How to Send a Calendar Invite in Outlook (2026 Guide)
To send a calendar invite in Outlook, create a meeting (not a private appointment), add your attendees’ email addresses, set the time, optionally add a Teams link, and click Send. Everyone you invite gets an email with Accept / Tentative / Decline buttons and the event lands on their calendar. The steps are nearly identical across versions, with small differences in where the buttons live.
Below is the full walkthrough for every version, plus how to BCC people on an invite and how to forward an existing invite — two things Outlook makes less obvious than they should be.
1. New Outlook for Windows & Outlook on the Web
New Outlook and Outlook on the web (outlook.office.com) share a codebase, so these steps apply to both.
- Go to the Calendar (calendar icon in the left rail).
- Click New event (top-left).
- Add a Title.
- In Invite attendees, type each person’s name or email address. Click Optional on the right to reveal a separate optional-attendees line, and move anyone who’s optional there.
- Set the Start and End date and time. Toggle All day for all-day events.
- To make it an online meeting, switch Teams meeting on — a join link and dial-in are added automatically.
- Add a location and any agenda notes in the body.
- Click Send.
Tip: Want to check everyone’s availability before you send? Click Scheduling Assistant at the top of the event window to see a side-by-side free/busy grid. See how to use the Scheduling Assistant in Outlook.
2. Classic Outlook for Windows
- On the Home tab in Calendar, click New Meeting (or press Ctrl+Shift+Q from anywhere).
- In the To field, enter attendee email addresses. Click the To button to open the address book, where you can assign people as Required, Optional, or Resources (rooms/equipment).
- Fill in the Subject, Location, Start time, and End time.
- To add an online meeting, click Teams Meeting on the ribbon (or Skype Meeting if that’s your org’s setup).
- Add an agenda in the body.
- Click Send.
You can switch to the Scheduling Assistant tab on the ribbon at any point to drag the meeting to an open slot before sending.
3. Outlook for Mac
- In Calendar, click New Event.
- Enter attendees in the Invitees field. Click the icon beside a name to toggle Required vs Optional.
- Add a Title, Location, and start/end time.
- Toggle Teams Meeting (or Online Meeting) on for a join link.
- Click Send.
4. Outlook Mobile (iOS & Android)
- Open the app and tap the Calendar tab.
- Tap the + button to create an event.
- Tap People and add attendee email addresses.
- Set the time, and toggle Teams meeting on if you want a link.
- Tap the checkmark / Send to send the invite.
How to BCC People on an Outlook Calendar Invite
Here’s the honest answer searchers need: Outlook meeting invites do not have a true BCC field. A meeting has an attendee list, and by design every attendee can see who else was invited and how they responded. There’s no built-in “blind carbon copy” the way there is for regular email. If you need to invite someone without the rest of the group seeing their name, use one of these workarounds:
Option 1 — Invite yourself (or a resource) and forward blind copies. Create the meeting with only yourself, a shared mailbox, or a room resource as the visible attendee. Send it, then Forward the invite individually to each real attendee (see the next section). Each person gets the event on their calendar, but because they were added via Forward rather than the attendee list, they don’t all appear to one another. This is the closest thing to a BCC for invites.
Option 2 — Use Forward to add people quietly. After creating a small meeting, forwarding the invite to additional people adds them without re-notifying the original group, and forwarded recipients aren’t broadcast back to the whole list.
Option 3 — Hide attendees with “Response Options.” In Classic Outlook, open the meeting, go to the Meeting tab, click Response Options, and turn off Request Responses. This doesn’t hide names, but it stops the flood of accept/decline emails. To genuinely hide the list, an admin can configure a room/distribution setup, but for most people Option 1 is simpler.
Note: If true confidentiality matters (e.g., interviewing candidates), send each person a separate one-on-one invite, or send a meeting link and email it BCC as a normal message. A single shared meeting object will always expose its attendee list to the attendees.
How to Forward an Existing Calendar Invite
Need to loop someone in after the meeting’s already been created? You can forward the invite without recreating it.
New Outlook / Web
- Open the event on your calendar.
- Click the … (more options) menu and choose Forward — or open the event and use Forward in the toolbar.
- Enter the new person’s email address and click Send. They receive the invite and can RSVP.
Classic Outlook for Windows
- Double-click the meeting on your calendar to open it.
- On the Meeting tab, click Forward (or right-click the meeting in the calendar and choose Forward).
- Add the new attendee’s address and click Send.
If you’re the organizer, forwarding officially adds the person as an attendee. If you’re just an attendee forwarding to someone else, the organizer may receive a notification that you forwarded it, depending on the meeting’s settings — and the organizer can restrict forwarding entirely.
Outlook for Mac
- Open the event.
- Click Forward in the toolbar.
- Add the recipient and click Send.
Quick Reference
| Action | New Outlook / Web | Classic Outlook (Windows) | Outlook for Mac | Mobile |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Create meeting | New event | New Meeting (Ctrl+Shift+Q) | New Event | + button |
| Required vs optional | Optional line | Address book roles | Invitee icon toggle | People field |
| Add Teams link | Teams meeting toggle | Teams Meeting (ribbon) | Teams/Online toggle | Teams toggle |
| Forward an invite | … menu > Forward | Meeting tab > Forward | Forward (toolbar) | Limited |
| True BCC field | No (use workaround) | No (use workaround) | No (use workaround) | No |
| Turn off RSVP emails | Response options | Response Options | Response options | No |
Troubleshooting
Attendees didn’t receive the invite
First, confirm you created a Meeting (with attendees) and not a private Appointment — appointments never send invitations. Then check that you actually clicked Send rather than Save; saving a meeting puts it on your calendar without notifying anyone. For external recipients, the invite can land in spam, or your organization’s mail flow may be delaying it — ask the recipient to check their junk folder. If you added someone via the directory but their email later changed, the invite may have gone to a stale address.
Invite says “no response requested”
If attendees can’t RSVP, the organizer turned off response requests. In Classic Outlook, open the meeting, go to Meeting > Response Options, and enable Request Responses. In New Outlook, open the event and turn on Request responses in the options. Re-send the update for the change to take effect.
I’m not the organizer but want to invite more people
Open the invite and use Forward rather than trying to edit the attendee list. Only the organizer can modify the official attendee list and send updates; forwarding is how non-organizers loop others in. If forwarding is blocked, the organizer disabled it under the meeting’s forwarding settings — ask them to add the person.
Responses aren’t showing up in the Tracking view
Tracking only populates when attendees use the Accept/Decline buttons in an Outlook/Exchange client. If an attendee is on Gmail or another system, their reply may come as a plain email rather than a tracked response, so the Tracking tab won’t reflect it.
Forwarded invite shows the wrong organizer
A forwarded meeting always keeps its original organizer — the person who created it. The new attendee’s accept/decline goes to that organizer, not to you. If you want to own the meeting, create a fresh one instead of forwarding.
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More on Outlook: How to create a calendar event in Outlook · How to create a meeting link in Outlook · How to send calendar availability in Outlook · How to use the Scheduling Assistant in Outlook · How to schedule a meeting in Outlook · How to create a Teams meeting in Outlook
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