Calendar Apps in Slack and Teams: Sync, Events and Reminders
Slack has no calendar of its own, so calendar features arrive through the Google Calendar app from the Slack Marketplace. Teams ships a full calendar inside the app. That difference shapes everything else: Slack's strengths are notifications and status sync, while Teams handles views, scheduling and sharing natively. Here is what each help page documents.
Miles Crawford
The quick version
In Slack, one person installs the Google Calendar app from the Slack Marketplace, then each member connects their Google account from the app's Home tab to get event reminders, respond to invitations and sync their status. In Teams, select Calendar on the left side of the app: your work-week view is already there, with scheduling, other people's calendars, sharing and meeting recaps built in.
Slack: install once, connect per person
The Google Calendar app needs one installer for the workspace: visit its Slack Marketplace page, click Add to Slack, and allow access. After that, each member connects their own account from Agents & tools, then Apps, then Google Calendar, using Connect an account on the app's Home tab. You can add as many calendars as you like from a connected account through the Settings drop-down, though status syncing only works for your primary calendar. On mobile, the same flow runs through Jump to and the app's Home tab.
Slack: reminders, status sync and events
The app notifies you about all-day events, invitations, updates and cancellations, with per-person notification preferences under Settings, and events with a video conferencing link (Google Meet, Zoom or huddles) offer a join option once started; those meeting alerts can appear in the Slack sidebar or as system notifications, set from your profile preferences under Calendar notifications. Channels can subscribe too: add the app to a channel and configure Channel Notifications, and on paid plans a channel can get a daily or weekly schedule digest. The app also auto-sets your Slack status to In a meeting when an event has other invitees, or Out of Office when the event title contains OOO or PTO. It never shows the meeting name, never overrides a status you set yourself, only reacts to events you accepted or that mark you Busy, and does nothing when events overlap. You can create events from the app's Home tab (with an available-times picker across invitees) and respond to invitations from its Messages tab. If events go stale, Slack's fix is to revoke authorization on the Marketplace Configuration tab and re-add the app.
Teams: a calendar built into the app
Select Calendar on the left side of Teams and you get a work-week view by default, switchable to week or month. You can adjust the time scale, save custom views, filter which event types appear, and open the navigation pane for a mini-month, other people's calendars and calendar groups, with split or combined views when comparing. The calendar is desktop-focused in Microsoft's article, and further appearance and meeting settings sit under More options then Calendar settings.
Teams: scheduling, sharing and recaps
To schedule, select New or a timeslot, pick an event template from the dropdown if you want one, use Scheduler to find a time that works for everyone, fill in details and Save; for a virtual meeting, Microsoft says to turn on the Teams meeting toggle. Room suggestions show capacity and technical specs, with a Browse with Places Finder option. Joining is a Join button on the calendar event. You can share your calendar with specific people and set their permission level, subject to IT admin policies, and you can print the calendar. Past recorded meetings keep their recap and chat accessible from the calendar event.
Which one for what?
Our read: if the goal is fewer missed meetings, Slack's app wins on notifications, channel digests and the automatic In a meeting status. If the goal is planning, Teams' calendar is the stronger surface: views, other people's calendars, Scheduler and room details in one place. Many teams use both; the Slack layer keeps chat aware of the calendar your team already runs.
What to be careful about
- Slack status sync is primary-calendar only. Secondary calendars feed notifications but not status.
- Overlapping events pause Slack status updates. The app updates nothing when events collide, per Slack.
- OOO needs the right title. Slack sets Out of Office only when the event title contains OOO or PTO.
- The Teams meeting toggle matters. Microsoft calls it out for virtual meetings when scheduling.
- Digest notifications are paid-plan features in Slack. Daily and weekly schedule posts require a paid plan.
Sources
Checked October 24, 2026. Setup steps, sync rules and settings follow each product's own help articles. The guidance on when each shines is ours.