How to use when2meet.com: a complete guide
when2meet.com is a free group scheduling tool that's been running since 2008. You create an event with a set of candidate dates, share one link, and everyone paints in the hours they're free. The overlap shows up as a green grid, and the darkest column is your meeting time. There are no accounts and nothing to install. The whole thing takes about two minutes once you know where the controls are — and a few of them are genuinely hard to find, which is what most of this guide is about.
Step 1: Create the event
Everything happens on the when2meet.com homepage. There's no dashboard and no setup — the form is the front page.
Name the event
Type a name into the "New Event Name" box. Choose carefully: you cannot rename an event once it's created. If you get it wrong, your only option is to create a new event and re-share the link.
Choose Specific Dates or Days of the Week
"Specific Dates" gives you a calendar and is what most people want. "Days of the Week" makes a generic Monday-to-Sunday poll, useful for a recurring slot like a weekly practice. Note when2meet.com's own warning about the second mode: "For 'Days of the Week' events, it is expected that all participants are in a single time zone."
Pick the dates
Click and drag across the calendar to select dates; they turn green. The calendar only shows about five weeks at a time and has no next-month arrow — to reach a later month you click and drag the month and year labels down the left edge of the grid, and pull upward. This trips up nearly everyone.
Set the time range and time zone
"No earlier than" and "No later than" bound the hours shown in the grid — keep the window tight or the grid gets long and tedious to fill in. Then set the time zone. Get this right the first time; like everything else, it can't be changed afterwards.
Create the event
You land on a page with a URL like when2meet.com/?12345678-AbCdE. That URL is the event. There's no email confirmation, so save it somewhere before you close the tab.
Step 2: Share the link
Copy the URL and send it however you like — chat, email, a group thread. Anyone with the link can open the event and add their availability; there's no invite list and no permissions to manage. The flip side is that the link is the only security. Anyone who has it can respond, and the event isn't listed anywhere, so if you lose the URL you have lost the event.
Step 3: Fill in your availability
On the event page you'll see a sign-in box asking for your name and an optional password. The name is just a label — there's no account behind it. The password is worth understanding: without one, anyone who opens the link can type your name and overwrite your availability, deliberately or by accident. With one, your row is yours. Once you're signed in, click and drag across the left-hand grid to paint the times you're free. Green means available. Drag again over green cells to clear them. Your input saves as you go, so there's no submit button to forget — but there's also no undo beyond re-painting.
Step 4: Read the results
The right-hand grid is the group view. The darker the green, the more people are free at that time — solid dark green means everyone who has responded. Hover over any cell and the list of names updates to show exactly who is and isn't available in that slot, which is the fastest way to find out who a single conflict belongs to. There's no automatic "best time" pick and no ranking; you read the grid and decide. Once you've chosen, tell people yourself — when2meet.com doesn't notify anyone, ever.
Five things when2meet.com can't do
None of these are bugs — it's a deliberately minimal tool, and the minimalism is a large part of why it's lasted. But they catch people out, so it's worth knowing before you commit a group to it.
Edit an event after creating it
The name, the dates, the time range and the time zone are all fixed at creation. Add a date you forgot, fix a typo in the title, correct the wrong time zone — none of it is possible. You create a new event and re-share the link, and everyone who already responded has to respond again.
Delete an event
There's no delete button and no owner account that could offer one. An event you created stays reachable by anyone holding the link. In practice this means treating the URL as the only thing controlling access.
Repeat your availability across days
If you're free 10am–2pm every Thursday, you paint that four times for four Thursdays. There's no copy, no repeat, and no "same as last week" — which is what makes long polls tedious to fill in on a phone.
Notify anyone
No emails, no reminders, no nudge when someone responds and no announcement when you pick a time. Chasing the people who haven't filled it in is entirely your job.
Handle mixed time zones in every mode
Specific-date events do convert times per participant. Days-of-the-Week events don't — when2meet.com states plainly that it expects everyone to be in one time zone for those. Mixing the two assumptions is a reliable way to schedule a meeting an hour off.
If any of those limits are a problem
when2meet.cc is our free take on the same availability-grid idea, built for the cases above. Three concrete differences. The date picker is an ordinary month calendar with next and previous arrows, so picking a date in March is a few clicks rather than a long drag, and you can mix dates from several months in one poll. You can rename an event and add a note for participants after creating it. And it computes the best slots for you rather than leaving you to read the grid, with timezone columns you can add for people in other regions.
Where when2meet.cc is no better
when2meet.cc can't change an event's dates after creation either — if you need a different set of dates you'll be making a new poll, exactly as you would on when2meet.com. when2meet.cc also has no repeat-availability shortcut, so a long poll is still painted slot by slot, and it doesn't send notifications. If those are your blockers, neither tool solves them and you'd want something calendar-integrated instead.
Try when2meet.cc instead
Same grid, same no-accounts approach — with a date picker you can page through a month at a time. Free, and it takes about thirty seconds.
Create a free poll on when2meet.ccwhen2meet.com FAQ
Is when2meet.com free?
Yes. when2meet.com states that it's a free service and that anyone can create and participate in availability surveys at no cost. There's no paid tier.
Do you need an account to use when2meet.com?
No. Neither the organiser nor the participants sign up. You enter a display name on the event page, and optionally a password that stops other people editing your row. The name isn't an account — it exists only inside that one event.
How do I edit a when2meet.com event after creating it?
You can't. The event name, dates, time range and time zone are all locked once the event exists. The only route is to create a replacement event and send everyone the new link.
How do I delete a when2meet.com event?
There's no way to delete one. when2meet.com has no accounts, so there's no owner dashboard where a delete button could live. The event stays reachable to anyone with the URL — so treat the link itself as the access control.
Can I change the dates on an existing when2meet.com event?
No. Dates are fixed at creation, so adding a date you forgot means starting a new event and asking everyone to fill it in again. It's the most common reason people abandon a poll halfway through.
How do I see who is available on when2meet.com?
Hover over any cell in the group grid on the right. The name list updates to show who is available and who isn't for that specific slot. Darker green means more people are free.
Does when2meet.com work across time zones?
For Specific Dates events, yes — times are shown in each participant's own zone. For Days of the Week events, no: when2meet.com expects everyone to be in a single time zone for those, and says so on its site.
How do I fix my availability or sign back in on when2meet.com?
Open the event link again and sign in with the same name. If you set a password, you'll need it. Then drag over your green cells to clear them and repaint. If you didn't set a password, be aware anyone with the link can sign in under your name and change your row.