Find a time that works for everyone, without sharing your calendar

You can find a time that works for everyone without anyone seeing your calendar. You ask. Pick a few days, let each person tap the ones they can make, and go with the day most people can do. That’s how Camp’s Find a date works: your Google or iCloud calendar stays where it is, and the group sees only the answers. You can try it now on the web, free and with no sign-up: Find a date gives you one link to share in the group chat.

Group planning apps answer “when is everyone free?” in one of two ways. The overlay model shows your friends something from your own calendar so anyone can spot a free day: SoKal shows your outings and travel, OurCal your busy times, and a shared Google Calendar whatever level you pick. The ask model, used by Camp and by date polls such as Rallly, holds only the group’s plans and asks each person. The overlay is a good fit for a few close friends who want to see who’s free on any given night. For class parents, a church small group, a work team or the extended family, asking fits better, because those groups share plans without sharing their lives.

To see what the overlay asks of you, we read the help pages of seven calendar apps people use with friends and family, and quoted what each shows the group by default. In this model, privacy is a setting, and the starting points are far apart. OurCal shares your busy times from every synced calendar with every group you create or join, until you turn it off group by group. GroupCal shows every member every event’s details, and its busy-only view needs the Team plan, $50 a month billed yearly. TimeTree, Apple’s iCloud shared calendars and Cozi document no way to keep one event on a shared calendar private.

Camp makes the app in the second model. Every other app’s wording below is quoted from its own help, privacy or pricing pages, checked October 10, 2026.

The short answer: overlay vs. ask

	Overlay (SoKal, OurCal, Google Calendar)	Ask (Camp)
What goes in the app	Your calendar, synced in or shared	Only the plans the group makes together
Who sees your plans	Depends on the app’s default. OurCal: your busy times, in every group you join. SoKal: your outings and travel, to your connections	The members of the group a plan belongs to
How you find a time	Look across everyone’s calendars for a gap	A Find a date poll: tap once if you’re free, twice for maybe
Privacy work	A setting per group (OurCal), per person or per event (SoKal), or per person (Google)	Nothing to set. Optional busy hints show “has something,” never what
Best for	A few close friends who want to see who’s free at a glance	Groups that plan together but don’t share their weeks
Phones	Google Calendar and OurCal: iPhone and Android	iPhone only, coming soon to the App Store. Find a date on the web: any phone

How the overlay model works

An overlay app shows your friends your own calendar, or part of it, so nobody has to ask when you’re free. What they see depends on where the app starts.

• SoKal starts with most of your week hidden. In its own words, “Your calendar stays private by default. Only people you’ve added as connections can see any of it.” Then: “Outings and travel are shared by default and everything else shows as busy.” Its privacy policy sets the detail on those to “Title only (the default) — Friends see the title, time, and event type.” You can change the level for everyone, per person or per event.
• OurCal starts by sharing your busy times. Each group has its own calendar, and “Only group members can see the group’s events.” On top of that, “Availability sharing is switched on by default when you create or join a group.” Your synced calendars feed it: “your “Busy” status is updated automatically across groups based on your scheduled events in those calendars.” OurCal says “Only the “Busy” status and time range are shared—no other details are shared.” You turn it off one group at a time.
• Google Calendar starts with nothing, then shares what you pick. When you share your calendar with a person, the levels run from “See only free/busy (hide details),” where “They can’t find the names or details about events or tasks on your calendar,” up to full event details. Google’s help doesn’t say which level the share dialog starts on. An event you mark Private shows others “a block labeled “Busy.””

For some people, the busy part is all they want from an overlay. From a Reddit thread asking for a calendar-sharing app to find free time with friends:

“a friend can just see when I’m busy or free. … (busy is busy, the other person does not need the details)”

r/androidapps, May 2024 (one person’s view, not a survey)

If your group is a handful of friends who already know each other’s weeks, an overlay saves the “when are you free?” text entirely. You open the app and see Friday is open for all four of you.

Shared calendars are a different tool. In TimeTree, Apple’s iCloud calendars, GroupCal and Cozi, the group builds one calendar together and everyone on it sees what’s on it. They’re good for keeping a household’s plans in one place. TimeTree can share your available days as an image, but none of the four has a date poll.

What seven calendar apps show your group by default

App	What the group sees by default	How to change it
SoKal	Your outings and travel, with title, time and type; “everything else shows as busy”	Change the level for everyone, per person or per event
OurCal	The group’s own events, plus your busy times from every synced calendar, in every group	Turn off Availability Sharing per group, in Settings
Google Calendar	Nothing until you share. Then the level you pick; Google doesn’t say which one the dialog starts on	Change the permission per person; a Private event shows as “Busy”
GroupCal	“By default, all members of a shared calendar can view all event information.”	An admin turns on “See only free/busy,” on the Team plan ($50 a month billed yearly) and up
TimeTree	Every event on the calendar you share with them, and nothing from your other or linked calendars	Per calendar only. We found no private-event option in its help center
Apple iCloud shared calendars	“When you share a calendar, others can see it”	Allow Editing on or off, or stop sharing. Apple documents no private-event or busy-only setting
Cozi	Everyone in the account has “full access to view/add/edit/delete any data”	None: “Cozi does not offer a restricted access option”

What the table shows:

• Privacy is a setting you manage, and every app starts it somewhere different. SoKal starts mostly hidden. OurCal starts with your busy times going to every group. GroupCal starts with every detail.
• Busy-only isn’t always free. Google lets you share free/busy with one person at no cost. GroupCal’s busy-only view needs a $50-a-month plan, and only an admin can turn it on.
• Some calendars can’t hide one plan. In TimeTree, Apple’s shared calendars and Cozi, a plan you don’t want the group to see has to live on a calendar the group isn’t in.

We read vendor pages only, on October 10, 2026, and created no accounts, so this is what each app documents, not a test of the apps. The same check across 14 friend-planning apps, polls and invites included, is in the best apps to plan with friends.

Is it creepy for friends to see your calendar?

It depends on the group. Three roommates who already know each other’s week won’t think twice. Eighteen parents from your kid’s soccer team is different. They probably wouldn’t snoop. The trouble is what a calendar holds: the pediatrician, a job interview, a therapy appointment, the surprise party for one of them. An overlay app handles this with settings, which work as long as you set them right on every calendar you sync and in every group you join.

A reply in a Reddit thread about seeing when friends are free put the other side of it: “The core issue is that many people don’t want to publicly publish their free time. They want to be selective which events they attend.” Once a group gets past a handful of people, a calendar view also shows a lot of busy blocks and very little plan.

How the ask model works in Camp

Camp gives each group its own home with a shared calendar, plans with RSVPs, lists, polls, the Tab for splitting costs, media and a chat. The group calendar holds the group’s plans. Nothing from your personal calendar is copied in, unless you turn on busy hints, and then only start and end times. To find a date:

1. Someone opens Find a date in the group, says what it’s for (“Fantasy draft,” “the lake trip”), picks the days that could work on a five-week calendar, and chooses morning, afternoon, evening or all day.
2. Everyone taps the days they can make it. The poll’s own instruction is “Tap once if you’re free, twice for maybe.”
3. The poll counts. A yes counts twice as much as a maybe, and the leading day is marked “Best so far,” or “Everyone can make it.” A “Waiting on” line names who hasn’t answered, with a Nudge button.
4. The person who asked taps Make it and the day, for example “Make it Sat, Oct 17.” The plan goes on the group calendar with RSVPs on, and the chat gets a line saying it’s on.

Busy hints are optional, and they show times only. If you turn on Sync with my calendar and then the separate switch “Let my groups see when I’m busy,” Camp reads your other calendars on your iPhone and sends only the start and end times of events for the next 60 days. All-day events, events marked free, holidays and birthdays are left out. In a date poll, your group sees “Ann has something” on a day when one of those times falls in the part of the day the poll asks about. They never see the title, the place, who it’s with, or even the time. A Camp plan you’re already on marks a day the same way. Turn the switch off and the times are cleared.

The ask model has costs too. Someone has to start the poll, and it only works when people answer, which is why the Nudge button exists. For four close friends, glancing at an overlay is faster. And Camp is iPhone only, so a friend on Android can’t answer yet.

Who the overlay model doesn’t suit

These groups share plans. They don’t share their lives, and an overlay asks for the life to get the plan.

• Class parents. You know most of them by their kid’s name. You need one Saturday for the teacher gift drive. Your work trips and your other kid’s games aren’t their business.
• A church small group. Ten people who meet on Wednesdays need one evening a month for a service project. The rest of your week isn’t part of that.
• A work team. Your work calendar may already show coworkers when you’re busy. The team happy hour is a different question: it falls on your evenings, which live on your personal calendar.
• Extended family. Fourteen relatives planning Grandma’s 80th across three time zones is exactly where surprise plans live. An overlay shows the surprise to everyone you haven’t hidden it from. (For the rest of that plan, see how to plan a family get-together.)

There’s a practical problem as well. An overlay is only as good as what each person puts in. A parent who never connects a calendar looks free every day. A poll only counts the people who answered, and it says who hasn’t.

What we’d do

• Three to six close friends who want to see who’s free any night: an overlay app is a good fit. SoKal starts with only your outings and travel showing. In OurCal, turn off availability sharing in any group that shouldn’t see your busy times. In Google Calendar, pick “See only free/busy (hide details)” when you share.
• A group that shares plans but not weeks: ask. Run a date poll with three to five options and say when you’ll decide. In Camp, Find a date puts the winning day on the group calendar.
• A group with Android phones today: use a date poll that runs in any browser. Camp’s Find a date works on the web with no app or account, and so do Rallly and When2meet. Doodle works too, but creating a poll needs a free account. The Camp app is iPhone only.

FAQ

Can my friends see my calendar in Camp? No. Camp never shows your personal calendar to anyone. Your groups see only the plans made in Camp, inside the group each plan belongs to. If you turn on “Let my groups see when I’m busy,” a date poll can show that you have something on a day, with no title, place or time.

How do I find a date that works for everyone without a long group chat? Offer a few dates and let people tap. Pick three to five days, ask everyone to mark the ones they can make, say when you’ll decide, then go with the day most people can do. In Camp, Find a date does this inside the group: tap once if you’re free, twice for maybe, and the person who asked puts the winning day on the group calendar.

How can I share only my busy times with friends? Use a setting or an app that shares busy blocks without details. In Google Calendar, share your calendar with a person and pick “See only free/busy (hide details).” OurCal shares only busy times with your groups, and does so by default. SoKal shows your outings and travel and marks everything else as busy. GroupCal has a busy-only view, but an admin turns it on and it needs the Team plan, $50 a month billed yearly. In Camp, optional busy hints show a date poll that you have something on a day, with no title or time.

Can people on a shared TimeTree calendar see all my events? They see every event on the calendar you share with them, and nothing else. TimeTree’s help says “Events are shared only among members who are participating in the same calendar,” and events in private calendars that aren’t shared, or in external calendars you’ve linked, “cannot be seen by other members.” We found no option in its help center to make one event on a shared calendar private, so keep private plans on a calendar the group isn’t in.

Is there a free app to find a time that works for everyone? Yes, several. Rallly is free with no limit on polls or participants, no ads and no sign-up. When2meet is free and ad-supported, on the web only. Doodle’s free plan is limited: its pricing page lists one group poll, 10 time slots per poll and ads, and creating a poll needs a free account. Camp’s Find a date is free on the web, with no app, account or email.

Is it creepy to share your calendar with friends? It depends on the group. With a few close friends who already know your week, seeing each other’s calendar is the whole point of an overlay app. With a larger or looser group, such as class parents or coworkers, a calendar holds things they have no reason to see, like appointments, interviews and surprise plans. A date poll finds a time without showing any of it.

Does Camp read my Google Calendar? Only if you turn on calendar sync. Camp works through the iPhone’s own calendar, so Google, iCloud and Exchange accounts on your phone work without a separate Google sign-in. Each group gets its own calendar there with the group’s plans in it. Camp reads your other calendars only if you also turn on busy hints, and then it sends start and end times only.

Sources

• Overlay apps, checked October 10, 2026: SoKal, private sharing and privacy policy; OurCal, availability sharing controls, busy times, calendar sync and group events; Google Calendar, share your calendar, permissions and private events.
• Shared calendars, checked October 10, 2026: TimeTree; Apple shared calendars; GroupCal, visibility control and pricing; Cozi FAQ.
• Date polls, checked October 10, 2026: Rallly pricing and free scheduling poll; When2meet; Doodle, pricing, time slots and account to create a poll.
• Reddit threads, quoted as anecdotes: r/androidapps (May 2024) and r/productivity (November 2025).
• Camp’s Find a date, busy hints and calendar sync: described from the app as built on October 8, 2026, before its App Store release.