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When I create an event in Google Calendar, my test Google account e-mail address receives an e-mail with the subject "Invitation: event title" but my main account (the one creating the event) does not.

I can use the event link in the e-mail to bring up a web page which allows me to mark my test account as attending, and when I log in to Google Calendar with that account, I can see the Going? Yes - Maybe - No | Remove section at the bottom of the event pop-up. I don't see a similar section at the bottom of the event in my main Google account calendar though.

How can I record myself as attending my own event?

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4 Answers 4

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It turns out that the "Yes / No / Maybe" options are not initially shown for an event until you add a guest other than yourself.

If you just add yourself as a guest, nothing happens. When you add the first guest other than yourself, a guest list appears with two guests (yourself as "Organizer", plus the guest you invited). The presence of the guest list causes the "Yes / No / Maybe" options to appear at the bottom of the event's popup card and on the event's details page.

So, here are the steps you can take to create an event that you can mark "Yes / No / Maybe":

  1. Create the event.
  2. Add a guest other than yourself.
  3. Save the event.
  4. Open the details for the event again.
  5. Delete the guest you just invited.
  6. Save the event again.
  7. At the bottom of the popup card, the "Yes / No / Maybe" options will now be available.

Unfortunately, step 3 is required for the guest list to remain; if you don't save, it will disappear. To avoid bothering someone with a random invitation, you can use a dummy account as the guest or choose "Don't send invitations" when you save in step 3.

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    Ping's answer used to work for years; however, it now appears with the newest updates for both mobile and web, you can no longer add just your own email address to a calendar appointment. This means there is no way of marking an appointment on your own calendar with which there are not other attendees as "Maybe" or "Not" attending. This is extremely frustrating.
    – Stephen Ostrow
    Sep 5, 2018 at 14:56
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    I just realized that as a workaround, you can just use Gmail's plus addressing to invite yourself (e.g. self+cal@gmail.com), then reply from your own account and delete the extraneous guest.
    – kpozin
    Sep 14, 2018 at 7:10
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    One should note that this only works in the main calendar. You can't say you are not attending an event from another calendar (even if it's another personal calendar and you made the event). If you invite yourself, the event shows on the main calendar too.
    – cruizh
    Oct 25, 2018 at 10:11
  • I tried this just now. As of March 1, 2019, this solution still appears to work.
    – Ping
    Mar 1, 2019 at 21:43
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    Just tried this and it does still work as of Jan 20, 2020. However, as @cruizh said in their comment, it only works on the main calendar; after following this procedure you can change the event to another calendar, but it will then show the event on both the main calendar and the other calendar.
    – rintaun
    Jan 10, 2020 at 15:43
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See Pings answer for a more up to date solution.

It appears that if you want to be able to mark yourself as attending your own event, then you have to add yourself as a guest.

Google calendar does not require that the creator of an event must attend the event, so only the people who have actually been invited to the event are sent invites.

I assume the reason for this is to allow people to create events which they aren't attending themselves, but it seems rather unintuitive as default behaviour.

In addition, if you use a list to generate the invites, then even if you are on that list, google may inexplicably switch out your google e-mail address for another e-mail address associated with your account. If that happens you end up with a 'google cannot show this calendar' star next to your non-google e-mail address, in this case you have to add yourself again, using your google e-mail address, and only then will your personal entry appear in your calendar.

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  • Doesn't seem to work anymore. Sigh.
    – SMBiggs
    Jan 4, 2019 at 0:49
  • Yeah, this solution is definitely no longer working.
    – Alex
    Mar 13, 2019 at 7:26
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You can use the "Tentatively" Chrome extension to mark Google Calendar events as Tentative, without inviting new invitees.

Tentatively

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  • This doesn't actually answer the question, and looks more like an advert. If you are in any way affiliated with this extension, please disclose that affiliation in your post, and read How not to be a spammer.
    – Mark Booth
    Mar 8, 2022 at 10:44
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Just simply add the + sign and any character after your gmail username (before the @) Example: Your email is: myemail@gmail.com Invite this email: myemail+1@gmail.com

Reason: you can use +[any character] to send email to your main email address

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  • I'm not sure what this adds compared to Ping's answer where plus addressing is already mentioned in comments. As it stands, this is more of a comment than an answer.
    – Mark Booth
    Mar 8, 2022 at 10:39

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