How to Use When2meet: Step by Step Guide (2026)

To use When2meet, open when2meet.com, type an event name, click the possible dates, set the earliest and latest times, and press Create Event. You then share the generated link; each person signs in with a name and paints their free times on a grid, and the group heatmap shows where availability overlaps.

When2meet has been free since 2009 and is supported by ads. There is nothing to install and no account system in the usual sense: everything lives at the unique URL created for your event. That simplicity is why it is still everywhere in student groups, clubs, and volunteer teams.

The trade-off is that the site explains almost nothing, has not been visibly updated in years, and makes a few decisions permanent. The steps below cover the whole flow, plus the things the interface never tells you.

Everything happens on the when2meet.com homepage. There is no signup step for organizers.

• Step 1. Name your event. Type something specific in the New Event Name box, like "Book club, week of March 9" rather than "Meeting". The name is the only context respondents get on the page.
• Step 2. Pick the possible dates. Click or drag on the small calendar to select the days you want people to consider. You can also switch the dropdown from Specific Dates to Days of the Week if you are planning something recurring, like a weekly practice.
• Step 3. Set the time range. Use the No Earlier Than and No Later Than dropdowns to bound the grid, for example 5:00 PM to 10:00 PM. Keep this tight: a 9 AM to midnight range creates a huge grid that is tedious to fill in, and tedious polls get fewer responses.
• Step 4. Check the time zone (optional but important). There is a time zone dropdown under the time range. It defaults to a US zone, so set it to yours before creating the event, especially if your group is spread out. Respondents can switch the display to their own zone later, but many never notice the dropdown.
• Step 5. Click Create Event. You are taken straight to your event page. The URL in your browser bar (something like when2meet.com/?12345678-abcdE) is the event. Copy it now; there is no dashboard to find it again later.

When2meet has no built-in email invitations, reminders, or notifications. Sharing is entirely on you: paste the link into your group chat, email thread, Slack, or Discord.

Because the tool has no deadline feature, the single most useful habit is to put one in your message. Something like: "Fill this in by Thursday night, and I will announce the time Friday morning." Without a stated deadline, When2meet polls tend to trickle in forever while the organizer keeps reopening the link to check.

A solid invite message has three parts:

• The link itself
• What the event is and roughly how long it will run
• A respond-by date and where you will announce the final time

If you would rather the tool handle this part, an alternative like Timespree emails the organizer as responses arrive, so nobody has to poll the poll. Our When2meet alternatives roundup compares the options.

When someone opens your link, they see a Sign In box on the left. This confuses people, so it is worth explaining in your invite: it is not an account. The name and optional password exist only inside this one event.

• Step 1. Enter your name. Use the name your group will recognize. This is how you will show up on the results grid.
• Step 2. Optionally set a password. Only needed if you want to come back later and edit your availability, or stop someone else from typing your name and changing it. If you skip it, anyone who enters the same name can edit your response.
• Step 3. Paint your free times. Click and drag across the grid on the left (My Availability). Cells turn green where you are free. Drag over green cells to un-mark them. On a desktop this takes seconds; on a phone it is fiddly, which we cover in the limitations section below.
• Step 4. Check the time zone display. If the times look wrong, use the time zone dropdown to switch the grid to your local zone before painting anything.
• Step 5. You are done. There is no save button. Changes are stored as you paint, so you can just close the tab.

The right-hand grid (Group's Availability) is the whole payoff. Every cell is shaded by how many people marked it free: white or pale cells mean few or none, and the darker the green, the more people can make it. The darkest cells on the grid are your best candidate times.

Two features are easy to miss:

• Hover over any cell to see two lists next to the grid: who is available at that time and who is not. This is how you answer "can we do Tuesday at 7 if we skip Sam?" without asking anyone.
• The respondent list shows everyone who has signed in so far, so you can see at a glance who has not filled it in yet and nudge them directly.

Once you pick the winning time, announce it wherever you shared the link. When2meet will not notify anyone, create a calendar event, or mark the poll as decided; the page just stays open forever as-is.

When2meet's speed comes with real constraints. Knowing them up front avoids most of the frustration.

• You cannot edit an event after creating it. The dates, time range, and name are fixed. If you picked the wrong week, the fix is to create a new event and re-share the link. Double-check before you post it.
• The grid barely works on phones. The site is not responsive, so mobile users see tiny cells, and dragging to paint fights with scrolling. Tell phone users to rotate to landscape and zoom in, or to respond from a computer. Our guide to When2meet on mobile has the full workarounds.
• No calendar sync. Respondents mark availability from memory, so double-bookings slip through. There is no official integration; see our When2meet and Google Calendar guide for the side-by-side workaround.
• No notifications or deadlines. The organizer must revisit the link to check progress and enforce any cutoff manually.
• Lost link means lost event. There is no organizer dashboard. If nobody kept the URL, the event is effectively gone, though anyone who still has the link can reopen it.
• "My availability disappeared" usually means the person signed in with a slightly different name (Sam vs Sam K.). Names must match exactly to edit an existing response.
• "The times look wrong" is almost always the time zone dropdown. Have the respondent switch it to their local zone; their painted cells convert automatically.

For a quick desktop poll among a handful of people, When2meet is still hard to beat on speed. It starts to cost you real responses when the group is on phones, spread across time zones, or busy enough that people forget their own calendars.

Timespree keeps the identical workflow (create event, share link, paint the grid, read the heatmap, no accounts for respondents) and fixes the specific gaps above: the grid is built mobile-first, every participant sees times converted to their own zone automatically, respondents can overlay busy times from Google, Outlook, or Apple Calendar for free, and the organizer gets an email as responses arrive. It is free and ad-supported, like When2meet.

If you want a wider survey of options, including open source picks, see the best When2meet alternatives or our guide on finding a meeting time that works for everyone.