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Every now and then, I look at my Google Calendar and see a bunch of random invites to video chats with people I've never met. Recently, my colleague noticed that her calendar was flooded for "invites" that automatically appeared on her calendar and said she had won a free iPhone. Yes, Google Calendar spam is a thing, and a quick search through Twitter revealed hundreds of complaints in recent weeks. The spam looks like this:

It's tough to avoid, since the events are based on spam messages sent to your Gmail inbox, but there are some ways to prevent it from cluttering up your calendar. Here's what to do.

How to stop Google Calendar spam

Open Google Calendar by going to Calendar.Google.com.

Tap the settings cog on the top-right of the page and select Settings.

Choose "Event Settings."

Change the option that says "Automatically add invitations" from "Yes" to "No, only show invitations to which I have responded." Now scroll down the page to the section titled "View Options" and uncheck the box that says "Show declined events." This prevents Google Calendar from showing spam that you've declined.

If you use Google Calendar on your phone, double check the settings inside the app to make sure that the changes have been applied. This should help prevent a lot of calendar spam that you get, but you may still get some. In my colleague's case, for example, the events on her calendar suggested that she had already accepted them, which means invitations still appeared. Delete one of them, then choose to delete all future events, and you should see them completely removed.