nextcloud / nextcloud/calendar

Attendees should see event details even when event is set to “Show as busy when shared”

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Description

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.

I share my personal calendar with multiple users so they can see my availability, but I do not want them to see event details.
For each private event I set the visibility to “When shared: show only busy” (i.e. free/busy only).

However, when I invite one of those users to that same event, they receive the full details by email (ICS/invitation),
but inside Nextcloud Calendar (web UI) they still see the event as “Busy” with no title/description/location.

This is frustrating because:

  • non-invited shared users should only see free/busy ✅ (privacy)
  • an invited attendee should be able to see the full event details ✅ (collaboration)

Describe the solution you'd like

When a user is an ATTENDEE of an event, Nextcloud Calendar should display full details to that attendee,
even if the event visibility is set to “When shared: show only busy” for shared calendars.

In other words:

  • Shared users (not attendees): show only free/busy
  • Invited attendees: show full details

If this is not possible due to iCalendar CLASS:CONFIDENTIAL semantics, an alternative could be:

  • Add a separate visibility option such as “Show only busy when shared, but show full details to attendees”
    or
  • Treat attendees as privileged viewers for confidential events.

Describe alternatives you've considered

  • Not sharing the calendar at all (not acceptable, people need availability).
  • Duplicating events: one confidential for the shared calendar + one public event for the attendee (tedious and error-prone).
  • Maintaining separate calendars and moving events around (also tedious and easy to forget).

Steps to reproduce

  1. User A creates a calendar and shares it with User B as read-only (or any share level where B should not see details).
  2. User A creates an event and sets visibility to “When shared: show only busy”.
  3. User A adds User B as an attendee to that event.
  4. User B receives an email invitation with full details.
  5. In Nextcloud Calendar UI, User B opens the event.

Expected behavior

User B (attendee) can see the full event details (title, description, location, etc.) in Nextcloud Calendar.

Actual behavior

User B still sees only “Busy” and cannot see event details.

Environment

  • Nextcloud Server: 32.0.3 (self-hosted)
  • Calendar app: 6.1.4
  • OS: Debian stable (server)
  • Web server: (nginx/apache)

Additional context

This is a common use case in organizations: share a personal calendar for availability while keeping details private,
but still be able to invite someone to a meeting and have them see full details.

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start in the Nextcloud Calendar web UI path that renders shared events and trace how ATTENDEE status and “When shared: show only busy” are evaluated. Check the iCalendar CLASS:CONFIDENTIAL semantics against the reproduction steps. Done means non-attendees still see only busy while attendees see the title, description, location, and other event details.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
javascript
Domain
full-stack
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
35/100

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