on your Google or Microsoft account.
• Groupthink's access was removed in your account's security settings, or by your company's IT admin.
• The permission you granted expired and needs to be granted again.

When a Calendar Is No Longer Shared

If someone shared a calendar with you and then stops sharing it, or deletes it, Groupthink can no longer read it. Its row in the Your Calendars list says so where it would normally say Google Calendar or Outlook Calendar: "No longer shared with" your account and the date it stopped, for example "No longer shared with alex@example.com since Sep 18, 2026".

• Your other calendars keep syncing as usual.
• You do not need to reconnect. Your Google or Outlook account is still connected, and reconnecting would not bring the calendar back.
• Groupthink checks once a day whether the calendar has been shared with you again. When it has, the row stops saying it is no longer shared and the calendar syncs again, so it comes back on its own within a day. The check needs your account to be connected; if the account needs reconnecting, it waits until you reconnect.
• If it is the calendar Groupthink joins meetings from, a notice at the top of the Calendar settings explains what happened, and the sync status on Today and Meetings shows the same message. Both have a Sync now button. If the calendar has been shared with you again, click Sync now and Groupthink picks it back up right away instead of waiting for the daily check.

When the Notetaker Does Not Join

A few things have to line up: your calendar needs to be connected, your attendance setting has to allow Groupthink to join, the event needs a video link, and your workspace needs an active trial or paid plan.

There are two exceptions to your attendance setting. Groupthink waits on an invite you have not answered when nobody else on it is a coworker or a contact. See Unanswered invites from people you do not know. And the notetaker does not join a task block, a block only you are on that you made, even when it has a video link, unless you add the notetaker to it yourself. See Task blocks on your calendar.

Why Groupthink Needs Calendar Access

Groupthink uses your calendar to see your upcoming meetings, join or privately record them, and attach notes to the right event.

The permission covers editing as well as reading. Groupthink uses the editing part for these things:

• Moving an event you reschedule. You pick a new time on an event you organize, and Groupthink writes it. Groupthink never reschedules anything on its own. Move an event to another day covers when that option appears and what it does.
• Creating and removing events. That covers events you ask Groupthink to create, and the events behind booking links and busy blocks.
• Adding the notetaker as a guest on a Google Calendar event that has a Google Meet link.
• Adding a meeting link to an event.

Without calendar access, those core features can't run. That is why it's required to finish signing in with Google or Microsoft.

Microsoft also asks about your contacts. When you sign in with Microsoft, Microsoft also asks you to let Groupthink read your contacts, including contacts shared with you. Groupthink doesn't read them today. We plan to use them to fill in people's details, only when you choose to import your contacts.

If Reconnecting Did Not Work

• The red warning is still there, or you landed back where you started. The most common cause is the unticked calendar checkbox on Google's permission screen. Click Reconnect and try again, and make sure the box is ticked this time.
• You signed in with a different account. Groupthink connects that account as another calendar, and the calendar you meant to fix still needs reconnecting. A notice at the top of the page says so. When both accounts are already connected to Groupthink it names them: "You signed in as [the account you picked], so we've connected that calendar. [the original account] still needs reconnecting." Click Reconnect on the notice if it has one, or the red Reconnect button on the connection page, and this time pick the account the calendar was connected with. If the message says nothing changed, the other account was not added, and the fix is the same. If you did not want the other account in Groupthink, you can remove it. See Disconnecting Your Calendar.
• Using a Google Workspace or other work account? Some organizations block third-party apps by default. If you cannot complete the permission screen, your IT admin may need to allow the Groupthink app for your account. Forward them this page, or contact us and we will help.
• Still stuck? If reconnecting does not stick, or you do not see the option at all, email support@groupthink.com and we will sort it out with you.

Groupthink Said It Couldn't Confirm the Event Was Created

When Groupthink adds an event to your calendar for you and the calendar doesn't answer in time, the event may have been created anyway. Groupthink looks at your calendar before it answers. If it still can't tell, it says We couldn't confirm the event was created. Check your calendar before trying again.

Look at your calendar before you try again. If the event is there, you're done. Trying again when it is already there gives you two.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I need a calendar connection to use Groupthink?

You need one for Groupthink to auto-join scheduled meetings and build agendas from your events. You can still add the notetaker to a specific call by pasting its link, and Privately Take Notes records through the desktop app, but the automatic calendar-based features depend on a connection.

Can I pick which calendars Groupthink watches?

Yes. In the Your Calendars section, deselect any calendar you do not want Groupthink to watch.

Can I connect more than one Google account?

Yes. Click Connect another Google account in Today > Calendar & booking and sign in to the additional account. Its calendars appear grouped under that account, and each calendar gets a color dot, taken from Google Calendar, so you can tell at a glance which account an event came from.

Will disconnecting delete my notes?

No. Disconnecting only stops future access. Your past meetings, notes, and agendas stay in Groupthink.

Getting Help

Questions about connecting your calendar? Email support@groupthink.com.

Related

• Keep your calendars in sync
• Signing in to Groupthink
• Move an event to another day
• Conversations: the full feed and the other sources.
• Known Issues