Calendar Applications For Mac

Calendar Applications For Mac Rating: 5,8/10 6387 reviews

Top 5 Calendar Apps for Mac That Will Keep You Organized. Looking for a Mac calendar app that goes beyond the features offered by iCal? These five apps, that work with Mac OS X or later, have all the essential calendar features plus added functionality including the ability to add tasks, to-do lists, weather updates, and customization options that will give you just the experience you want. If the shared calendar is enabled for instant syncing, and the user is viewing it on Outlook on the web, Outlook for iOS, or Outlook for Android, the new sync experience is in use. If the user views the shared calendar on Outlook for Mac, they'll see the new sync experience if the calendar was added by accepting a sharing invitation.

Managing your time has long been a part of the knowledge worker’s day, and calendar apps have been around almost as long as email. But while the quantity of available options is high, the number of quality calendar apps is a small handful.

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The option that is best suited for you will depend on your needs, but a closer inspection has shown us that, for most people, Fantastical 2 is the best calendar application for macOS users.

What We Looked For When Looking for the Best Calendar App

A calendar app on its own is a simple thing. You put items on it to show where you need to be, how long you’re going to be there, or what you’re going to do. Any calendar app must include those features to be useful in any way.

But a useful and effective calendar app requires those features to be well-designed, as well as include other functionality. Here’s what we looked at to arrive at our decision.

  • Ease of use: The number one priority of a calendar app must be the UI. How intuitive is the app? How easy is it to add a new event? A task or reminder? To add some notes or details to an event? How hard is it to invite people to an event? These are some of the questions we asked when comparing the options.
  • Aesthetics: For many people, using a calendar application is a necessary evil. It’s a tool to manage how other people are using up your time. But if you’re going to have to spend time managing this part of your life, an attractive interface can make the chore more enjoyable.
  • Power: Once you have a smart UI in place, the next thing to consider with a calendar app is the feature set. What can the user do from this application? The best app will need to meet the needs of the novice (your grandma) as well as the power user (your CEO’s assistant). And those features cannot detract from the usability of the app. No small order, there.
  • Price: With many categories of desktop applications, the price can often be irrelevant as the gap is narrow and most options are similar. However, because of Outlook’s inclusion in our comparison, price factored into our decision.
  • macOS integration: How well the application fits the environment is always key — especially for cross-platform tools. At the risk of sounding painfully obvious, a calendar app for macOS must work with iCloud. And not just for the calendar functionality: Reminders are a key tool for Apple users and need to be accessible in our selection.
  • Third-party integrations: Because macOS users do not all use the same calendar service (iCloud, Google Calendar, Exchange, etc.), our desktop app must work with all the available options.
  • iOS versions: Lastly, because most of us live in a multi-device environment, it is beneficial to have iOS versions of each app.

The Calendar App Contenders

  • Calendar (Free): Included in macOS, Apple’s option covers all the basics. It sports an attractive interface, but suffers from several usability issues.
  • BusyCal ($49.99): The BusyMac team has been in the app-making business for some time. And their flagship app, BusyCal, has long offered more features than its macOS counterpart. The focus here is functionality.
  • Fantastical 2 ($49.99): This option started as a menubar app for macOS, often used in tandem with the other desktop calendar options. It originally launched in May, 2011 and has since made its way to iOS. However, Fantastical 2 for macOS sports a new interface and is now a full-fledged desktop app.
  • Outlook ($6.99/$9.99 per month, $139.99/$219.99): The old behemoth chugs along. Outlook was a key cog in the Microsoft dominance on the PC, but it’s always felt like an ugly duckling on macOS. We wanted to know if that was still the case.

The Verdict: Fantastical 2 is the best calendar app for Mac

The original Fantastical for macOS was the best option for quickly adding and reviewing calendar entries. Version 2 keeps all its advantages while adding the functionality of more robust calendar applications.

Ease of Use

There is a lot to like about a number of these calendar apps, but what makes Fantastical stand out is the first item on our list of criteria: it’s the easiest to work with. For a calendar app, ease-of-use needs to be considered in a few different ways.

First, how easy is it to glance at your day, week, or month and quickly get a feel for how your time is going to be spent? Second, and perhaps more importantly, how easy is it to get items into your calendar? Because many calendar apps do a decent-to-good job of displaying your events, we could argue that ease-of-entry is the most vital part of a desktop calendar app.

And, in this regard, Fantastical leads the way.

Aside: savvy macOS users could point to the fact that desktop utilities such as Alfred, LaunchBar, and Spotlight make ease-of-entry a non-sequitur. And I agree: I often use LaunchBar to add events to my calendar rather than Fantastical … but this is a review of the full-fledged functionality of the desktop calendar app landscape. If launcher type utilities are your thing, check out our review.

From its inception, the focus with Fantastical was its natural-language parsing, the ability for the user to enter random bits of text into the entry box and the app just figures it out. It’s almost magical and it set the bar for calendar apps on macOS.

That has not changed with Fantastical 2. Although the app is no longer just a menubar utility, the ease of getting items into your calendar is the same. The great part of Fantastical 2 is that for those who loved the simplicity of the first version, you can use it in the exact same fashion. The full fledged app interface never needs to be seen.

Indeed, the menubar functionality is now a must-have for a calendar application. I want to be able to glance at my day without having to open the full application. Fantastical gives me that option and builds on the original experience of the first version to also give the full functionality and bigger long-term views of more traditional calendar apps.

Apple makes every effort to turn the phrase “it-just-works” into reality. Flexibits does the same with its ability to take what you throw at it and turn your words into events that make sense. And, as alluded to earlier, ease of use also includes a few other touches. Viewing a calendar filled with events and tasks is one factor, but we’ll touch more on the UI below.

Another way many calendar apps cause frustration is in editing events already in your calendar. Some of our options add friction to the process of editing existing entries, most often in the form of multiple clicks. Fantastical does no such thing. Simply click on an existing event, and update fields as desired. Other options require you to click a button or double click an entry before field values can be added. Advantage Fantastical!

There are a few other common tasks that are (thankfully) easier than was common several years back. Adding invitees, locations, or notes to a calendar entry is a fairly simple process in Fantastical, BusyCal, and Calendar.app — both in creating a new entry, or with editing an existing one. In this regard, Outlook adds slightly more friction to the process.

Aesthetics

In many interfaces, the “less is more” mantra is an ideal goal. Most clean, well-thought out UI’s make ample use of whitespace and contrast to differentiate between different types of content.

The hard part of designing a calendar application is that the designer has to give the user the ability to view a large amount of information (a month or year view of a busy person’s calendar), yet still maintain clarity. No easy task. In this regard, Flexibits has done a laudable job with Fantastical.

The desktop calendar space for macOS had long been ruled by options putting functionality over aesthetics or options that came close to usable, but slightly missed the mark (Apple’s own Calendar app).

Power Play

The problem with many of the apps that place the highest priority on aesthetics, ease of use, and a clean experience is that power features are often sacrificed. And in most cases, this is a good thing.

But applications that can provide a clean user experience and full functionality will rule the roost. That’s the case with Fantastical. No one could ever accuse BusyCal of not delivering on features, but it, and other options, lack the grace of Fantastical. So, when talking about feature sets, this must always be kept in mind.

How does Fantastical fare with features in mind? Very well, thank you! It integrates with iCloud and Google accounts, the two most used options for macOS users. But it also plays nicely with Exchange (for those poor souls living double lives), Yahoo, and CalDAV accounts. Is your Google account configured to use two-factor authentication? No problem.

In essence, desktop calendar applications can be thought of as wrappers. The full functionality is dependent on the background service (iCloud, Google etc). But each client on macOS integrates with those backend services to differing degrees. Fantastical does a fair job of offering the majority of options that iCloud and Google calendar apps provide.

However, one feature Fantastical does not include is the ability for users to share their calendars. But, neither do any of the other options we considered (apart from Outlook giving you options to share Exchange calendar accounts). Overall, most of the apps considered have parity in this regard. None of the other options add enough functionality to overcome Fantastical’s excellent design.

Price

For many comparisons of desktop applications for macOS, cost is not a determining factor, simply because the range of prices is mostly consistent, but with Calendar apps, price does come into the discussion. This is due to the fact that Apple provides a free option within the desktop OS, but also because Microsoft Outlook is more than 4 times the cost of the other contenders.

With Fantastical and BusyCal sitting at $49, people have two questions to answer. First, do these third-party applications offer enough advantage over the free app already installed on their computer? If the answer to that question is yes (and for many people, it likely is), the next question to answer is whether or not Outlook offers enough advantages over Fantastical and BusyCal to justify the $219 price tag.

Lastly, one consideration when factoring in price to a decision such as this is support. When a Mac user makes a purchase of this nature, choosing a third-party tool over what Apple already provides, you have to consider what kind of company your purchasing power is supporting. Part of what makes macOS so special is the thriving community of developers. They truly make macOS a better platform (as well as iOS), extending what it can do beyond what Apple envisioned.

It’s just another reason that makes Fantastical our top choice. It feels good to support the Flexibits team. Reciprocal benefit is a beautiful thing!

Fitting In

Another vital aspect of a desktop calendar app for macOS is fitting in and being a good neighbor. With iCloud, an app that makes adding and viewing reminders has a distinct advantage over an app that does not. And again, Fantastical meets the need, and does so better than the other contenders.

This may be one of my favorite touches with Fantastical. To add a reminder to one of your Reminder lists, simply toggle the switch in the new entry window.

The same benefits to adding an event to your calendar apply to your Reminders. Simply start typing in the entry window, then toggle the switch as shown above. Want that reminder to have a due date? Not a problem — just type it in like you would for an event. The natural parsing of Fantastical handles events and reminders with ease.

Displaying your reminders is also done well. In the Mini Window (capitalized for your pleasure), your reminders are placed at the end of your list of events. If one has a due date and time, it shows amidst your events at that time. In the full app window, the reminders show in both the sidebar and the full calendar view.

Apple has made an attempt to have Reminders be the default to-do list of the casual computer user. Unfortunately, they fell short making the experience fluid. However, Fantastical makes up where they lack. With Fantastical 2, the experience of adding, viewing, and interacting with reminders makes it feel as if Reminders is a natural extension of the calendar.

Fantastical has a fantastic (sorry … you knew it was coming!) Today widget. None of the other contenders offer that functionality. If the menubar is not your thing, then a quick three finger swipe can bring up the Today window for a look at what’s coming.

Basically, Fantastical makes working with your calendar and your reminders an experience. It’s the best option for fitting in with macOS. By far!

iOS Counterparts

Although not essential to the experience on macOS, any desktop application that has counterparts on iOS (or Android) extends the overall experience. Outlook is complete in this area, as is Apple’s Calendar app. However, the same smart design touches that make Fantastical the preferred option on macOS also give it the edge with the iOS versions.

We’ve written in detail about the Fantastical iPhone app in a separate review. Read more about that here.

Once again, Fantastical comes out ahead in our comparison.

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Other Candidates

BusyCal

Probably the most feature complete option we considered, BusyCal is the best choice for those who value function over form. It certainly gives you all the features you could want. Where it lacks for yours truly is the aesthetics: it looks and feels a little like corporate software.

I used BusyCal several years back when there were less options available to replace Apple’s iCal (you can almost smell the faux leather). Today, BusyCal is greatly improved, even to the point where it competes feature-by-feature with Fantastical.

A good example is the menubar functionality. Although BusyCal started as a full desktop app, in contrast with Fantastical’s progression from menubar utility to full app, it includes a nice menubar option that allows for quick calendar entry. It even uses Fantastical-like language processing.

Where it falls short of our choice is the overall look and feel.

Outlook

One consideration a review of this type requires is how to approach Outlook. Do you compare the calendar function only? Because it’s a full-fledged application that covers multiple categories (email, calendar, contacts, tasks, and notes) with a price tag to match, you have to decide if the additional functionality should factor in to the comparison.

For this review, it did not. If an all-in-one approach is your preference, then Outlook is certainly a potential good fit for you. But, when considering calendar-specific features on their own, Fantastical is a much better overall experience than what the calendar portion of Outlook has to offer.

Another issue to weigh is the cost. Is Outlook good enough to overcome the larger price tag? Not in this author’s mind. If fitting in with Exchange is a must have or if you already subscribe to Office 365, then Outlook merits serious consideration. For anyone else, the other options are all a better fit.

Calendar

Last, and certainly least, Apple’s own Calendar must be considered. It’s free, it’s installed on every Mac, and it has improved over the years (the Scott Forstall faux leather years, to be specific). For the most casual user, it can certainly fit the bill.

Where does it lack compared to Fantastical? Well, it does not have a menubar option. As mentioned under ease of use, this is a must have for yours truly.

The oddest part of Calendar is its lack of integration with other iCloud items. Want to interact with your Reminders in your calendar app? Then Calendar is not for you. Same for the Calendar Today widget. Because Apple separates Reminders into its own app, you cannot see these tasks (even if they are time-based) in the view of your day. You’d have to keep both apps open.

Once again, the completeness of Fantastical surpasses the contender.

Why this over other options

With our full comparison, while there is feature parity for the most part, none of the options can compete with Fantastical in terms of overall design and ease of use. BusyCal comes close feature-wise, but is lacking the grace of a more well-designed application. And while Apple’s Calendar has the benefit of already being on your machine, it falls short in terms of usability.

Fantastical is the king of the hill. You need look no further!

The best calendar apps keep your day flowing smoothly. Ideally, you should be able to review it at the top of the week for an overview and every morning to get a grasp on your day, relying on notifications for the rest of the time. The right calendar app helps you stay on top of appointments, holidays, and celebrations, not to mention deadlines.

The calendar app that's right for you depends on your needs and lifestyle. Do you rely on notifications and reminders or do you find them a nuisance? Do you need to manage a calendar collectively with a household or other coworkers? Do you prefer a streamlined and subtle interface or an app that's jammed full of features, such as in-app notes and to-dos, design be damned?

We considered and tested several dozen calendar apps to find the 10 best that meet a variety of needs.

What Makes a Great Calendar App?

Calendar apps have two core functions: They show your upcoming schedule and remind you of important events. The best calendars, however, aren't just functional. The give you clarity about how you spend your time, and a few rare finds are even a joy to use.

In looking for the best calendar apps, we considered apps that have five characteristics.

Easy to use. Calendar apps are easy to use when they require minimal clicking and menu exploration. They should be intuitive to learn to use and not require a lot of tending.

Designed with intention. Aesthetics aside, a good app should be designed with intention. An app with a multitude of colors and icons may look busy to one person's eye but come across as highly functional to another. If you can tell different kinds of events apart easily and get a bird's eye view of your schedule, that's what matters. For those who appreciate minimalism, however, there's certainly an allure to an uncluttered user interface because it makes checking your calendar a pleasant and stress-free experience.

Packed with features and customizable. If you're a serious scheduler, power features, such as customizable views and integrations with task management apps, will help you get the most out of your calendar. For those apps that aren't heavy on features, we looked for customization options that make the app adjust to your style.

Simple to share. Sharing features, such as the ability to give other people access to your schedule, can be a huge help. Some calendar apps are more collaborative than others, and some are more suited for home use than office. In the descriptions of the best calendar apps below, we call attention to sharing options when they are front and center in an app.

Available for multiple devices. When considering apps for this list, we gave preferences to apps that are accessible on more than one platform, as you should be able to see your calendar no matter where you are and what device you have on hand.

There's no need reason to limit yourself to one calendar app. It's quite common, for example, to use Google Calendar, Outlook calendar, or Apple Calendar (formerly referred to as iCal) as the holding tank for your calendar entries, and then port them into a different calendar app that better meets your needs in terms of form and function.

With these criteria in mind, here are the 10 best calendar apps, listed alphabetically.

10 Best Calendar Apps

  • Any.do (Android, iOS, Web)
    Best calendar app for staying organized
  • Apple Calendar (iOS, macOS, Web)
    Best calendar app for storing data on Apple devices
  • Cozi (Android, iOS, Web, Windows)
    Best calendar app for managing large families
  • Fantastical 2 (iOS, macOS)
    Best non-native calendar app for Mac
  • Google Calendar (Android, iOS, Web)
    Best free calendar app for all-purpose use
  • Microsoft Outlook Calendar (Android, iOS, macOS, Windows)
    Best business calendar app
  • My Study Life (Android, iOS, Web)
    Best calendar app for students and educators
  • Thunderbird Lightning Calendar (Linux, macOS, Windows)
    Best personal calendar app for combining with email and tasks
  • TimePage by Moleskine (iOS)
    Best paid calendar app for iOS
  • TimeTree (Android, iOS, Web)
    Best free collaborative calendar app

Any.do (Android, iOS, Web)

Best calendar app for staying organized

The excellent to-do app Any.do formerly had a separate calendar app called Cal, which it has more recently rolled into the namesake app to create one unified place for your tasks, goals, reminders, and schedule. A rich variety of reminders help you stay on top of your agenda, to-do, and goals.

The calendar shines on mobile devices, where it makes use of the small screen with grace and poise. You can connect Any.do to your stock calendar app to import existing events. In the month view, all events appear as colored dots, with the color mapping up to whatever colors you use to manage the original calendar (for example, you might keep a birthday calendar in yellow and personal appointments in blue). At the bottom of the screen, you see a snapshot for the selected day, and you can open any event to see more information about it.

Any.do's calendar is appealing to people who need tools to help them stay organized, such as location-based reminders, a notification that reminds you to preview what's on your agenda at the beginning of each day, and the ability to add in travel time to any notification before an event. It's the app to choose if you need a lot of help staying organized with your day.

Any.do Pricing: Free; paid plans from $32.88/year


Apple Calendar (iOS, macOS, Web)

Best calendar app for storing data on Apple devices

Because it's built into macOS and iOS, Apple Calendar is the default place to store calendar entries on Apple devices. Without any real effort on your part, aside for enabling iCloud, you can keep your calendar up to date across all your iPhone, iPad, and Mac. In a pinch, you can also view and update your calendar entries from a web app on icloud.com.

Apple Calendar allows you to pull in data from other calendars, too, such as Google Calendar, Microsoft Exchange, Yahoo, and any calendar that uses CalDAV. Setting it up is about as easy as connecting an email client app to another email account.

Apple Calendar's clean and simple lets you focus on your events rather than the app itself. It's intuitive to use if you're familiar with other Apple apps. Click or tap the plus sign (+) to create a new event, which can include a title, location, reminder, note, and invitees. You can add a travel time estimate that will be factored into event alerts. As you might expect, this no-frills calendar integrates with Apple devices, so that you see notifications from it in the iOS and macOS notification bars.

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Apple Calendar Pricing: Included with macOS and iOS devices, or free via iCloud


Cozi (Android, iOS, Web, Windows)

Best calendar app for managing large families

Family schedules are hectic. Band rehearsal some mornings, soccer games after school, not to mention constantly conflicting appointments… and when is the dog walker going on vacation again? Cozi is designed with busy families in mind, consolidating multiple calendars, to-do lists, and shopping lists in one app. Think of it like the old-school bulletin board and wall calendar hanging in the kitchen, only smarter and pocket-sized.

With Cozi, you create one centralized calendar and give appropriate people access to it, such as family members, nannies and au pairs, pet sitters, and so forth. Members have a color assigned to them so that when you create an event and indicate who needs to know, their colors appear on the calendar entry. The app is accessible on a variety of mobile apps, and via the web.

The calendar is merely one feature in Cozi, which also has shopping lists, to-do lists, a journal, and messaging features. It's a complete family organizer.

Cozi Pricing: Free; $29.99/year for Cozi Gold, which adds calendar search, multiple reminders, a birthday tracker, and removes advertisements.


Fantastical 2 (iOS, macOS)

Best non-native calendar app for Mac

Is it cheesy to call Fantastical 2 fantastic? Probably, but at least in this case, it's not hyperbole. Fantastical 2 has just about everything one could want in a calendar app for iOS and macOS, in addition to being available on Apple Watch. While it's key to have the mobile app, Fantastical 2 really shines on desktop.

The app is colorful without being gaudy or overwhelming, and it's easy to use without sacrificing control over your event details. On a Mac, the menu bar app lets you quickly add an event or see what's on your agenda in the coming days. Adding details to your events, such as notes, URLs, invitees, and locations, feels quick and smooth on the desktop app. Fantastical 2 also integrates with the rest of your system to give you a Today view widget, Handoff support, and a share extension that lets you create events from other apps, such as from addresses in Maps and URLs in Safari.

Fantastical 2 is most renowned, though, for its natural-language event creation. Start typing 'Lunch with Casey at noon at Park Place' and watch as the app parses your words into calendar fields and pulls in relevant information, such as addresses and team members' availability. The natural language parsing means you can interact with the calendar app as infrequently as you want and still create events without having to think like a computer. While $50 is a hefty price to pay for a calendar app, it's worth it if you live in your calendar and want something other than the Apple default. While the app isn't free, you can download the app free from the developer's website to try it for 21 days.

Fantastical 2 Pricing: $49.99 for macOS, $9.99 for iPad, $4.99 for iPhone


Google Calendar (Android, iOS, Web)

Best free calendar app for all-purpose use

Google Calendar might be the most popular calendar app around (according to one survey, anyway). Much of its popularity comes from the fact that you can create multiple calendars in one place using a Google account, and then port those calendar entries to nearly any other online calendar you might use, as Google works with nearly everything else on the market. You can connect your Google Calendar to not only other calendar apps, but also business apps and services that have calendars as part of their features, such as Trello and Asana.

Color coding for individual calendars makes it easy to see which area of your life an event applies to at-a-glance, or to show or hide calendars so that you can focus on specific types of events. Plus, as you would expect from the company that started as a search tool, Google Calendar offers excellent search capabilities. It also integrates with G Suite apps, letting you create a calendar event from Gmail, for example. When used across an entire organization, Google Calendar gives you the ability to check your co-workers' schedules alongside your own. Inviting others to your calendar is a cinch too, whether you're sharing an entire calendar or use the invite option to add people to an event.

Although there's no desktop app, Google Calendar's web app and mobile apps for Android and iOS are enough to keep schedules straight. If you want a more enticing user interface or more powerful features, you can always connect Google Calendar to virtually any other app on this list.

Google Calendar Pricing: Free with a Google account


Microsoft Outlook Calendar (Android, iOS, macOS, Windows)

Best business calendar app

The most stalwart of calendar apps, Microsoft Outlook is more of a personal information manager than a place to see your next appointment. The desktop app unifies your calendar, email, notes, tasks, and contacts into one view. Outlook's mobile apps aren't quite so ambitious, but they do at least combine your calendar and email.

Outlook, which is part of Microsoft Office, lets you share calendars with teammates, and that's its real strength. With Exchange Server accounts and the appropriate permissions, team members can view and manage each others' schedules and subscribe to one others' calendars. Outlook offers options for how you can view multiple calendars at once: side-by-side or with calendars combined in an overlay view.

If you don't use Outlook within an organization, you might still appreciate the calendar's many features. You can drag and drop an email onto the calendar icon in the navigation menu to turn it into an appointment (available in the Windows app only), or quickly send a meeting request from either email or the calendar. Outlook supports multiple time zone views, too. There's a lot to dig into.

You can get a free online version of Outlook, called Outlook.com, which is more streamlined and has fewer features. Outlook.com has family sharing so you can add other household members to your account to make your calendar accessible to others.

The Mac version of Outlook isn't as robust as the Windows version, but if you like having everything in one place, this is an all-in-one productivity tool to consider.

Microsoft Outlook Pricing: Office 365 subscriptions, which include the Microsoft Outlook desktop app, start at $5.99/month or $59.99/year. Apps free for Android and iOS.


My Study Life (Android, iOS, Web)

Best calendar app for students and educators

My Study Life is a free calendar app designed to meet the unique needs of students and educators. In the educational world, schedules are drastically different from those in the private sector. Students typically follow a semester or term system rather than a quarterly one. They meet for classes on a Monday-Wednesday-Friday schedule, or maybe on Tuesday and Thursdays only, or perhaps their courses alternate on an A/B day setup. If a national holiday falls on a Monday, students sometimes find themselves going to Monday's courses on Tuesday. In short, educational calendars are full of exceptions and unusual circumstances, and My Study Life was created to accommodate them.

The app is available on the web or as a mobile app for Android and iOS. It's not a bad idea to use the web app when first getting started, at least until you've logged all your classes and their timings. Once you get the hang of the app, it does double duty by letting you log assignments and other tasks you need to do, whether it's homework or preparing a lesson plan as an educator. You can keep track of your progress on assignments, too, noting how close they are to completion as a percentage. Yet another section of the app lets you keep track of scheduled exams.

My Study Life is free to use, and it's a great choice for students who are tired of calendars that don't deliver what they need.

My Study Life Pricing: Free

App

Calendar Software For Mac


Thunderbird Calendar (Linux, macOS, Windows)

Best personal calendar app for combining with email and tasks

Not only is Thunderbird one of the best email apps you can find, it also is a superb calendar. In previous versions of this app, you had to install the Thunderbird Lightning Calendar add-on to have an integrated calendar, but now it's included with the app from the get go.

Calendar Applications For Mac

Applications For Mac Os X

Thunderbird gives you a tab for your email, calendar, and tasks. The setup lets you easily hop between communicating, scheduling, and managing what you need to get done. On the calendar tab, you can see a summary of everything on your schedule for today, even if you've paged forward through the months to plan events in the future.

The calendar offers four different views: day, week, multi-week, and month. It also has a convenient search function with time filters and built-in categories for events, such as 'birthday' and 'calls.' Although there's nothing particularly striking about Thunderbird's calendar, having the whole kit and kaboodle—personal email client, calendar, and task-management app—in one app makes it easy to plan your time and keep your life organized.

Thunderbird Pricing: Free


Timepage by Moleskine (iOS)

Best paid calendar app for iOS

Timepage is one of the most beautiful calendar apps for iPhone and iPad. This paid app comes from the same company that sells Moleskine notebooks, the ones you see on display at bookstores around the world. The app shares the same minimalist design ethos as the paper books. You can choose a color scheme for your calendar, and no matter which option you pick, it still looks sleek and clean. Swiping left and right takes you to a month view and the app settings, while going up and down scrolls you through a day by day view of your agenda. Timepage has page-turning and scrolling sound effects for your vertical and horizontal swipes, too.

A few special features, such as alerts before it rains and a daily briefing, add value and make paying for Timepage worthwhile. The app also comes with the ability to create Siri Shortcuts and widgets. Compatibility with Apple Watch isn't available as of this writing but is purportedly in development.

You can try Moleskine and all its features for seven days, but after that, you'll need a paid subscription to get anything more than a read-only calendar. Once you do have a subscription, you can sign into the app on both iPhone and iPad. The iPad version of Timepage has a few unique features. For example, you can use split screen mode to view your calendar while also looking at another app, such as email. Or you can use a special double view option that lets you see two different views of Timepage side-by-side, in case you need to look closely at today's details alongside a timeline overview of event on the horizon.

If you're an iOS devotee looking for a calendar app with a minimalist design, and you don't mind paying a few dollars per year, Timepage by Moleskine is the calendar app to choose.

Timepage by Moleskine Pricing: $1.99/month or $11.99/year


TimeTree (Android, iOS, Web)

Best free collaborative calendar app

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TimeTree is a collaborative calendar app for Android, iOS, and the web that guides you to creating useful calendars by trying to understand your intention for its use first. For example, when you create a new calendar in TimeTree, the app asks you whether it's for personal, family, friends, work, relationship, or group use.

Each option has a descriptor so you can better understand the purpose. For example, the relationship calendar is best when you need to know someone else's schedule, as it's a calendar made for two people to share. The friends calendar, however, comes with features for commenting and discussing plans, such as finding a suitable date for multiple people to meet. You don't have to have only one calendar, however. You create multiple calendars with this app, and as you do, it can display your events in an overlay, giving you a full picture of what's on your schedule. Color coding for each calendar helps you know what's what.

TimeTree is one of the better choices of free apps for managing multiple calendars, including collaborative ones, when you don't want to use one of the big three companies in calendar data storage (namely, Apple, Google, and Microsoft). It also lets you import other calendars, such as those with a list of different national holidays and so forth.

TimeTree Pricing: Free

Connect Your Calendar to Other Apps You Use

As much as you might love your calendar app, no one wants to spend too much time entering details into events and copying them to other places where you need them, like into a to-do app, or creating reminders for every appointment. A better strategy is to get these types of actions to happen automatically, and you can create automations for your calendar using Zapier.

With a Zapier account, you can connect your calendar to other apps and services you use, whether it's email, a to-do app, or even text messages on your phone. Then, you create rules to automate what you want. For example, you can receive a text message however many minutes you like before any Google Calendar event starts.

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Another example: When you add a new event in Google Calendar, automatically get a reminder in Slack. Or when you create a new task in Todoist, then also create a corresponding new event on Google Calendar.

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This article originally published in May 2017 by Melanie Pinola and was updated in December 2018.

Title photo remixed from originals by Zlatko Najdenovski via Noun Project.