Calendar (Apple)

"iCal" redirects here. For the Unix calendar package, see ical (Unix). For the computer file format, see iCalendar.

Calendar

Calendar logo in macOS (left) and iOS (right)
File:OS X Calendar.png Calendar running on OS X Yosemite
Developer(s)	Apple Inc.
Operating system	macOS, iOS, watchOS, and iPadOS
Type	Calendaring software
Website	support.apple.com/guide/calendar/welcome/mac

Calendar is a personal calendar app made by Apple Inc. that runs on both the macOS desktop operating system and the iOS mobile operating system. It offers online cloud backup of calendars using Apple's iCloud service, or can synchronize with other calendar services, including Google Calendar and Microsoft Exchange Server.

The macOS version was known as iCal before the release of OS X Mountain Lion in July 2012. Originally released as a free download for Mac OS X v10.2 on September 10, 2002, it was bundled with the operating system as iCal 1.5 with the release of Mac OS X v10.3. iCal was the first calendar application for Mac OS X to offer support for multiple calendars and the ability to intermittently publish/subscribe to calendars on WebDAV servers. Version 2 of iCal was released as part of Mac OS X v10.4, Version 3 as part of Mac OS X v10.5, Version 4 as part of Mac OS X v10.6, Version 5 as part of Mac OS X v10.7, Version 6 as part of OS X v10.8, Version 7 as part of OS X v10.9, Version 8 as part of OS X v10.10 and OS X v10.11, and version 9 as part of macOS v10.12.

Apple licensed the iCal name from Brown Bear Software, who have used it for their iCal application since 1997.

iCal's initial development was quite different from other Apple software: it was designed independently by a small French team working "secretly" in Paris, led by Jean-Marie Hullot, a friend of Steve Jobs. iCal's development has since been transferred to Apple US headquarters in Cupertino.

Features

• It tracks events and appointments, allows multiple calendar views (such as calendars for "home", "work", and other calendars you create) to quickly identify conflicts and free time.
• It is integrated with iCloud, so calendars can be shared and synced with other devices, such as other Macs, iPhones, iPads, iPod touch, and PCs over the internet. One can also share calendars via the WebDAV protocol. Google now supports WebDAV for Google Calendar making Calendar easily configurable.
• Users can subscribe to other calendars so they can keep up with friends and colleagues, and other things such as athletic schedules and television programs.
• iCal allows notification of upcoming events either on screen, by email, SMS or Pager.
• iCal supports the use of the iCalendar format [VERSION:2.0]. It does not support the older vCalendar 1.0 format.

New in version 3

• Setting to let iCal set auto-alarms for each event created.
• Redesigned user interface
• Inline event editing
• Ability to turn off alarms for all events
• Use a CalDAV(WebDAV) account to store and keep calendars in sync on a CalDAV server.
• The date on the icon in the Dock displays the current date all the time. (Until version 3, iCal's icon displayed July 17—the date iCal premiered in 2002 at the Macworld Expo—by default until the program was run.)

New in version 4

• Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 support
• Refined user interface (particularly for multiple events management)
• Automatic setup for Yahoo/Google Mail/Gmail calendars. Events are synced and downloaded from your account.

New in version 5

New

• Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 support
• New skeuomorphic skin similar to Calendar for iPad
• Full-screen support
• Agenda list and mini-month display added to Day view
• Quick Add for adding events
• Heat map to indicate the number of activities per day

Removed

• Dedicated calendar pane (now just a pop-up menu under the "Calendars" button)
• Details pane on the right hand side
• Mini month display in non-Day views
• Ability to select/highlight days in Month view

New in version 6

New

• Application renamed Calendar (previously named iCal)
• All calendars accessible in sidebar
• Search suggestions when searching for events
• Creates a search token displaying a list of events
• New date picker
• Event notifications in Notification Center
• Add attachments to iCloud Calendar items

Removed

• Ability to select variable snooze durations, only 15 minute snooze available

New in version 7

• Re-added ability to select variable snooze durations

New in version 8

• Added ability to see travel time and weather at the event's location, with the ability to set an alarm based on the travel time

New in iOS 10

• Different timezones selectable when entering and editing start and end times. This allows long-distance airplane flight times, for example, to be entered accurately and for that "end" of a visualized time "box" to render accurately on either iOS or macOS when timezone support is turned on in Calendar and the timezone set in Date/Time to the location in question. Thus now compliant with RFC 6868 iCalendar.

See also

• Calendar and Contacts Server
• iCalendar
• List of applications with iCalendar support
• SyncML open standard for calendar syncing

External links

• New Software Lets Users Manage Multiple Calendars & Share Calendars Over The Internet - Apple's July 2002 press release introducing iCal
• New Application to Manage & Share Multiple Calendars Now Available for Free Download - Apple's September 2002 press release announcing availability of iCal
• Calendar and Scheduling Consortium part of next version of iCal Server (Leopard)
• ICal4j - ICal Java library (with usage examples)
• Perl script and instructions to subscribe from iCal to a Sun Calendar Server and subsequently sync it to mobile devices through iSync
• Apple iCal calendars
• Geody iCal and csv calendars - Free (CC-by-sa) calendars
• iCalShare - Free calendars