What your guests can do to an event once invited
Inviting somebody hands them more than a place to be. On a normal Google event, a guest can usually see who else was asked, and frequently can add to the list.
What most people assume
That a guest can only accept or decline.
The three boxes
Modify event lets a guest change the time, the place and the title for everyone. It is rarely wanted and easily left on.
Invite others lets a guest add people you have never met. See guest list shows everybody who was asked and how they replied — fine for a team, awkward for a client, wrong for anything resembling a group of separate customers.
Where this quietly goes wrong
One event, many individual recipients, guest list visible: everybody now has everybody else. Clearing that one box is the difference between a meeting and a leaked address book.
The settings live on the event, not on the account, so they reset to your defaults every time and have to be thought about on the events that matter rather than once.
The numbers
| What it describes | Value |
|---|---|
| What sending a single event from the app costs | 0 |
What it looks like
What to do
- Turn off see guest list for anything sent to people who do not know each other.
- Leave modify event off unless somebody genuinely schedules for you.
- Check the boxes on the event, not in your settings, because that is where they live.
Questions
- Can guests see each other on a Google Calendar invitation?
- By default, usually yes. “See guest list” shows everybody invited and how they replied — fine inside a team, awkward with a client, and wrong when the guests are separate customers.
- Can a guest change the time of my meeting?
- If “modify event” is ticked, yes, and the change applies to everybody. It is rarely wanted and easily left on.
- How do I stop guests from inviting other people?
- Turn off “invite others” on the event itself. These settings belong to the event rather than the account, so they return to your defaults every time you create one.