How to share your Airbnb and VRBO calendar with your cleaner

The quickest way to share your Airbnb calendar with your cleaner is to copy your listing's iCal link and send it to her. She adds it to Google Calendar, Apple Calendar or Outlook, and your bookings appear on her phone. It takes about two minutes and costs nothing.

The catch is what she sees when she opens it. A booking calendar tells her which nights are taken. It doesn't tell her when the guest leaves, when the next one arrives, or whether that blocked night is a guest at all. So most hosts who share the raw link end up texting their cleaner anyway.

Below are the three ways to share your calendar with your cleaner, the exact steps for Airbnb and VRBO, and what each method does and doesn't tell her.

What does your cleaner actually need from your calendar?

Your cleaner needs three things for every turnover: when the guest checks out, when the next guest checks in, and the time in between. That gap is the clean window. A 10am checkout and a 4pm check-in gives her six hours. An 11am checkout and a 3pm check-in gives her four. (For more on planning around those gaps, see turnover clean windows.)

She doesn't need guest names or reservation codes. She also needs to know when anything changes: a guest extends, a booking is cancelled, a new stay lands in a gap she thought was free.

Keep those needs in mind as you compare the methods. Each one passes on a different slice of them.

Method 1: Send her your iCal link

Every Airbnb and VRBO listing has an export link: a web address that produces a live calendar feed in the standard iCal format. Your cleaner subscribes to it once and her calendar app keeps checking it for changes.

How to copy your Airbnb calendar link

From the Airbnb help centre, on a computer:

1. Go to Calendar and select the listing.
2. Click Availability.
3. Under Connect calendars, click Connect to another website.
4. Copy the Airbnb calendar link.

How to copy your VRBO calendar link

From VRBO's help page, in the Owner Dashboard:

1. Open the listing and select Calendar, then Settings.
2. Go to the Availability tab.
3. Under Calendar sync, select Connect calendars.
4. Select Export calendar, then Copy URL.

In the VRBO Owner app the path is Calendar, the settings icon, Availability, Connect calendars, then Copy link. VRBO offers to include tentative bookings in the export. For your cleaner, leave that off so only confirmed stays reach her.

What she sees, and what she doesn't

Both Airbnb and VRBO label each stay simply "Reserved". The feed carries the dates, not your checkout or check-in times, so she can see the place is booked from the 14th to the 17th but not that she has from 11am to 3pm on the 17th.

There's a second problem with the Airbnb link. Airbnb's help centre says your calendar includes nights blocked by availability settings, preparation time, advance notice and minimum stays. Those nights come through as blocks too. A cleaner reading the raw feed can't always tell a guest from a night you closed off, so she either asks you or guesses.

And if you list on both platforms, she has two links, two calendars and no way of seeing which bookings sit next to each other.

Good for: one listing, simple turnovers, a cleaner who's comfortable reading a calendar feed and texting you to confirm times.

Method 2: Share a Google Calendar

The more readable version is to put your iCal links into a Google Calendar you own, then share that calendar with your cleaner.

How to set it up

1. Open Google Calendar on a computer.
2. Next to Other calendars, click +, then From URL.
3. Paste your Airbnb link and click Add calendar. Repeat for your VRBO link.
4. Give each one its own colour so she can tell the platforms apart.
5. Open the calendar's Settings and sharing, add your cleaner's email under Share with specific people, and send.

She gets an email invitation, accepts it, and your bookings sit alongside her other clients in one place.

Where it falls short

Google doesn't refresh subscribed calendars in real time. According to Google's Calendar help documentation, as quoted by the scheduling software company Cheqroom, changes to an external feed can take up to 12 hours to show up. A booking made at 9pm may not be on her calendar when she plans her next morning, and a cancellation can sit there as a live job.

It also inherits everything from method 1. She still sees "Reserved" blocks rather than clean windows, and Airbnb's preparation and advance-notice blocks still look like stays.

Good for: hosts who want a tidier view than raw links and can live with a delay of several hours.

How do you share both Airbnb and VRBO calendars with one cleaner?

Neither platform will combine them for you. You can lay both feeds over each other in Google Calendar, which helps you see them, but your cleaner is still reading two booking calendars and doing the turnover maths herself.

The risk shows up at the edges. A VRBO booking lands next to an Airbnb one after she has already looked at the week. Nothing tells her to look again. A shared calendar only works if she checks it at the right moment, and the moments that matter most, late bookings and changes, are exactly when she's least likely to.

What a cleaner on two platforms needs is one schedule of cleans, not two calendars of bookings, and a message when something changes.

Method 3: Give her a clean schedule instead of a booking calendar

GleamSync, a vacation rental cleaning coordination tool, reads the iCal links from your Airbnb and VRBO listings (and Booking.com, or any other calendar with a link). It uses the checkout and check-in times you set for the property to work out every clean window, and puts all your cleans on one schedule.

When a new booking creates a clean, you choose who does it. GleamSync doesn't pick a cleaner for you. Once you've assigned her, you can send her the details straight away, and from then on she gets reminders before the clean and a message if a clean she's on in the coming month moves or is cancelled. Messages go by email, SMS (US and Canada) or WhatsApp. She doesn't need an account or an app.

If she likes a calendar, she can subscribe to her clean schedule in Apple Calendar, Google Calendar or Outlook. She sees cleans, not "Reserved" blocks.

This is how I run my own place in Ucluelet. In my words:

"When a new booking is made and I assign her, it gives me the option to send her a notification. If it's within 30 days, I usually do. If it's more than 30 days out, I don't, because she doesn't usually check her schedule that far out."

"My cleaner does use a calendar, and she loves the text messages as well, because they keep her informed and remind her about things. The day before a clean she gets the details, so she knows any extras she needs to do and exactly how much she's getting paid, and she can send me the right invoice without asking me."

It costs $8 a month per property.

How do the three methods compare?

What if your cleaner won't use a calendar app?

Plenty of good cleaners don't want another calendar. If that's yours, methods 1 and 2 don't remove any work: you're the one reading the calendar and texting her every booking and every change.

In that case the message matters more than the calendar. Pick a way of telling her that doesn't depend on you remembering, and that reaches her on whatever she already uses. If she's new to working with you, our guide to onboarding a new Airbnb cleaner covers agreeing how you'll communicate before her first turnover.

And whatever you choose, have a plan for the day it fails anyway. See what to do when your cleaner doesn't show.

Frequently asked questions

Can I share my Airbnb calendar with my cleaner without a third-party tool?

Yes. Copy the iCal link from Calendar, Availability, Connect calendars, Connect to another website, and send it to her. She can subscribe in any calendar app. She'll see the dates the listing is blocked, but not your checkout or check-in times, so she'll still need those from you.

How often does the Airbnb calendar update?

Airbnb says it updates calendars it has imported from other websites every 3 hours, and you can press Refresh to update sooner. That's Airbnb pulling in other calendars. How quickly your cleaner sees a change in your Airbnb link depends on her calendar app, and Google Calendar can take up to 12 hours.

Can my cleaner see guest names in my Airbnb calendar?

No. The exported feed labels stays "Reserved" and doesn't include guest names. That's fine for cleaning, because she doesn't need them. What she does need, the times, isn't in there either.

How do I add my cleaner to my Airbnb calendar on both Airbnb and VRBO?

Copy the export link from each platform and either send her both, or add both to one Google Calendar and share that. Either way she reads two booking calendars. A coordination tool that reads both links can give her a single schedule of cleans instead.

Related reading

• Turnover clean windows: how much time your cleaner really has
• How to automate Airbnb cleaning without a marketplace
• How to onboard a new Airbnb cleaner
• What to pay your vacation rental cleaner
• Airbnb cleaner no-show: what to do before your guest arrives

Stop being the go-between for your calendar and your cleaner

GleamSync reads your Airbnb and VRBO calendars, works out every clean window, and keeps your cleaner informed by email, SMS or WhatsApp once you've assigned her. She doesn't need an account. It's $8 a month per property, with a 14-day free trial and no credit card needed.

See how it works