Customise Your Calendar Sync: Title Formats, Colours, Visibility & More

Built With Hosts, Not Just for Them

SynciCal was built by an Airbnb host, but it's shaped by every host who uses it. We actively listen to what our users need and build the features that matter most. The granular event type toggles below? That was requested by a customer who only wanted check-in and check-out events for their cleaning team — not the full reservation block cluttering their calendar.

If there's something you'd like to see, we want to hear about it. Reach out at support@staging.syncical.com — your idea might become the next feature.

Choose Which Events to Create

Every Airbnb reservation in the iCal feed can generate up to four separate Google Calendar events. You choose which ones to create per listing:

• Reservation — the full-stay block spanning check-in to check-out (enabled by default)
• Check-in — a short event at your specified check-in time on the first day
• Check-out — a short event at your specified check-out time on the last day
• Blocked Dates — calendar blocks from Airbnb (owner holds, unavailable periods)

Toggle any of these on or off in the Event Types panel under each listing's Sync Settings. Only care about the full reservation block? Disable the rest. Manage turnovers? Enable check-in and check-out so your cleaning team sees exact times. The same controls apply to manual bookings too.

Custom Event Title Formats

The default event title in most calendar sync tools is something unhelpful like "Reserved" or a raw Airbnb ID. SynciCal lets you choose a meaningful title format for each event type independently.

For reservations, you might choose:

• Beach House: 15/03 - 20/03 — listing name with dates at a glance
• Beach House (15/03 – 20/03) — a cleaner parenthetical style
• Booking: Beach House — simple label
• Beach House — minimal, just the listing name

Check-in and check-out events have their own format options too — "Check-in: Beach House", "Beach House — Arriving", "Beach House (Turnover)", and more. Every format uses your listing name dynamically, so you see real context in your calendar at a glance.

Title formats are set per listing, so if you manage multiple properties you can use different styles for each one.

Check-in & Check-out Times and Duration

Airbnb's iCal feed only provides dates — no actual times. SynciCal fills this gap by letting you set standard check-in and check-out times per listing, creating timed events instead of all-day blocks.

You can also set the duration for check-in and check-out events — from 15 minutes up to 2 hours — so your cleaning team sees "Check-out: Beach House" at 11:00 AM with a 30-minute slot instead of just "Reserved" all day.

Colour-Coded Listings

If you manage multiple Airbnb listings on the same Google Calendar, colour coding is essential. SynciCal lets you assign a Google Calendar colour to each listing so you can tell at a glance which property a booking belongs to.

All 12 Google Calendar colours are available. Assign one per listing and every event synced from that listing — reservations, check-ins, check-outs, blocks — inherits the colour automatically.

Manual bookings get their own colour picker too, so you can visually separate direct bookings from Airbnb-sourced ones.

Visibility & Free/Busy Control

Share your calendar with a co-host while keeping guest details private. SynciCal gives you per-event-type control over both visibility and free/busy status.

Visibility controls who can see event details: "Calendar default", "Public" (details visible to anyone with calendar access), or "Private" (hides details but still shows the time as blocked). Free/Busy controls whether the event blocks your calendar — set reservations to "Busy" for accurate availability, but keep blocked dates as "Free" if you want to appear available during owner holds.

Airbnb-Specific Extras

SynciCal extracts extra data from Airbnb's iCal feed that most sync tools ignore:

• Reservation Link — adds the Airbnb reservation URL to the event description, so you can jump straight to the booking details with one tap
• Phone (Last 4 Digits) — extracts the last 4 digits of the guest's relay phone number when available, useful for quick identification without exposing full contact details

Both options are toggleable per listing in the Airbnb Options panel. The reservation link is enabled by default; phone extraction is opt-in for privacy.

Manual Booking Settings

Manual bookings — direct reservations, date blocks, maintenance, and other events — have their own display settings that work independently from your iCal listings.

Each manual booking can be configured with its own visibility, free/busy status, and colour. You can also toggle a confirmation email that sends you a summary when the booking is saved — handy for record-keeping on direct bookings.

For booking-type manual events, you get the same event type toggles as iCal listings: choose whether to create a full booking block, check-in event, check-out event, or any combination. Block and maintenance events are simpler — they create a single all-day event with their own display settings.

Notes are privacy-first: manual booking data is synced directly to your Google Calendar and not stored on our servers. Your calendar events are yours — they persist even if you cancel SynciCal.

Check availability before adding a new booking using the vacancy checker in your management portal. It checks your dates against all existing manual bookings — and Airbnb booking conflicts are detected automatically during each sync with email alerts if overlaps are found. Manual bookings can be created up to 1 year in advance, with a maximum of 5,000 per calendar.

Where to Find These Settings

All configuration options live in your management portal — the same link you use to add listings and manage your sync. If you're already a SynciCal customer, you can access it from the email we sent when you signed up.

Under each listing, tap Sync Settings to expand the configuration panel. You'll see three sub-panels:

• Event Types — toggle which event types to create
• Airbnb Options — reservation link and phone extraction
• Display & Behaviour — title formats, visibility, and free/busy

For manual bookings, the settings panel appears under each booking card.

Every setting change is applied on the next sync — within 15 minutes for iCal listings, immediately for manual bookings.

Get Started

If you're new to SynciCal, the quickest path is our step-by-step setup guide. You'll be syncing within 15 minutes, and all the configuration options in this post are available from day one — including during your free trial.

Already a customer? Open your management portal and start customising. Every option covered here is included at no extra cost.