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. A calendar connection is what powers automatic joining and pre-meeting context. Without one, you can still capture meetings with Private Desktop Recording and by adding the notetaker by hand, but Groupthink cannot join your scheduled meetings on its own.

Heads up: Connecting your calendar is free. Having the Groupthink notetaker join a meeting requires an active trial or paid plan. If your trial has ended, upgrade from your settings to keep capturing meetings.

Connecting Microsoft Outlook

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. On the Connect to Microsoft Outlook card, click Connect and approve the access request.

From settings

1. Go to User Settings > Calendar
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 below)

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.

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 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.

Connecting More Than One Account

You can connect several accounts to the same workspace, and they do not all have to be Outlook. 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 User Settings > Calendar.
2. Click Connect another Outlook account (a Connect another Google account button sits alongside it).
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 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. See Share your availability.

Choosing Which Calendars to Watch

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.

• Check the calendars you want Groupthink to watch
• Deselect any you do not want it to watch, such as birthdays or holidays

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 below. Turning a calendar's toggle off stops Groupthink from automatically joining that calendar's meetings.

How Groupthink Attends Your Meetings

Groupthink will not join anything until you pick an attendance setting. Go to User Settings > Calendar and find the How should Groupthink attend your meetings? section. It is a single choice that applies to all of your future meetings.

Option	What it does
Privately Take Notes	Groupthink records privately through the desktop app. No bot joins the call and other participants do not see Groupthink.
Automatically Join All Meetings	The Groupthink notetaker joins your meetings as a visible participant and shares notes and recaps with attendees.
Let Me Choose Each Time	Nothing joins automatically. You add the notetaker to specific calls yourself when you want notes.

The first calendar you connect starts with auto-join turned off, however you signed up, so the notetaker joins nothing until you turn it on. A calendar you connect after that, Outlook or Google, starts with the same attendance setting as the first calendar in your workspace. You can change either one at any time from User Settings > Calendar.

Changing Your Setting

1. Go to User Settings > Calendar
2. Find the How should Groupthink attend your meetings? section
3. Select your preferred option
4. Your choice applies to all future meetings

Disconnecting Your Calendar

You can disconnect your Outlook account at any time. This stops Groupthink from reading that account's calendars and, if it is the one Groupthink joins meetings from, from joining your 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 Calendar tab links here under Manage connected accounts.)
2. Find the 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

After removing the account Groupthink joins meetings from, it will stop joining your meetings until you connect another calendar. If you want to delete all of your data from Groupthink, email support@groupthink.com.

Frequently Asked Questions

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.

Getting Help

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