If you are using Notion to Calendar with Google Calendar, you might notice that changes in Notion do not appear immediately. You update an event title in Notion, but Google Calendar still shows the old name hours later.
This is how Google Calendar handles external calendar subscriptions. Premium users now have another option: direct Google Calendar sync writes Notion events through the official API and bypasses the external-feed polling delay. This article still explains the behavior of the free and shareable iCal option.
Use your Notion database in Apple Calendar
Notion to Calendar creates a private calendar feed from Notion, so your events appear in Apple Calendar on iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple Watch.
How external calendar sync works
When you subscribe to a calendar URL in Google Calendar (or any calendar app), the app periodically fetches the calendar data from that URL. Our service generates a fresh calendar every time it is requested.
The timing of those requests depends entirely on the calendar app, not on us:
- Apple Calendar: Typically refreshes frequently and allows manual refresh
- Outlook: Refreshes periodically throughout the day
- Google Calendar: Refreshes on its own schedule with no manual refresh option, and no documented frequency
Google Calendar is generally the slowest, and there is no way to force it to refresh sooner.
Why Google Calendar is slower
Google Calendar limits how often it fetches external calendars. Google does not document the exact frequency, only that they query external calendars "periodically."
Based on user reports and our server data, Google Calendar typically takes 6 to 8 hours to refresh subscribed calendars. Sometimes it is faster, sometimes slower. You cannot predict or control it.
This means:
- If you have a Premium plan with a feed refreshed every 5 minutes on our end, Google Calendar might still show data that is hours old
- If you change an event in Notion and immediately check Google Calendar, you probably will not see the change
- Deleting an event in Notion does not make it disappear from Google Calendar until the next refresh
What this means for Premium features
Our Premium plan refreshes the feed every 5 minutes, keeping the latest Notion changes ready whenever your calendar app checks. But if the app checks only once every 12 hours, it can still display older data in the meantime.
Here is how different apps handle our sync:
- Apple Calendar: Frequent, manual refresh available - Full benefit
- Fantastical: Frequent, manual refresh available - Full benefit
- Outlook: Periodic, varies by version - Partial benefit
- Google Calendar: Infrequent, no manual refresh - Limited benefit
Premium sync still matters for Google Calendar users because:
- When Google finally does refresh, it gets the latest data
- If you share the calendar link with others using different apps, they get faster updates
- Our server-side caching means faster response times even when Google requests data
But if real-time updates are critical for you, Google Calendar may not be the best choice.
Use direct Google sync if you need faster updates
Open your calendar link in the Notion to Calendar dashboard, connect Google, and start direct sync. We create a dedicated Google calendar and reconcile mapped events through Google鈥檚 official Calendar API instead of waiting for Google to request your .ics URL.
During the beta, this direction is intentionally one-way: Notion changes are written to Google, while Google edits are observed but never written back to Notion. Keep the old subscription while you verify the dedicated calendar, then remove it to avoid duplicates.
If you prefer a universal URL or need to share the same calendar with several apps, keep using iCal. Google still controls that subscription鈥檚 refresh schedule.
Other alternatives
Use Apple Calendar or Fantastical on Mac/iOS. These apps let you manually refresh and check for updates much more frequently than Google Calendar.
Use Outlook desktop app. The desktop version of Outlook has better refresh behavior than the web version.
Share links directly. If you are sharing calendars with your team, they can subscribe directly rather than going through Google Calendar. Apps like Fantastical, BusyCal, or Apple Calendar will give them faster updates.
Accept the delay. For many use cases, a few hours delay is fine. If you are tracking project deadlines or content schedules, events are usually planned days or weeks ahead anyway.
How to check when Google Calendar last refreshed
Unfortunately, Google Calendar does not show when it last synced an external calendar. You can only observe it indirectly by making a change in Notion and waiting to see when it appears.
If you add a test event in Notion and want to know when Google Calendar picks it up, that is the only reliable method.
We wish it were different
Google does not expose an API to force-refresh an external iCal subscription. That limitation still applies to every URL-based calendar. The Calendar API is a separate delivery path: it can create and update managed events directly, which is why our Premium direct-sync beta no longer depends on the subscription refresh cycle.
This is a Google Calendar limitation, not something we can fix on our end. The calendar URL we provide always returns the latest data. The bottleneck is Google's refresh schedule.
Bottom line
Notion to Calendar now offers two valid Google Calendar paths. Use direct sync when delivery speed matters inside Google. Use the iCal feed when portability and sharing matter more, and allow for Google鈥檚 polling delay.
Either way, Notion remains the source of truth during the current Google beta.