We review products independently, but we may earn affiliate commissions from buying links on this page. Terms of use. How much do you rely on your calendar? Without mine, I would never know what time I requested for appointments, when a visitor's plane will land, or what day to give my dogs their heartworm pills. Calendars help us stay organized in ways that are different from a to-do list. Don't get me wrong. I wouldn't be able to make it through a trip to the grocery store without my to-do list, but calendars serve a different purpose. Calendar apps keep appointments. They can remind us of the right amount of time before we need to leave for a meeting, a haircut, or a concert. Really good calendar apps also let you share either an entire calendar or select events with others. When your family agrees to go on a vacation, for example, you can lock the dates into your calendar, share the calendar entry with everyone who is going with you, and not worry that someone will accidentally show up a week early. Not All Calendar Apps Are True Calendars Take a look in any app store, and you'll see that calendar apps are a dime a dozen. I find most of them to be disappointing for two very important reasons. First and most importantly, the majority of calendar apps are not true calendars. They require that you connect to another calendar, such as Google Calendar or Apple Calendar, to use them. In other words, the calendar you connect to stores your information, including all the appointments you create and details you add to them. The app is merely a window into that information, with added tools and features to let you manage them. In this way, most calendar apps are like email client apps. Email client apps give you an interface with added tools for accessing and managing an existing email account, but they don't give you a new email account. For that, you need an email service the same way you need a calendar service. Second, too many calendar apps are mobile-only or not cross-platform. If you want to see and manage your calendar on a full-size screen using a desktop app or web app that has a similar experience to what you get on your mobile device, your options are slim. If you want an app that's cross-platform, your options are even slimmer. If you're ok with mobile-only—if all you want is an app on your phone that pulls data from a connected calendar and then gives you a few added features, such as reminders and integrated task management—you're spoiled for choice. Let's look at the best calendar apps first followed by the best true online calendars. Remember, the difference is that a calendar app requires you to connect to another source calendar for it to work, and the "true" calendar is that source. The 5 Best Calendar Apps (Client Apps) I don't mean to poo-poo calendar apps too much. They do provide a useful service in the same way that email client apps do. They add functionality and ease of use to your calendaring experience. Some of them merge data from multiple sources, letting you see not only your calendar appointments, but also your to-do list, reminders, and more. Here are some of the best options in this category. Butleroy Free (for the time being) Platforms: iOS and macOS Butleroy is a fairly new iOS and Mac app that connects to your existing online calendar, reminders, and to-do list. It syncs with apps such as Todoist, Trello, Hubspot, Apple Reminders, and others. Depending on how much information you keep in various apps, Butleroy can be a little overwhelming. If you like to see all your to-dos, appointments, and reminders in one place, however, it's a good app for Apple users. Calendars 5 by Readdle $6.99; free version with limitations available Platforms: iPhone and iPad Readdle's app called Calendars 5 and the free lightweight alternative known simply as Calendars (without the 5), is one of the more popular calendar apps for iOS. It has a well-designed interface and intuitive controls. It can connect to Google Calendar, Apple Calendar (iCloud), and Outlook Calendar. You can easily swap among a monthly view of your calendar, a scrolling list view of events and appointments, a week view, and so forth. Lovely as it is, I do have one issue with Calendars 5: the pricing. From the outset (and even after reading Readdle's information on Calendars 5 pricing) it's confusing. The free version of the app offers an upgrade to a Pro account for $6.99. The paid app costs $6.99. But there are also a number of in-app upgrades you can buy. There isn't great clarity on what you get for your money or whether there are additional costs. Fantastical 2 $49.99 for Mac, $9.99 for iPad, $4.99 for iPhone Platforms: iOS, macOS Fantastical 2 by Flexibits is one of those calendar apps that only works if you connect it to another calendar first. Your options are iCloud, Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft Office 365, Google, Yahoo, fruux, Meetup, and other CalDAV accounts. The point is, you have to connect it to something or else you can't make any appointments on it. Additionally, it's only available on iPhone, iPad, and Mac. I like when important apps give me web access, too, in case I don't have my devices or something goes wrong with them, but Fantastical does not. Once you set up Fantastical 2, it has a few convenient features, such as showing you a map preview of event locations when possible. It has customizable reminders, including "time to leave," which is based on travel time between your current location and the event location. While the app isn't free, you can try it out for 21 days when you download the Mac app directly from Flexibits' website. GroupCal by 24me Free Platforms: Android and iOS GroupCal by 24me is a new, free, mobile-only app that treats shared calendars like they are group WhatsApp threads. You invite a group of people to create a common calendar using their phone numbers or a link instead of email addresses. You could have groups for family events, different business projects, a book club, volunteering, and so forth. Each group is color-coded, making it easy to spot which event belongs to which group. One especially nice view shows only events from a particular calendar in full color, with other events dimmed out, so you can focus on one thing at a time without losing a sense of what else you have on your agenda. You still have to connect to another calendar for this app to work—and give it access to your contacts. TimePage by Moleskine $11.99 per year Platforms: iPhone and iPad TimePage by Moleskine ($11.99 per year) comes from the same company that makes Moleskine notebooks. The aesthetic of this app is the same as the elegance and simplicity of the books. A dark background grounds the app, and you get to choose the accent color. Swiping left and right brings you to a year view, month view, and scrolling day-by-day view. While some calendar apps feel cluttered and frenetic, TimePage carries a sense of calm. While it requires a subscription fee (it reverts to read-only mode after a trial if you don't pay), PCMag staff named it an iOS worth paying for. The 5 Best Online Calendars (Calendar Services) If you want to use any of the calendar apps listed above, you first need an online calendar. Perhaps unsurprisingly, four of the five top online calendars are part of an email service. The outlier is Apple. Its calendar isn't tied directly to its email service, although it is in the same ecosystem as Apple's email offerings. So while they aren't exactly a pair, they aren't wholly unconnected either. Apple Calendar Included with supported Apple devices Platforms: iOS, macOS, web Apple Calendar for Mac and iOS is one of the big three calendars. Because it's a powerhouse in the space, many other apps have built connections to it. That means if you use Apple Calendar as your primary calendar app, you can easily access your events and other details on other apps. The app comes preloaded on supported Apple devices. If you ever need your calendar and don't have your iPhone or Mac on hand, you can log into iCloud.com and view it as a web app. As an Apple product, Calendar has some neat integrations with other Apple apps and tools, including Siri, Mail, Messages, and Safari. For example, with your permission, Siri can recommend new calendar entries to you based on emails it sees. It can turn a flight confirmation email into a calendar event. Another handy feature is the ability to delegate a calendar to another person, such as an assistant. Google Calendar Free; requires Google account Platforms: Android, iOS, web Google Calendar might be the most well-connected calendar app, in terms of having options to integrate it with other apps and online services. You can create different calendars for yourself and subscribe to other people's calendars. It has very good support for working with multiple time zones, including the ability to make a widget off to the side of the web app that shows the current time wherever it's relevant to you (look on the left side of the image above). It also has free apps for iPhone, iPad, and of course Android. Really, there are a lot of tricks you can do with Google Calendar. If you're on the fence about using Google Calendar due to privacy concerns, have a look at some of the ways you can stop Google from tracking you. Lightning Calendar (in Thunderbird Mail) Free, donations accepted Platforms: Linux, macOS, Windows Lightning Calendar is part of the Thunderbird Mail app. It's available for Linux, macOS, and Windows. There aren't any mobile apps, and that could be a stopping block for many people considering this app. The real draw to Lightning Calendar, as well as Thunderbird Mail for that matter, is that they're free and open-source, made by the nonprofit organization Mozilla. You don't need to connect to any other calendar to use Lightning. All you have to do is download the app that's right for your operating system and language (dozens of languages are included), and then open the app and get started. When you create calendar entries, you can add an incredible amount of detail, categorizing the event or appointment not just into a calendar, like Personal or Work, but by a secondary theme, such as Phone Call or Vacation. If you want to sync up Lightning to a cloud-based calendar, such as Google Calendar or Apple Calendar, you can, but you don't have to. If you'd rather keep all your appointment info local and offline, you can do that instead. Outlook Calendar Free for Outlook.com version; requires an Office 365 or Business account for desktop apps Platforms: Android, iOS, macOS, web, Windows Microsoft Outlook Calendar is the calendar app to use if you are deeply invested in other Microsoft apps, especially Outlook for email. When used in a business setting, it has more features than most people will ever need to learn. You can see other people's availability to schedule meetings. You can set up the app so that you can see other relevant information while managing your calendar, such as email and tasks. All the most powerful features of Outlook are reserved for the desktop apps. The mobile apps can be helpful but they can't do nearly what the desktop apps can. If you don't use a paid version of Microsoft Office, you can still use Outlook for free as Outlook.com. That version doesn't offer integrations with other Office apps, but you still get email and calendaring in one. The Outlook.com version is available for mobile apps, too. Again, it's one combined email and calendar app, so don't wrack your brain trying to find the calendar specific option to download from Google Play or Apple's App Store. Yahoo Calendar Free with a Yahoo Mail account Platforms: Web Yahoo doesn't get as much attention as it once did for its email service, but it's still kicking and it comes with a pretty decent calendar. The web interface puts a slim column for your to-do list at the right while on the left you'll find a mini annual calendar that makes it easy to jump from one month to another. As with most other online calendars, Yahoo lets you import events from other calendars. These calendars could be from friends and family members who have shared their schedules with you as well as public calendars, such as showing games and times of sports teams or leagues you follow. Now that you're armed with the knowledge you need to pick the right calendar app, you should consider what other software can help you get organized. A great place to start is PCMag's roundup of the top productivity apps.

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