How to Insert a Calendar Event into an Outlook Email as an Attachment

The brilliance of including the calendar in the email client is that you never have to leave to add events or meetings. You’ll also have access to check it from any device, without ever needing to do more than switch to a different tab. As such, you can easily invite others without closing the email platform, and there are multiple ways to do it.

The easiest of these is sending it as an .ics attachment. The format is usable on both Mac and PC as well as web-based calendars like Google.

1. Open the Outlook desktop app.

2. Under New Items, select Appointment.

3. Fill in the required fields (subject, location, start time/date, end time/date) and any other pertinent information. It’s not all needed, but you have the ability to add as much or as little as you’d like.

4. Press Save & Close.

5. Click the calendar icon at the bottom.

6. Find the invitation you just created.

7. Drag it out of the calendar and on to your desktop.

8. Click the email icon at the bottom of the Outlook window to return to your messages.

9. Drag the file from your desktop into the new email. Alternatively, you could right click and select “invite attendees” on the calendar entry, but it often causes issues with non-Outlook calendars.

10. Fill the email fields as normal and send.

Microsoft Outlook Tips