How to Propose a New Time in Google Calendar (Both Sides)

Key Takeaways

• A proposal is a counter-offer, not a reschedule. The meeting stays at its original time until the organizer opens your suggestion and clicks Save. If you stop showing up at the old slot after proposing, you've stood someone up.
• Only guests get the button. Organizers never see Propose a new time on their own events; they change the time by editing the event directly. That single fact explains most "where did the option go?" confusion.
• Two more cases hide the button. Google disables proposals on all-day events and on events with more than 200 guests. The workaround is a note on your RSVP or a group poll, not more clicking.
• Counter-offers don't scale past one round. For meetings with clients or candidates, a booking link through meetergo's Google Calendar integration shows live availability up front, so the first proposed time is one that already works.

An invitation lands on your calendar and the slot is already taken. Google Calendar's answer is Propose a new time, and it does the job well, as long as you understand two things most guides skip: the feature belongs to guests only, and sending a proposal changes nothing until the organizer accepts it. This guide covers both halves of that handshake, the invitee flow on every device, the organizer's review step, plus the three situations where the button simply isn't there and what to do about each scheduling conflict instead.

Propose a new time from your computer

The desktop flow lives inside the RSVP controls, which is why people miss it. Per Google's documentation on responding to invitations:

• Open Google Calendar and click the event on your calendar.
• Next to Maybe, click the down arrow.
• Click Propose a new time.
• Pick a different time or day. You'll see the event details alongside your own calendar, so aim for a gap you can actually keep.
• Optional but worth the ten seconds: add a message explaining why. A bare counter-offer reads colder than one with a reason attached.
• Click Send proposal.

The organizer now gets an email with your suggested slot. Your RSVP stays whatever you set it to, and the event keeps its original time on everyone's calendar. Nothing has been rescheduled yet; you've opened a negotiation, not closed one.

Propose a new time on Android and iPhone

The mobile apps mirror the desktop flow with one detail that trips people up: the arrow points a different direction on each platform. On Android, tap the event, then tap the down arrow next to Maybe, then Propose a new time. On iPhone and iPad, the same menu hangs off an up arrow. Either way, pick the new slot, attach an optional message, and hit send.

If you check invitations in a third-party calendar app that syncs your Google account, the proposal controls may not exist there at all. The feature is Google Calendar's own, so open the invitation in the Google Calendar app or at calendar.google.com. If your events live across Google and Microsoft accounts, our guide to syncing Google Calendar with Outlook sorts out which app should own what.

The organizer's half: review and accept the proposal

This is the part almost nobody documents, and it's where proposals go to die. When a guest suggests a new slot, you as the organizer get an email notification, and the event itself carries the pending proposal. Google's guide to tracking event responses describes the review flow:

• Open Google Calendar on your computer and click the event.
• Under the guest list, find the suggested time and click Review proposed time.
• To move the meeting to the guest's slot, click Save. Calendar updates the event for every attendee and sends out the change.

Two traps sit inside this flow. First, that same Google page explains how to silence response notifications (Settings, your calendar, Other notifications, Event responses set to None). If you or a past version of you flipped that switch, proposals arrive silently and you'll only ever spot them by opening the event. Second, accepting is all or nothing: Save moves the event for everyone, so on a five-person meeting, one guest's counter-offer can bump the other three into conflicts. Check the availability grid before you click.

And if you're the organizer wanting to suggest a different time yourself: you don't propose, you edit. Change the event's time directly and Calendar offers to email the update to your guests. When the change is really a cancellation in disguise, handle it like one; we've collected wording that keeps goodwill in our guide to rescheduling an appointment.

Why the Propose a new time button is missing

Google documents exactly when proposals are off the table, and all three cases generate confused support threads:

• You're the organizer. The option exists only on invitations you've received. On your own events, edit the time instead.
• It's an all-day event. No proposals allowed. Respond with a note instead: next to Maybe, choose the arrow, then Add note, type your constraint, and send it with your RSVP. Fair warning from Google's own docs: the note is visible to every guest, not just the organizer, so keep the details professional.
• The event has more than 200 guests. At webinar scale, individual counter-offers would be chaos anyway. If you're trying to find a slot for a large group, a meeting poll does what 200 separate proposals can't.

There's a fourth, quieter case: the invitation never reached your Google Calendar because it went to an address that isn't linked to your Google account. No event card, no RSVP controls, no proposal. In that situation, reply by email; our meeting proposal templates cover the wording so you're not staring at a blank draft.

The sender's version: offer times from Gmail

Proposing a new time fixes someone else's suggestion. Gmail ships the mirror-image tool for making the first suggestion: while composing an email, open the compose menu, choose Set up a time to meet, then Offer times you're free, tick slots from the calendar panel, and drop them into the message. When the recipient picks one, Google's Calendar-in-Gmail documentation confirms both sides get the invitation automatically.

Read the fine print before you build a workflow on it. The same page states the feature currently only works for 1:1 meetings on your primary calendar. And the offered slots are not held for anyone. A November 2025 r/GoogleCalendar thread lays out the consequence: the poster was juggling several meetings with different people, waiting a day or more for each reply, and wanted offered times to appear on their calendar so the same slot wouldn't go out twice. It doesn't work that way. One commenter tested it and confirmed offered times leave no trace on the calendar, and a second reply pointed to booking pages as the fix, since they update as slots fill. Until Google adds holds, every emailed time is a promise your calendar doesn't know about.

When counter-offers become your default, fix the workflow

One proposal per meeting is healthy negotiation. A proposal on every external meeting means you're scheduling blind, and the cure is showing availability before the invite goes out. meetergo attaches a booking page to your real calendars: invitees pick from slots that are genuinely open, the event lands in Google Calendar with everyone confirmed, and there's nothing to counter because the time already works.

The difference from emailing time offers is that availability is enforced, not promised. meetergo's unified calendar reads busy time across Google, Microsoft 365, and Apple accounts at once, so a slot booked anywhere disappears everywhere. When plans change, invitees reschedule through their confirmation link and both calendars update without a single proposal email. Automated workflows handle the reminders that keep the agreed slot honored. A personal booking page is part of the free plan, and everything runs on servers in Europe with 100% GDPR compliance. Scope check so you don't over-tool: for internal meetings where you can already see your colleagues' calendars, Google's built-in proposal flow is enough; booking pages earn their keep with clients, candidates, and anyone whose calendar you can't see. We've compared Google's own booking feature with dedicated tools in Google appointment scheduling vs Calendly.

Start free, connect Google Calendar, and send your first booking link in a few minutes. No credit card needed.

Common mistakes with time proposals

• Treating a sent proposal as a done deal. Until the organizer clicks Save, the meeting still happens at the original time. If you can't make the original slot under any circumstances, decline with a note rather than proposing and hoping.
• Missing proposals you've received. If event response emails are switched off in your calendar's notification settings, guest proposals arrive in silence. Re-enable Event responses or make a habit of opening events that show pending guest activity.
• Accepting a proposal without checking the rest of the room. Save moves the event for all guests. On multi-person meetings, one person's better slot is often three people's new conflict.
• Offering the same slot to two people over email. Gmail's offered times don't block your calendar, as the Reddit thread above found out. Track what you've offered, or use a booking page that takes slots off the market the moment they're claimed.
• Proposing new times to the same person every week. A recurring counter-offer is a broken recurring meeting. Fix the underlying availability, move the series, or switch that relationship to a reschedule-friendly booking link.

FAQ

Can the organizer propose a new time in Google Calendar?

No. The option only appears on invitations you've received as a guest. As the organizer, open the event, edit the date or time, and save; Calendar asks whether to email the update to your guests. If you want buy-in before moving anything, ask in the event's note field or by email first.

Does proposing a new time change the meeting?

Not by itself. Your suggestion travels to the organizer as an email plus a pending proposal on the event. The original slot stays on every calendar until the organizer clicks Save on your proposed time. Plan to attend at the old time until you see the event move.

Why is Propose a new time greyed out or not showing?

Check three things: whether you're the organizer (the button is guest-only), whether it's an all-day event, and whether the guest list tops 200 people. Google blocks proposals in all three cases. In a third-party calendar app, the option can also be missing simply because it's a Google Calendar feature; open the event on calendar.google.com instead.

Do proposed or offered times show up on my calendar?

Proposals you send appear only inside the event's detail view, and times you offer through Gmail don't appear anywhere at all. Neither blocks the slot. If you need offered times to hold themselves, that's what booking pages do; Google Calendar alone won't.

Can I propose a new time from the invitation email in Gmail?

Gmail's invitation emails give you Yes, No, and Maybe at the top. For a counter-offer, click through to the event in Google Calendar and use the arrow next to Maybe. The compose-side tool in Gmail, Offer times you're free, is for suggesting slots when you're the one initiating, and it's limited to 1:1 meetings on your primary calendar.

What if the other side never responds to my proposal?

Follow up once by email, then take the hint about the channel: proposals are easy to miss when response notifications are off. For anything time-sensitive, call it or send two or three concrete alternatives in writing. If this keeps happening with external contacts, Google Calendar's scheduling features have limits that a dedicated booking flow was built to remove.