Managing calendar sync for Google Calendar

SimplePractice offers basic and advanced calendar sync for Google Calendar, allowing you to view and manage your availability across platforms. This guide walks through how to connect, use, manage, and troubleshoot Google Calendar sync.

• Syncing your SimplePractice calendar with Google Calendar
• Managing your Google Calendar visibility
• Scheduling clients using Google Calendar
• Modifying appointments and events
• Hiding or removing your Google Calendar sync
• Troubleshooting Google Calendar sync

Note: Basic Google Calendar sync is available on the Essential and Plus plans, while advanced Google Calendar sync is only available on the Plus plan. To learn more about syncing your Apple or Microsoft 365 calendar, see Getting started with calendar sync.

Syncing your SimplePractice calendar with Google Calendar

Important: By enabling syncing between your SimplePractice calendar and an external calendar, you acknowledge and agree to follow HIPAA compliance requirements and protect the calendar information, including the secure Telehealth video link.

To connect SimplePractice with Google Calendar:

1. Navigate to Settings > Scheduling and inquiries > Calendar
2. Click Connect next to Google Calendar

3. Sign in with Google to grant simplepractice.com access
   • If already signed in, select the account to sync or choose Use another account

• If not signed in, enter your Google email and password

4. Click Allow to complete the connection

Important: This step is required to complete the connection. You can remove this access at any time by disconnecting your calendars. To learn more, see Removing your Google Calendar sync.

For advanced calendar sync:

1. Check the box next to each Google Calendar you want to sync
   • All events, out of office, and focus time from synced calendars will appear in SimplePractice

2. Click Save

If you don’t want to sync personal Google Calendars, click the X in the top right corner. Even if no calendars are selected, SimplePractice appointments and events will still sync to Google Calendar through basic calendar sync.

A new SimplePractice calendar will appear under My calendars in Google Calendar.

Appointments and events from 30 days before the sync date and onward will publish to Google Calendar.

External events synced into SimplePractice appear in light blue and differ from appointments and events created in SimplePractice.

• Personal Google Calendars: Events appear as Busy to other team members
  • Event details are only visible to the calendar owner
• Shared or SimplePractice Google Calendars: Full event details display to team members with access
  • See Clinician roles available for team members and Administrative roles available for team members

Note: Out of office blocks added in SimplePractice won’t appear in Google Calendar. Out of office events created in Google Calendar will sync to SimplePractice through advanced calendar sync.

With advanced calendar sync, event visibility in Google Calendar will affect your scheduling availability. If an external event is marked as Busy in Google Calendar, it'll block off your availability for online appointment requests in SimplePractice.

Events with a Free status in Google Calendar won’t block off your SimplePractice availability.

Managing your Google Calendar visibility

You can control whether your SimplePractice calendar is visible to others in Google Calendar. To prevent public visibility:

1. Open Google Calendar
2. Select the gear icon > Settings

3. Choose SimplePractice under Settings for my calendars
4. Scroll to Access permissions for events
5. Uncheck Make available to public

Note: These calendar settings save automatically.

Scheduling clients using Google Calendar

Any event you create on the SimplePractice calendar in Google Calendar will appear in your SimplePractice account as a non-client event. You can use this event as a placeholder for the appointment, then recreate it in SimplePractice. To do this:

1. Open Google Calendar
2. Create an event during the desired time
3. Add a title and details
   • The title can include the appointment purpose and client name
4. Select SimplePractice from the calendar dropdown

5. Click Save
6. Return to SimplePractice to view the event in dark gray

7. Delete the placeholder and schedule a new client appointment

• Once the appointment is recreated, it’ll sync to your Google Calendar

Note: Events must be between 5–999 minutes to sync to SimplePractice.

Modifying appointments and events

As long as a SimplePractice appointment isn’t locked, you can update the date, start/end time, or duration in Google Calendar.

Locked appointments will have a lock icon in the title when viewed in Google Calendar.

Appointments are locked when they have an invoice, superbill, or progress note attached.

Note: An appointment may appear locked externally but not in SimplePractice. To learn more about locked appointments in SimplePractice, see Editing an appointment.

Recurring appointment series

Appointments that are part of a recurring series created in SimplePractice will appear as individual appointments on Google Calendar. While individual appointments in the series can be updated in both SimplePractice and Google Calendar, updates to the entire recurring series can only be made in SimplePractice.

Note: If you create a recurring appointment series on the SimplePractice calendar within Google Calendar, it’ll automatically be deleted and won’t appear in SimplePractice.

Telehealth appointments

Telehealth appointments sync to Google Calendar with secure video links.

Note: For more information, see Getting started with telehealth.

External events

With advanced calendar sync, you can view external events from your synced Google Calendars in SimplePractice. To make changes to an external event, select View in Google Calendar from the event flyout.

Hiding or removing your Google Calendar sync

You can hide Google Calendar events within SimplePractice, stop syncing individual calendars, or disconnect Google Calendar entirely.

Hiding events from Google Calendar

When Google Calendar sync is enabled, you can hide events created in Google Calendar from your calendar in SimplePractice. This won’t disconnect your account’s sync with Google Calendar. 

To do this, click Hide Google Cal Events.

Note: At this time, only clinicians can hide Google Calendar events.

Removing individual Google Calendars

If you have advanced calendar sync enabled, you can remove one or more of your synced Google Calendars without disconnecting your Google Calendar sync entirely. To do this:

1. Navigate to Settings > Scheduling and inquiries > Calendar
2. Select Edit calendars next to Google Calendar

3. Uncheck calendars you want to remove
4. Click Save

Disconnecting Google Calendar

You can disconnect your Google Calendar sync to remove Google Calendar from your SimplePractice account. If you have advanced calendar sync enabled, disconnecting will remove all Google Calendars from your account.

To disconnect your Google Calendar sync:

1. Navigate to Settings > Scheduling and inquiries > Calendar
2. Click Disconnect next to Google Calendar

3. Open Google Calendar
4. Hover over SimplePractice under My calendars
5. Click the X icon

6. Click Remove calendar

If the SimplePractice calendar isn’t removed in Google Calendar, a duplicate will be created when you resync.

After disconnecting, all synced appointments and events are removed immediately, and any previously synced appointments and events will be removed from your calendars.

Tip: If your sync is disconnected but SimplePractice appointments are still appearing on your Google Calendar, you'll need to manually delete these appointments in Google Calendar.

Troubleshooting Google Calendar sync

External calendars may occasionally experience delays in recognizing updates made in SimplePractice.

If these updates don’t appear after a few minutes, we recommend refreshing the page or Google Calendar app. If you’ve noticed that your calendars haven’t updated in over a day, you can try disconnecting your Google Calendar sync, then reconnecting it.

Important: Our Customer Success Team can’t help with troubleshooting issues related to third party calendars. If you’re experiencing difficulties with syncing your third party calendar to Google or to SimplePractice, please reach out to their support team directly.