How to sync only during working hours

To keep evenings and weekends off a calendar, add a sync rule that looks at the time an event starts. Choose Starts outside set hours as the field, set your working hours, days and timezone, and choose Don't Sync as the action. Events that start outside those hours are not copied.

To keep them but without their details, choose "Sync, but hide the details" instead, and they arrive as blocked "Busy" time. The reverse also works: Starts inside set hours lets you act on the events that start during your working day.

How do I set it up?

1. Open Sync Rules and choose the connection under Add a Sync Rule.
2. Under Field, choose Starts outside set hours (or Starts inside set hours).
3. Under Hours, set From and To. The form opens on 09:00 to 17:00, Monday to Friday.
4. Tick the days the hours apply to. At least one day is required.
5. Check the Timezone. It opens on a timezone worked out from your account or calendars, but the hours in the rule are read in whatever timezone is shown here, so check it is the one you mean.
6. Under Then, choose an action, for example Don't Sync.
7. Choose Add and confirm. The confirmation says how many events on your calendars the rule affects.

How does a working-hours rule decide?

It judges each event by when it starts, not by how long it lasts. An event that starts at 16:00 and ends at 18:00 counts as inside 09:00 to 17:00.

Both ends are included. An event that starts at 09:00 or 17:00 (to the minute) counts as inside; the form says so under the times.

The day of the week is read in the rule's timezone as well. An event at 23:00 on a Friday in New York is a Friday event for a rule set to New York, even though it is already Saturday in UTC.

The rule uses its own timezone, not the timezone of the event. A meeting booked for 09:00 in Tokyo is judged by what time it is in the timezone you set, which is the timezone of your day.

Can the hours run overnight?

Yes. If the From time is later than the To time, the window is overnight. The form says: "This window runs overnight — it opens at 22:00 and closes at 06:00 the next day." The days you tick are the days the window opens. A window of 22:00 to 06:00 ticked for Friday covers Friday night into Saturday morning, not Friday's small hours.

What does it not do?

• All-day events have no start time, so they match neither Starts inside set hours nor Starts outside set hours. A rule that drops events outside your hours does not drop all-day events. To handle those, add a separate rule on All-day event; see sync rules by event property.
• A rule has one window. To use different hours on different days, add one rule per window. Two rules on the same connection with different hours are allowed.
• There is no shared "my working hours" setting that rules inherit. Each rule carries its own hours, days and timezone, so changing your hours means editing each rule.

Can I combine inside and outside rules?

You cannot have a Don't Sync or "Sync, but hide the details" rule on the inside of a window and another on the outside of exactly the same window, because together they would catch every timed event and nothing would sync in full. The screen refuses the second one with a message saying so. Windows that differ, and actions that only mark or label the copy, can be combined.

Which plans include it?

The 14-day trial, Premium and Pro include working-hours rules. Free and Basic do not.

On Free and Basic the two fields still appear in the list, tagged "(Upgrade to: Premium)". You can build the rule and preview it, but the button reads "Save, switched off" and the rule does not run until you are on a plan that includes it and switch it on. See why a sync rule was switched off after a plan change.

Working-hours rules work when the calendar you copy from is a Google, Outlook or Apple calendar, or a calendar feed: they only need to know when each event starts. They aren't available when either calendar is connected through Cronofy. If the fields are missing for a connection, it cannot offer them.

Only events in a time window

To copy only what happens during certain hours, for example a busy feed where you only want the lunchtime talks, set the connection to Only what matches and add a Sync it rule: Starts inside set hours, 12:00 to 15:00, on the days and in the timezone you choose. Only events that start inside that window come across. You can do this while creating the connection, on the What should come across? step.

What happens to copies that already exist?

Like any rule, saving it goes back over events already copied inside your sync window. A rule that drops events outside your hours removes the copies that start outside them, and deleting the rule copies them again. See what happens when I add or delete a keyword for how far that reaches.

Related: how to stop certain events from syncing and how to hide event details but keep the time blocked.