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Google Calendar Invitations - "Unknown Sender"
Google Calendar Invitations - "Unknown Sender"

Learn how Google Calendar's anti-spam policy affects Doodle participants. Ensure meetings are automatically added to your calendar.

Christian Baker avatar
Written by Christian Baker
Updated over 3 months ago

Google Calendar has introduced an anti-spam policy to protect Google users from unwanted content in their calendars. This new policy affects all scheduling tools, including Doodle.

Happily, most Doodle participants will not be affected by Google’s anti-spam policy.

In this article, we will discuss:

  • Who is not impacted by this policy

  • Who is impacted by this policy

  • Solutions for Google Calendar users

Who is not affected by Google’s anti-spam policy?

The following categories of Doodle users are not affected by Google’s anti-spam policy:

  1. Doodle group poll, 1:1, booking page, and sign-up sheet participants who do not use Google Calendar

  2. Google Calendar users who have previously exchanged meeting invitations with the organizer of the meeting

  3. Google Calendar users for whom a sender is known within their Google Calendar

IMPORTANT: Once a meeting is booked, all meeting details are always sent to the participant via email whether a Doodle event organizer has connected their calendar to their Doodle account or not. Google’s recent anti-spam policy does not extend to filtering these emails - ensuring that you will have access to the meeting details.

Who is affected by Google’s anti-spam policy?

All of the following criteria must be met in order to be affected by Google’s anti-spam policy:

  1. You, as the participant of a group poll, 1:1, booking page, or sign-up sheet is a Google Calendar user,

    AND

  2. The participant has not previously exchanged meeting invitations with the meeting organizer and/or the sender is an unknown source within their Google Calendar,

    AND

  3. The organizer of the Doodle event has connected their calendar to their Doodle account.

If all three of these criteria are not met, neither the Doodle event organizer nor any participant will experience any difference in performance or experience when using Doodle.

Solutions for Google Calendar users

Happily, there are three options you can choose from to ensure that meetings are automatically added to your calendar. Pick the one that works best for you!

Most popular choice: mark sender as safe, but RSVP to each meeting manually.

  1. Check your Gmail for the meeting invitation email.

  2. At the top of the email, look for a banner with the option to click 'I know this sender'.

  3. Click 'I know this sender'.

This sender is now a known source and future meetings with this organizer will appear automatically in your Google Calendar. Even though the event is now in your Google Calendar, make sure you still RSVP 'Yes' in the Google Calendar event to ensure you are showing as attending the meeting.

Screenshot_2023-05-16_at_10.36.16.png

Note: With this option, you have to repeat these steps with every unknown sender in your Google Calendar. To avoid having to white-list every unknown sender, follow the steps in the third option.


Enjoy automation? Mark sender as safe, and RSVP to each meeting automatically.

  1. Check your Gmail for the meeting invitation email.

  2. Click 'Yes'

By clicking 'Yes', the sender becomes a known source and future meetings with this organizer will appear automatically in your Google Calendar.

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Note: With this option, you have to repeat these steps with each unknown sender in your Google Calendar. To avoid having to white-list every unknown sender, follow the steps in the third option.


Do you take meetings proposed by people you haven't met yet? Disable the SPAM filter completely.

  1. Click on the 'Settings' icon ⚙️ from your Google Calendar.

  2. Under 'General', click on 'Event settings'.

  3. Click on the drop-down menu for 'Add invitations to my calendar'.

  4. Select 'From everyone'.

All future meetings from both known and unknown senders will now appear automatically in your Google Calendar.

Note: With this option, you will not have to repeat these steps with every unknown sender in your Google Calendar. This option allows for a permanent acceptance of all senders to populate events in your Google Calendar.

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