How to put your syllabus due dates into Google Calendar

Every semester starts the same way: four or five syllabi, each with its own table of due dates, and a calendar with none of them in it. There are three ways to get them across. Which one is right depends on where your professor actually keeps the dates.

First: make one calendar per semester

Do this before anything else, whichever way you go. In Google Calendar on a computer, click the + next to “Other calendars,” choose Create new calendar, and name it something like “Fall 2026 school.”

Put every due date on that calendar, not your main one. You can give it its own color, hide it over break, and delete the whole thing in one click if an import goes wrong. That last one matters more than it sounds.

Way 1: type them in

Slow, but it works for any syllabus and you'll actually read your due dates once, which is worth something. A few things make it less painful:

• Use all-day events unless the syllabus gives a time. An event at “12:00 AM” is easy to misread as the night before or the night after.
• Start the title with the class. “BIO 130: Lab report 3” is readable in a crowded week. “Lab report” isn't.
• Set the reminder once, on the calendar. In the calendar's settings, under event notifications, add a default like one day before. Every event you add after that gets it.
• Do one class at a time, start to finish. Skipping between syllabi is how a quiz gets left out.

Way 2: import a spreadsheet

If you have more than a couple dozen dates, build a spreadsheet and import it in one go. Google Calendar reads a CSV file with these column names in the first row:

• Subject: the event title. Required.
• Start Date: like 10/15/2026. Required.
• All Day Event: True or False.
• Start Time, End Date, End Time, Description, Location: optional.

Fill in one row per assignment, then save or download the sheet as a CSV file. In Google Calendar on a computer, open Settings, then Import & export, choose the file, pick your semester calendar, and click Import.

• It only works on a computer. The phone app can't import.
• Importing twice makes duplicates. There's no undo. This is why the separate semester calendar matters: delete it, make a new one, import again.
• Check five dates by hand afterward. A wrong date format can shift things by a day or swap the month and day.

You can ask an AI chatbot to turn a syllabus into that spreadsheet. It saves typing, and it also makes mistakes: a date from the wrong row, a made-up year, a missing quiz. Check every row against the syllabus before you import. An assignment on the wrong day is worse than one that's missing, because you'll trust it.

Way 3: subscribe to your Canvas calendar

If your professors put due dates on Canvas assignments, Canvas already has a calendar you can subscribe to:

1. In Canvas, open Calendar from the left menu.
2. Click Calendar Feed, at the bottom of the right-hand side, and copy the link.
3. In Google Calendar on a computer, click the + next to “Other calendars,” choose From URL, and paste it.

What to know before you rely on it:

• It's slow to update. Google checks subscribed calendars on its own schedule, which can be many hours. If a professor moves a deadline tonight, your calendar may not show it until tomorrow.
• It only has what's on Canvas. Anything that lives only in the syllabus PDF, like a reading schedule or an in-class quiz, won't be there.
• It's read-only. You can't check things off or edit them.
• Treat the link as private. Anyone with it can see your calendar.

Which one should you use?

• Dates are on Canvas assignments: subscribe to the Canvas feed, then skim each syllabus for anything it missed.
• Dates are only in the syllabus: type them in for a light semester, or import a spreadsheet for a heavy one.
• Some of each, which is most semesters: do both, on the same semester calendar, and expect a few duplicates.

Whichever you pick, look at the syllabus again around midterms. Professors change dates, and a calendar you built in week one doesn't know.

Using Canvas with another app? See how to get a Canvas access token.