There are a lot of calendar apps for mac out there to sift through, but we’ve found the Best Calendar App for Mac. The student’s best calendar app for mac always needs to be organized and the best calendar app for mac free is always a good tool to add into the equation. The Best Calendar App for Mac is not only able to keep your schedules in line, but also has built-in features that backup all of your data.
In this article, you’ll learn about the best selling calendar app for mac 2016 and how it can be a perfect choice for anyone in the academic world. Check it out today!
macOS Calendar (macOS, iPhone, iPad)
Not sure where to start? Apple’s Calendar, which is already installed on your Mac, is clean, functional, and syncs with your iPhone and iPad without any effort.
Adding appointments is simple: click the + button. Natural language processing means you can type something like “go for a walk at noon” and expect your computer to figure out what you mean. You can also click-and-drag on the calendar itself to create an appointment. There are four main views: day, week, month, and year.
You can create as many local calendars as you want, and all of them will sync using iCloud. You can also add calendars from Exchange, Google, Yahoo, or AOL accounts. This is handy if you’ve got a work account and personal calendars to keep balanced.
Apple’s calendar used to offer a to-do list, but tasks now live in Reminders, a separate app. If you want to see tasks alongside your appointments, this app won’t cut it. But there are plenty of other integrations. Addresses, for example, show up in Apple Maps, and you can optionally get travel time notifications.
Apple’s Calendar is simple, sometimes to a fault, but if you only use Apple products, you should try it before installing anything else because it covers all the calendar basics.
macOS Calendar price: Included with all Macs, iPhones, and iPads.
Fantastical
Flexibits’s calendar app Fantastical lives up to its name, offering an experience that beats out even Apple’s Calendar app. It lets you connect all your accounts easily – iCloud, Google, Yahoo, and even obscure ones like CalDAV, you name it – then see them all elegantly organized into this app’s stylish interface.
Aside from the standard set of features, you can create calendar sets, which can activate based on your location or at a specific time. You can also create to-do lists, subscribe to calendars, set up conference-call scheduling, add file attachments, take advantage of widgets, and more. You can even check weather conditions for days and weeks ahead.
BusyCal
A powerful calendar app in its own right, BusyCal is a great option for those who value function over form and don’t need any of the extra scheduling features in Fantastical Premium. The interface isn’t nearly as polished as Fantastical, but if you just want an app that gives you everything you could want from a traditional calendar management approach that isn’t a subscription, BusyCal may be for you.
I’ve used BusyCal myself for a long time on my Mac, and it’s an extremely solid app. It even has menu bar functionality like Fantastical that allows you quickly add things to your calendar using natural language parsing (though it’s not as well done as Fantastical in our opinion).
At $49.99, it’s not cheap, but it’s also not a subscription. If you just want a solid app that you don’t have to pay for every month, check out BusyCal.
Microsoft Outlook (macOS, Windows, Android, iPhone, iPad)
Mac applications tend to focus on doing one thing well, which is why Apple computers come with separate email, contact, to-do, notes, and calendar applications. Microsoft’s Outlook does not adhere to this philosophy—it’s all those things, and more, all at once. If that’s what you’re looking for, then Outlook might be just right for you.
There are five main views to see your appointments: daily, three day, work week, week, and month. The work week view, which isn’t offered by any other tool outlined here, is a good example of how work-focused Outlook is. There are some other nice features: a three-day forecast in the toolbar, for example. Collaboration is a key focus, and the integration with email and contacts helps with that. You can also create templates for appointments, which is useful if you regularly invite people to similar things. Exchange accounts are supported, obviously—Microsoft built the Exchange protocol around Outlook. But the most recent versions of Outlook for macOS also support Google Calendar, which was missing as recently as Office 2016. This is a very welcome addition.
Adding appointments is a little more complicated than other applications we’ve outlined here: there’s no smart entry, for example, which is disappointing. Appointments are created in their own window, but you can still create an event pretty quickly using the tab key.
Outlook might not be the first app you think of using for a macOS calendar, but it’s worth checking out, especially if you’re already a paying Office user.
Microsoft Outlook price: Starting at $69/year as part of Office 365 or $149.99 as part of Microsoft Home and Student 2019.
Google Calendar
Perhaps the reason you want to leave Apple’s Calendar app is not to be tied into the big corporate machine, in which case Google Calendar may not be for you. But with one of the most user-friendly interfaces around and plenty of quality-of-life features, like the option to quickly type appointments and toggle calendars, Google’s free offering may tempt you.
This web app is capable of scheduling events, responding to and managing events, creating sets of reminders, and sharing and subscribing to calendars. You can also use it to access your notes and tasks. All of that happens in a very clean and modern interface, managing never to overwhelm you. However, that also means some high-end features aren’t available, especially compared to the previous recommendations.
There’s no actual desktop app for Google Calendar. It’s all web browser-based and syncs with the corresponding apps on iOS and Android. But it’s free, and there’s a good chance you don’t want any third-party software clogging up your system.
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.
But based on our criteria, Outlook just doesn’t measure up. If an all-in-one approach is your preference, then Outlook is certainly a potential good fit for you. But, when considering calendar and scheduling 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 our opinion. 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, Fantastical or BusyCal are better options.
Itsycal (macOS)
As great as macOS is, a few missing features make absolutely no sense. For example: on Windows you can click the clock to see a calendar. Big Sur sort of adds this—you can click the date to see your widgets, and you can optionally add a calendar widget if you want. But there’s no straightforward way to see a calendar and browse your appointments.
Enter Itsycal. It’s not really a full calendar app, but it’s free and makes the default calendar application a lot better. Itsycal lives in the menu bar, where its icon tells you the current date. Click the icon, and you’ll see a miniature calendar, which is a perfect reference tool. You can also set up a global keyboard shortcut for opening this tiny calendar. Click any day to see your appointments below, or use your keyboard to browse dates. You can also quickly add appointments to your calendars from here.
It’s a tiny addition to Apple’s Calendar application, granted, but one that makes it a lot easier to see your appointments at a glance. And it’s fairly customizable: there’s a dark and a light theme, for example, and you can change the icon to include the month and the day of the week. You can also pin the calendar, so it stays on the screen while you use other apps. This is perfect when you need to reference things while writing an email or a memo. Try it out if all this sounds useful to you, because the price is nothing to complain about.
Conclusion:
The best calendar app for macs is the most user friendly, most effective way to keep track of your schedules. Whether you’re a college student or a busy entrepreneur, the best calendar app for mac lets you work smarter, not harder. There are a lot of different options when it comes to this kind of technology, but the online reviews and testimonials show that this is one of the apps that works with everyone.