Flexibits’ calendar app Fantastical really lives up to its name, offering an experience that arguably beats out even Apple’s own Calendar app. It lets you connect all your accounts easily – iCloud, Google, Yahoo, obscure ones like CalDAV, you name it – then see them all. May 25, 2019 The calendar is free of cost and syncs with many other apps to ease your life. Its web and mobile apps are equally efficient and useful. Even though it is the default calendar for all Android devices, still it is regarded as one of the best free calendar apps for Mac. But if you are a.
This year has been a literal dumpster fire, but we all still have lives that we need to live, as hectic as they can be. We know — you have meetings, appointments, events, errands, and so much more on your plate, and managing everything can be quite difficult. That's why it really helps to have a digital calendar to help you track everything on your schedule. Here are some of our favorite calendar apps on Mac.
Fantastical
Fantastical has been around for several years now, and even though it has switched to a subscription model, it remains the favorite calendar app for many of us here at iMore.
With Fantastical, you are getting a fully functional desktop app that also has a menubar version for quick access. You can customize your views for daily, weekly, monthly, and even yearly, and your agenda of events appears in the side bar as well. If you are running multiple calendars at once, things can get gnarly — Fantastical lets you customize sets of calendars to view at once, and they can even be location-based, so things don't get too crazy when viewing. For example, you can have work calendars viewable while you're at work, but personal ones when you're at home.
The natural language input is also top-notch, as the app easily understands and fills out all of the appropriate fields while you type out something as simple as 'Have lunch with Mom at In-N-Out on Tuesday at 2 p.m.'
While Fantastical does have a subscription model now, previous users of Fantastical 2 get most of the features unlocked, so it's still very functional. If you're new to Fantastical, there is a trial to test it out to see if you like it before deciding on a subscription. The free version has restricted features.
Fantastical 3
Fantastical has a beautiful interface that's easy to use and plenty of robust features.
Source: Busy Apps FZE
Another great option is BusyCal. This app automatically syncs up with any accounts that you're using with the Mail app on Mac, and everything will be up-to-date. The design of the app itself is simple and clean, but there are plenty of powerful features as well. One of those is the Smart Filter, which lets you create rules for what events are shown. For example, you can set a filter to only show birthdays or repeating events. BusyCal also lets you have multiple Smart Filters set up at once, making it easier to organize your hectic calendar.
Other features of BusyCal include a menubar app, travel time, natural language input, and a ton of customization options including font face, size, colors, time format, and much more. If you don't like Fantastical's subscription model, BusyCal and its one-time cost is an excellent alternative to consider.
BusyCal
BusyCal packs in a ton of useful features and is highly customizable. It also has a single, one-time cost.
Source: Qbix
If you are satisfied with the default Calendar app on Mac, but just want a companion app to go with it in the menubar, then Calendars is worth a look. This free app lives in your menubar, acting as a viewer for the calendars that you've set up in Calendar. It serves as a quick way to see your schedule and agenda in a single glance, so you aren't able to add new events from this app. There is an optional subscription that gives you more features, like adding Google Calendar accounts and backgrounds.
Calendars
Calendars lives in your menubar and serves as a companion to the default Calendar app.
Source: Fanatic Software
Need your calendar app to be more than just a calendar? Then Informant is the one you're looking for. This powerful app rolls your calendar, task manager, and notes into one, giving you everything you need in a single glance. The task manager element of Informant is also very flexible, working with you, whether it's GTD, Franklin Covey, or a simple and basic task list. Informant also has support for multiple filters, so you can easily switch and access the important stuff whenever you need to.
Informant
Informant rolls your calendar, task manager, and notes app into one.
Source: Higher Bar LLC
If you want your calendar to live in your menubar, but need a bit more functionality than Calendars, then InstaCal is worth considering. This app also lives in your menubar, so it's not a full blown app like the others. However, it keeps your calendar a click away, so you can view your events, agenda, and even tasks, as well as having the functionality of adding new events and tasks directly. InstaCal works with any of the calendars that you already have set up in Calendar, or you can manually add unlimited accounts from Google, Office 365, and Outlook. It also has Dark Mode support, customization options, and more.
InstaCal - Menu Bar Calendar
InstaCal lives in your menubar but still gives you plenty of functionality, including the ability to add events and tasks.
Source: AntLogic
Do you want a calendar app that is simple and lightweight? Mini Calendar fits the bill perfectly. It gives you access to your calendars three ways: on the desktop, from the Dock, and from the menubar. When it's on the desktop, it is always-on and sits above the wallpaper. From the Dock, you just need to click on the icon and it will bring up the calendar as a popup. Mini Calendar is configurable in terms of color, shortcut keys, and it can show you sunrise and sunset times too. It's just a light and fast way to get to your calendar when you need to.
Mini Calendar
Mini Calendar is a lightweight calendar app that you can access from your desktop, Dock, or menubar.
Source: Vincent Miethe
Rounding out the list is Calendar 366 II, which is another menubar calendar app. However, it's one of the more fully featured ones, which is quite impressive. With Calendar 366 II, you get full access to your calendar and reminders right from your menubar, and you can change the view to year, month, week, day, agenda, or even list. It has eight themes for light and dark modes, custom colors, calendar sets, custom font sizes, Spotlight integration, travel time, Alfred and LaunchBar support, and so much more. To pack all of the features of a full on application into just the menubar is pretty amazing, and the cost of the app is not too much either, all things considered.
Calendar 366 II
Calendar 366 II is one of the most feature-packed menubar calendar apps there is.
Keep your schedule organized
These are just a few of our favorite calendar apps on the Mac App Store. What are your favorites? Let us know in the comments!
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Time is something that you can never get back. If you lose money or a valuable item, you might get a chance to get it all back; but a wasted minute cannot be retrieved. Everything we’re are doing today is connected to time. In this overly competitive world, human life is dictated by a unit of time:
- Teachers give students a timeframe to complete homework
- Publishers give writers deadlines
- Clients give companies projects with deadlines
- A workshop owner gives you a time estimate to repair your car
- When you order your favorite dress online, your chosen eCommerce store will give you an expected delivery date
- Google maps gives you an estimated time frame indicating the time you will reach your destination
Everything takes time. If you let time get away from you, you might fail to achieve your goals. But not everyone understands the value of time until it teaches them. When you enter the professional world, time becomes more important. Failing to manage time in professional life can result in:
- Missed project deadlines
- Lack of professionalism
- Lower productivity
- Poor mental and physical well-being
- Meagre increment and less growth opportunity
- Bad professional reputation
- Work and personal life imbalance
- Increased stress levels
Time is not only important for employees, entrepreneurs, and students, but is equally important for all kinds of people living on the planet. There are people who complain that they don’t have time to do things properly. They blame lack of time for their quality of work, poor finances, stress, bad relationships, and everything that is beyond their reach. They just forget that everyone whether rich or poor has the same number of hours in a day. It is just management that makes you different from others. Wise time management can skyrocket your personal and professional success, enabling you to achieve what you desire with less effort.
There are lots of different ways to tackle the issue of time management but having the best calendar app installed on your smartphone, tablet or PC can make a world of difference to your time management. A calendar app will help you stay on top of upcoming appointments and events, whether they’re personal or work related. There are calendar apps that offer a variety of extra features, from event management and social features to highly customizable dashboard to keep you on track.
What Are the Criteria for Choosing the Best Calendar App?
There are hundreds of calendar apps available on Google Play and App Store, however you should download one that suits your specific needs. What’s good for personal time management, isn’t necessarily good for professional purposes. Nobody knows your requirement better than you, hence you must choose a calendar app that meets all your time management needs. Nevertheless, there are some basic characteristics that you should always look for in a calendar app
Ease of Use
A Calendar app must be easy to use with minimum exploration while providing you with at-a-glance views of upcoming activities by day, week or month. It shouldn’t take more than a minute to add reminders or events.
Flexible and Scalable
A calendar should be flexible so that you can customize it the way you want. To make you more productive, your calendar app should easily integrate with your task management apps.
Simple to share
You should choose a calendar app that has a sharing feature. With sharing feature, you can allow other people to see your schedule for better collaboration.
Available for multiple devices
Your calendar app should be accessible on more than one platform so that you can see your calendar no matter where you are and what device you have at hand.
Maps integrations
Your calendar should seamlessly integrate with maps so that you can get step-by-step navigation and traffic conditions in advance. This feature will help you reach your meeting venue conveniently.
Notifications and alerts
One of the most critical features for a calendar app is that it must be capable of sending customizable notifications and alerts, so that you can stay on top of your schedule.
Designed with intention
Above all else, your calendar app should be designed with a specific purpose that addresses your particular needs.
With these criteria in mind, we have listed the 10 most popular calendar apps available for both iOS and Android users
Top 7 Calendar Apps for Android & iOS
Apple Calendar (iOS, macOS, Web)
Apple users are known for being especially loyal to the brand and for this reason, Apple Calendar is quite an efficient little tool in their pockets. The one reason why Apple product fans love this calendar is because of its ability to sync all your events across iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, Mac, or any other Apple device you use. It has all the features you would expect in a good calendar in addition to the ability to integrate smoothly with Siri. This means you can manage your calendar with just a few voice commands.
Features
- Allows multiple calendar views bringing together the calendars for home, work, or any other you may create to give you an overview of your schedule
- Is integrated with iCloud so that it can shared and synced with other devices when connected to the internet
- Allows you to select different time zones while adding start and end times for any event
- Allows you to select variable snooze durations
- Allows you to view travel time and weather at the event’s location and set alarm according to the travel time
- Lets you add attachments to iCloud Calendar items
- Gives you a heat map to indicate the number of activities per day
- Allows notification of the upcoming events through email and SMS
Google Calendar (Android, iOS, Web)
Google Calendar is one of the best amongst cross-platform calendar apps. It is basically a master calendar that allows you to have a separate calendar for personal, business, holidays and anything else that seems necessary to you. The Google Calendar app helps you spend less time managing your schedule and more time enjoying it. It works seamlessly with all calendars on your phone, including Exchange. To make life easier, Google Calendar not only integrates with other calendar apps, but also business apps and services that have calendars as part of their features, such as Trello and Asana. Although the Gmail users will likely benefit the most from this app, as events mentioned in your email, like hotel reservations, flight times and other appoints automatically populate to your calendar, it is equally preferred by other platform users too.
Features
- Intuitive web interface and calendar add-ons
- Allows you to organize your events and plans on the go
- View events belonging to multiple calendars or groups in one location
- View and edit your tasks and events on the go
- You can sync your schedule across platforms and devices, so that you can use it from any device you have
- You can share your Google calendar with other users
- Provides daily, weekly, and monthly views, with a seamless toggle between them.
Jorte Calendar (Android and iOS)
As one of the few true cross-platform calendar rivals to Google Calendar, Jorte has an easy to use design with a natural and intuitive flow. It has a clean calendar display which is viewable in weekly, monthly and daily view. The important schedules on the calendar are highlighted in red to make it easy for you to view. Every schedule or to do item can be exported to CSV file and can be synchronized easily with Google Calendar. It has multiple customizable options and can also be integrated with many other calendars, note-taking apps, and task managers. It also integrates easily with Evernote, Microsoft Office, and Google Task. available for smartphones under iOS, Android, and Windows, as well as a web app called Jorte Cloud, it recommended leading websites and newspapers across the world.
Features
- Monthly, daily, vertical, and weekly views are available
- Easy sync option for Google Calendar with voice control option
- Allows you to easily create your own personalized calendar and task manager
- Lets you import event information such as sports schedules, weather data, movie and music release dates into your Jorte app
- Its countdown feature allows you to see how many days are left for an event on the calendar
- Adjustable Font Size.
TimeTree (Android, iOS, Web)
TimeTree is a great collaborative calendar app for families and groups. It allows users to easily create multiple calendars for different areas of their life such as work, friends, family, and groups or organizations they belong to. With the ability to sync with Google Calendar, Outlook, Apple Calendar, it helps you to accomplish your list without being distracted by other to-do items. You can create separate family, work, and social calendars with color-coded events that can be viewed on a weekly or monthly basis.
Features
- You can keep a track of your schedule, events and appointments, with at-a-glance views of upcoming activities on a weekly or monthly basis.
- You can share your calendars and schedule with friends, family and colleagues
- You can easily connect it with other calendars to stay up to date with work schedules, family and school events etc.
- Reminders can be delivered to everyone in the group keeping everyone on their toes
- Not limited to the admin only, all members can add and edit events
Cal by Any.do
The best calendar app for life & work, Cal by Any.do is ideal for those who want to organize all their calendar events, reminders, tasks and grocery lists in one place. It’s the best way to manage your time and achieve your ambitious goals. It allows you to manage your day, week and month with calendar events and tasks in a single view. This app integrates perfectly with other calendars such as Google Calendar, iCloud, Outlook and more. Best of all, it syncs seamlessly across all of your devices, making your to-do list accessible everywhere.
Features
- Manage your time effectively by reviewing your tasks and events in a single view
- Works with all your calendars including Google Calendar, Outlook, Yahoo and Exchange
- Syncs in real time, across all your devices
- Easily share your grocery lists with family and friends
- Add repeat reminders for recurring activities, appointments & events
- Use location-based reminders for on-the-spot notifications
Cozi (Android, iOS, Web, Windows)
Cozi is a fantastic calendar app helping you to keep your life in sync. As you create an event, you can select who gets reminder notifications. Different family members get a different colored dot, so you can easily see who is doing what and when. You can click to view the calendar for all, or just one family member. It can be integrated with other calendar services such as Google and Apple Calendar and Outlook.
Features
- Easy to use color-coded calendar
- You can view an individual’s schedule or the schedule for the whole family at once
- You can add or edit appointments that everyone in the family can see
- Create and send an agenda for the upcoming week to family members.
- Accessible from all your devices
Microsoft Outlook Calendar (Android, iOS, macOS, Windows)
If you’re a Windows user, then Microsoft’s very own Outlook Calendar is the best for you. It integrates seamlessly with Windows 10 and uses the same Microsoft account you use to log into Windows. Microsoft Outlook Calendar is easy to use with simple and comprehensive features, covering everything you need for scheduling or creating an event. With Outlook Calendar, you can access and manipulate your calendar events with greater ease, anyway you want. It’s free, but if you subscribe to Microsoft’s Office 365 service then you get premium features that makes it an essential business calendar app as well.
Features
- You can now easily share all the events in your calendar with anyone who has an Outlook.com or Office 365 account
- Automatically adds dinner reservations and other events from your Outlook.com account
- You can turn an appointment into a meeting by adding attendees.
- You can easily view your monthly, weekly, or daily calendar and create recurring events
- Accessible from all your devices
Woven (iOS, macOS, Web, Windows)
A calendar app with a difference, Woven is targeted at “busy professionals” who are mostly short on time. The app is popular because it offers some really cool features that are missing in the basic calendar apps in the market. One of the most notable and convenient feature on the app is called “Smart Templates” that saves you a lot of time for events that are common in your calendar. For example, if you frequently go to a client’s office for meetings, you can easily create a template with the location details of their office. This makes repeat events easy to add to your calendar. It also has a very helpful built-in meeting scheduling tool that replaces the back and forth of emails that inevitably happen while scheduling a meeting. The one limitation here is that they do not have an Android app!
Features
- Woven Smart Templates help you save time by letting you create templates for meetings that happen frequently
- Integrated scheduling links on Woven makes scheduling easy without having to go back and forth on emails
- Lets you create Group Polls within the app so that coordinating an event according to everyone’s ability is not a nightmare
- Lets you share your availability with your friends and clients who you meet often without giving away the details of the events in your calendar
- Offers Map View with Travel Planning and Dual Time Zone support so that you can avoid the disaster of double-booking
- The “Busy Bar” feature gives you a view of the busy and conflicting times with great Time Analytics indicating if there are conflicts you need to work around
- My Time feature on the app sorts out conflicts across all your calendars (for example work, home, personal etc.)
- Integrates completely with iOS platform with full support for Siri Shortcuts and iMessage
- Offers brilliant keyboard shortcuts to save you time while working at the desk or using laptop
Tiny Calendar (Android and iOS)
Tiny Calendar is an intuitive calendar app that works well with both, Google Calendar and iOS calendar. Tiny Calendar has features like nature language input, drag and drop, and smart features to predict your intention and help you create and edit your events with greater ease. When it comes to viewing your event, Tiny Calendar provides 8 standard views – day, week, month, 4-days, year, mini-month, week agenda and agenda. With Tiny Calendar, you can create, edit and delete events even when you don’t have an internet connection.
Features
- It easily syncs directly with Google Calendar and also works with iOS local calendar
- You can create, edit and delete events even when you don’t have an internet connection
- It provides eight different views so that at any point in time you know how busy you’re going to be
- You can even choose various alert options, such as SMS or push notification
- You can easily send out event invites to others without having to use any other app
Fantastical 2 (iOS and macOS)
Apple users who are looking for something other than the default calendar apps on their Mac or iOS have found Fantastical 2 as a suitable choice. One of the primary reasons for its popularity among Apple users is its ability for deep integration with the Apple ecosystem. A simple well-designed calendar is available for use, whether you are using Mac, iPhone, iPad, or Apple Watch. Equipped with a strong ability for natural language processing, the app lets you create events with an impressive speed. Apart from this, the app has some really sophisticated features like geofenced reminders where you get a reminder only when you are at a certain location. Apart from that, the app integrates easily with iCloud, Google Calendar, Outlook Calendar and a number of other apps as well. The app is compatible with multiple languages including English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, and Japanese which makes it a great choice for multilingual users or workplaces where multiple languages are needed.
Features
- Allows you to add events and reminders using natural language thanks to its strong natural language processing
- Lets you quickly toggle multiple calendars on and off with a single click
- Automatically switch Calendar Sets based on your location
- Mini Window in the app lets you create, edit, or view the events and reminders instantly
- Lets you create a focused reminders list and supports location-based reminders
- Integrates smoothly with iCloud, Google, Microsoft Exchange, Yahoo, and any other CalDAV account
- Using Share and Action Extension you can get any data into your calendar instantly
Connect Your Calendars to Other Apps Without Any Coding
No matter how much you love your calendar app, but you definitely do not want to spend too much time in adding events or appointments on it. If it takes you a few minutes or hours, to add events on a calendar, then you should automate it. With Appy Pie Connect, you can easily integrate your calendar to any other app you use, including email, to-do lists, project management apps. For example, Create Google Calendar Events from Asana Tasks or Create Asana tasks for every Google Calendar event. Appy Pie Connect allows you to connect your calendar with other apps in a matter of minutes, all without writing a single line of code.