Buffers in microsoft bookings

Question

Has there been any update on removing buffers in calendars since someone enquired 12 months ago on here?

Answer 1

Dear @Leanne Darby,

I hope you’re having a good day and thank you for following up on this.

Based on what I’ve been able to find, there doesn’t appear to be any recent update or change to how buffer time is handled in Microsoft Bookings. The feature is still part of the current design and continues to work in the same way as before.

From what I can see at the moment:

• Buffer time is still configured at the service level, where you can define time before and/or after an appointment.
• It is included in the total duration required for booking availability (for example, a 60‑minute appointment with a 15‑minute buffer requires a 75‑minute free slot).
• While customers don’t see the buffer time directly, it still affects how availability is calculated and how time is reserved in the calendar.

At this stage, there doesn’t seem to be a built‑in option to “remove” buffer time from the calendar behavior while keeping it for scheduling logic. In other words, buffer time is still treated as part of how Bookings manages availability, rather than something that can be separated out purely for display purposes.

I completely appreciate that this can be limiting depending on how you’d like your calendar to look and behave. If your goal is to keep spacing between appointments but avoid the impact on how events appear, some users typically explore alternatives such as adjusting the service duration instead, or using Power Automate to manage additional time blocks separately, although these approaches are more workarounds than native features.

I hope this information helps point you in the right direction. Please feel free to reply below if you have any update or further concern.   

Warm regards, 

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Answer 2

Buffer time is still a supported and configurable feature in Microsoft Bookings and has not been removed.

Buffers are managed per service on the Service details page:

• Enable buffer time using the buffer time toggle.
• Configure Before and/or After drop-downs to set default buffer durations.
• These defaults can be overridden on individual bookings as needed.

Customers cannot see or change buffer times, but buffer time is included in the total duration used to calculate availability. For example, a 60-minute appointment with a 15-minute pre-appointment buffer requires a 75-minute free slot and will block that full period on the calendar.

No change is documented that removes buffers from calendars; instead, current documentation continues to describe how to configure and use them.

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References:

• Configure service availability in Microsoft Bookings