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Guide

Canvas to Google Calendar, step by step

Subscribe to your Canvas calendar in Google Calendar so assignments and class times show up automatically, and know what updates on its own and what does not.

· Updated September 16, 2026

Key facts · checked September 16, 2026

  • Canvas gives every student a private calendar feed link under Calendar, Calendar Feed, and that link is what you subscribe with, not a file you download once.
  • Once subscribed, Google Calendar checks the feed roughly once a day on its own schedule, and there is no setting that makes it check faster.
  • The feed link works like a password. Anyone who has it can see your course schedule, so never post it publicly or share it outside a calendar app.
  • A "from URL" subscription stays live and updates itself. Downloading and importing a .ics file is a one-time snapshot that goes stale the moment Canvas changes.
  • If a due date changes in Canvas after your next Google Calendar refresh, you will see the update within about a day, not instantly.

If you have ever missed something because it lived in Canvas and your real calendar lived somewhere else, this takes about five minutes to fix. Canvas can publish everything on your Canvas calendar (assignments, quizzes, graded discussions, class meeting times if your instructor put them there) as a feed that Google Calendar can subscribe to. Once it is set up, new and changed items show up in Google Calendar without you doing anything again.

This is a different thing from exporting a .ics file and importing it once. An import is a snapshot: it is correct the moment you make it and wrong a week later when your professor moves the midterm. A subscription is live. Canvas keeps the feed current, and Google Calendar checks back on its own.

  1. Log in to Canvas and open Calendar from the left navigation.
  2. In the panel on the right side of the calendar, scroll down and click Calendar Feed (sometimes shown as a small calendar icon with the label "Calendar Feed").
  3. Canvas shows you a long URL starting with webcal:// or https://. This is your personal feed link, tied to your Canvas login. Click Copy or select the whole thing and copy it manually.
  4. If you only want one course instead of everything, open that course's calendar and look for the same Calendar Feed link inside the course, rather than the main calendar. Course-level feeds exist on most Canvas sites, though the option is occasionally turned off by a school's IT department.

Keep this tab open, or paste the link into a note. You need it in the next step.

Subscribe to it in Google Calendar

Google Calendar has no single obvious button for this, so the steps are exact.

  1. Go to Google Calendar on the web (this step does not work from the Google Calendar phone app; you add the subscription on the web once, and it then appears in the app automatically).
  2. On the left side, find Other calendars and click the + next to it.
  3. Choose From URL.
  4. Paste your Canvas feed link into the box. If it starts with webcal://, that is fine, Google Calendar accepts that scheme.
  5. Click Add calendar.

Google Calendar will take a moment to pull in your events. When it is done, a new calendar appears in your left sidebar, usually named after your Canvas account or school. You can rename it, recolor it, and toggle it on and off like any other calendar in the list, right next to your personal one.

What updates automatically, and what does not

A live feed is not quite the same as Canvas itself.

  • Due date changes, new assignments, and cancelled items sync automatically. You do not need to resubscribe. Google Calendar's own refresh cycle picks them up.
  • The refresh is not instant. Google Calendar checks subscribed feeds roughly once a day, and Google does not publish a way to force it sooner. If your professor pushes an exam back an hour before class, your Google Calendar will not know yet. For same-day changes, Canvas itself (or an announcement) is still the source of truth.
  • Announcements and Canvas Inbox messages never appear here. The calendar feed only carries calendar-shaped items: assignments, quizzes, events, and graded discussions with due dates. It does not carry course announcements, files, or grades.
  • Un-graded discussions and to-do items you added inside Canvas may or may not appear, depending on how your instructor set up the course. If something is clearly missing, check whether it has a due date in Canvas at all; items with no due date generally do not make it into the feed.
  • Deleting the calendar in Google Calendar does not touch anything in Canvas. The feed is read-only in both directions. Nothing you do in Google Calendar changes your Canvas record, and nothing in Google Calendar can accidentally submit or modify an assignment.

Fix the two most common problems

Nothing shows up after subscribing. First rule out the assignment simply not being on your Canvas calendar in the first place, which has its own short list of causes in Canvas Calendar not showing assignments, what to check. Otherwise, give it a few minutes; the first pull can be slow if you have several courses. If it is still empty after 15 to 20 minutes, double check you copied the entire feed URL, including everything after the last slash. A URL cut short by one character will fail silently rather than show an error.

Old, completed courses are cluttering the calendar. Canvas's main calendar feed includes every active and recently ended course by default. Go back to the course-level feed instead of the account-level one, and subscribe only to the courses still in progress. You can also hide a subscribed calendar in Google Calendar's sidebar without unsubscribing, if you want the history kept but out of sight.

A faster way, if you want it

Copying the URL, opening Google Calendar's subscription settings, and remembering to re-do this every semester is exactly the kind of setup step that gets skipped. If you use Scholarwire, connecting your Canvas account once gets you the same live calendar sync, plus study blocks Canvas cannot generate, without hunting for the Calendar Feed link every term. You can start free, and if the phone is the screen you check, Canvas on your phone covers every route onto it. Either way, the underlying idea is the same: subscribe once, let the feed do the updating.

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Scholarwire does this for you. Connect Canvas once and your semester arrives as a calendar, a study plan, notes, flashcards and quizzes, with 14 days of Pro and no card.

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