A simple, intuitive, free scheduling app.
No accounts, no tracking, no data harvesting.

Learn more about Overlapster
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Find overlapping avails simply and easily
(without compromising your data)

Tired of cumbersome scheduling interfaces? Overlapster simplifies the process while avoiding cookies, logins, or exposing personal data. Populate your available timeslots on the scheduling grid and get a heatmap view of where the optimal overlaps occur.

Start a pollSee an example poll
Group heatmap underneath · your own hours as dots on top · blank where a required person is out

Three answers, not two

Preferred, possible, or not possible. Real scheduling runs on “I could move something,” and binary tools throw that away.

Required people

Mark who has to be there. Windows they can't make go blank and are never ranked, however many others are free.

Ranked windows for a real meeting length

Pick 30, 60 or 90 minutes and get the top three windows, with who marked it preferred and who marked it possible.

Time zones without permission prompts

Your zone comes from your clock settings, never your location. Everyone marks their own hours; the grid translates, DST included.

One-off, recurring, or your own grid

A date range up to three months, a generic week for a standing meeting, or name the rows and columns yourself: mornings and afternoons, venues, anything that fits a grid.

Live

Watch the overlap appear as people fill in. Polls self-destruct after the dates pass.

Privacy

There are no accounts and no email addresses. A poll is an unguessable link; whoever has it can see it. Each person can edit only their own hours. Nothing reads your calendar, nothing asks for your location, and the only cookie-like thing is a token in your own browser that remembers which row is yours. Calendar polls delete themselves a day after their last date; recurring and custom polls after 60 days without edits.

offline Preview kind Preview as
  • Use the below grid to highlight the days and hours you can meet.
  • Turn on the Heatmap to see the best times for all current respondents.
Potential dates:to Earliest / Latest:to Respond by:

Share this poll

Overlapster stores no personal data (no emails, no cookies), so these two links are the only way back into your poll. Paste them into an email draft to yourself now; they’re also under Share poll (top right) any time. There are no reminder emails either: set a Respond by date and anyone can subscribe to a calendar entry that becomes the meeting once you settle on a time.

Decided
Subscribe in calendarDownload .ics

About Overlapster

Overlapster is a small, free tool for finding when a group can meet. Everyone highlights the hours they can do, in their own time zone, and the best overlaps are ranked for you. There are no accounts and nothing reads your calendar.

If it saved you an email thread, the tip jar is open.

Buy me a coffee

What makes it different

  • Three answers, not two: Preferred, Possible, or Not Possible. Real scheduling runs on “I could move something,” and binary tools throw that away.
  • Required people: mark who has to be there, and slots they can’t make are never ranked, however many others are free.
  • Ranked overlaps for a real meeting length, with who marked each one preferred and who marked it possible.
  • Time zones from your clock settings, never your location. Everyone answers in their own hours and the grid translates, daylight saving included.
  • One-off, recurring, or your own grid: a date range up to three months, a generic week for a standing meeting, or rows and columns you name yourself.

Privacy

  • No accounts and no email addresses. A poll is an unguessable link; whoever has it can see it, and each person can edit only their own hours.
  • Nothing reads your calendar and nothing asks for your location. The only thing kept in your browser is a token that remembers which row is yours.
  • Calendar polls delete themselves a day after their last date; recurring and custom polls after 60 days without edits.

How this grid works

Step 1 · Filling in your avails

  • Click cells or drag across them to set them to the selected state: Preferred, Possible, or Not Possible.
  • Click one cell, then shift-click another, to fill the whole rectangular block between them.
  • Click a filled cell again to return it to the default state, Not Possible.
  • Undo a stroke with Ctrl/Cmd+Z; redo with Shift+Ctrl/Cmd+Z.

Step 2 · Choose your timeslot

  • Once your participants have filled in their availabilities, turn on the Group Heatmap for a quick visual read of the best alignments, or consult the Best Overlaps panel to see them in list form.
  • Options are ranked by how many people can make the whole slot, with partial coverage breaking ties: if two slots work equally well for everyone else, the one where the seventh person can make 45 minutes beats the one where they can make 15. Partials show on each card with the minutes they can do.
  • In the list of respondents, mark anyone as Required with the req toggle to narrow the results to times they can make. Clicking req is hypothetical at first: it only changes your own view, marked req*, with a bar below the list to clear your choices. The organizer also gets Commit, which makes the current set the shared one everyone sees. Set aside options you don’t want with Disregard, and expand the list tier by tier with Next best options.
  • When you’ve settled, press Choose on the winning option. That pins the decision for everyone, closes the poll to further changes, offers a calendar file, and moves any subscribed calendar entries to the chosen time.

Deadlines and calendars

  • The organizer can set a Respond by date. It’s shown to everyone as a nudge; it doesn’t lock anything. Responses stay open until the organizer chooses a time.
  • Subscribe in calendar adds a live entry to your own calendar app (Apple, Google, Outlook) with no account or email involved: your calendar simply checks the poll’s address now and then. It shows as [RESPOND BY] poll name on the deadline, and once a time is chosen it moves to that slot as [SETTLED] poll name.
  • How quickly it moves depends on your calendar: Apple Calendar refreshes as often as you set it, Outlook every few hours, Google Calendar roughly once a day. Download .ics is the one-off alternative once a time is settled.
  • Nothing flows back: the poll can’t see who subscribed, and you can unsubscribe by deleting the calendar.

Other info

  • Time zones are detected per person from their operating system, so people in different zones each answer in their own local time and the grid lines everything up.
  • Custom mode works for any poll that fits a grid, not just schedules: restaurants by night for a group dinner, films by screening date, venues by weekend for an offsite, or tasks by volunteer for a shift roster.

Add your availability

or

Respondents

* Viewing schedule with hypothetical required participants selected.

Best Overlaps

Overlapster is free and has no accounts. If it saved you an email thread, the tip jar is open. Buy me a coffee