Keep event colors

Many people color events by type or person, e.g. installations green, client meetings red. Others just want to see in the target calendar which calendar an event came from. “Keep event colors” does both.

The option is available from the Basic plan, for your own syncs and for sharings with other people, in either direction and at every visibility level.

The three settings

Setting	What happens in the target calendar
Off	All copies in the target calendar’s color.
As in the source	Every copy keeps its color and its name, e.g. “Installation team” in red.
One color per calendar	Every copy gets the color of its source calendar, e.g. everything from “Work” blue, everything from “Club” green. The color is named after the calendar.

How it works

1. When setting up the sync (or later via “Edit”), open the “Keep event colors” card.
2. Choose one of the three settings. New syncs between your own calendars start with “As in the source”, except at the “Busy only” visibility. For sharings with other people the option starts off.
3. As in the source: the card lists the colors used in the next four months. Click a color to rename it in the target calendar.
4. One color per calendar: click a calendar to pick its color from Google’s 24 colors and, if you like, a different name.

Events that were already synced are then rewritten automatically.

“As in the source”: the card lists the colors your calendars use. Missing categories are created in Outlook (+); click a color to rename it.

“One color per calendar”: each source calendar gets one color, named after the calendar. Click a calendar to change its color or name.

How the color travels

A color arrives with its name. Without a name we use Google’s color name, e.g. “Basil” or “Cocoa”.

Calendar	How the color arrives
Google	as a Google color (label) with the same name. If the target calendar lacks it, we create it: all 24 Google colors and custom colors.
Outlook / Microsoft 365	as a category with the same name. Outlook has 25 category colors; we use the closest.
CalDAV (e.g. Disroot, GMX, WEB.DE, mailbox.org)	as the event’s color property (COLOR)
Apple iCloud	not possible: Apple Calendar only has calendar colors, no per-event colors. The option is therefore not offered for iCloud target calendars.

With CalDAV, the calendar app decides whether it shows the color. Nextcloud and Evolution do; DAVx5 does once you turn it on in its settings.

Outlook: categories

• If the category exists, we just assign it. Your color for it stays.
• If it is missing, we create it with a matching color. Outlook sometimes shows newly created categories in color only after a few hours; until then they appear gray.
• Please rename in Kalender Sync, not in Outlook. If you rename a category in Outlook, we create the old name again on the next sync. You can change a category’s color in Outlook at any time (Settings › Account › Categories).
• Your own categories stay: if you add a category to a synced event yourself, we do not remove it.
• From Outlook to Google: in Outlook, give an event a category via “Categorize”. In Google it arrives as a color with the same name.

Permission for Outlook categories

Usually Kalender Sync creates categories without further steps. If Microsoft asks for an additional permission, a “Grant permission” button appears:

• for your own syncs under “Edit”, for an Outlook-to-Outlook sync for both mailboxes,
• for sharings with you on the dashboard: only you can grant it for your mailbox.

We do not read or change any other mailbox settings. Without the permission the sync keeps running as usual, just without colors. If your organization requires IT approval, your IT team finds the details under For IT admins.

Google colors in the target calendar

Only the owner of a calendar can add Google colors (labels) to it. If the target calendar is only shared with you, we use the closest of Google’s 11 classic colors.

Sharings with other people

When you share your calendar with someone, you decide whether colors come along. With “As in the source” the other person also sees the color names, e.g. “Doctor”. With “One color per calendar” they only see which of your calendars an event comes from. The invitation already tells them that colors come along.

Good to know

• Turning it off: colors that were already synced stay on the copies.
• Same both ways: in a two-way sync, a color comes back with the same name.
• Via AI assistant: create_sync keeps colors with the same default as the app, and list_syncs shows the setting. Changing it happens in the app → Syncs via assistant.