Best Calendar Apps for Scheduling
We’re all busier than ever these days with growing to-do lists and shrinking time to finish everything. But there’s an easy hack to bring some order to the daily chaos: Calendar apps.
Whether you need the calendar app to integrate with your work software or you want to manage all of your upcoming personal events, kids’ appointments, and online meetings, a calendar app is the best way to keep tabs on everything as you plan your schedule.
In this article, we explore the reasons why you may need to start using a digital calendar, and how you can find a calendar that works for you. Then, we review 8 of the best options available for you to download today.
Why you should use a digital calendar
When to-do lists simply won’t cut it, a digital calendar is an excellent tool for sticking to and keeping up with your schedule.
Reminders and notifications
It can remind you to block out 30 minutes or several hours for specific tasks or appointments. It can also send you notifications minutes, hours, or days before your next big meeting.
Smartphone integration
Even better, you can integrate your app of choice with your smartphone, making it that much easier to remember your priorities and schedule appointments on the go. You can also set recurring events, like regularly scheduled meetings or doctor's appointments, and add the event’s location to sync up with your phone’s GPS.
Professional uses
For professionals, a digital calendar is priceless. Coordinate schedules with your colleagues, keep up with upcoming holidays, and block out time for productivity. And when you’re traveling, you can change your time zone on the fly. This automatically updates your meetings so you never have to worry about time coordination due to your travel schedule.
You can also organize your digital business calendar with color coding. This makes it even easier to block off time for specific tasks and alert your colleagues to your availability.
What to look for in a calendar app
The best calendar apps have several standout features that set them apart from the rest.
Streamlined user interface and syncing
A calendar app is only as good as its user interface. Before committing to a particular app, make sure you can navigate it easily and have no issues with creating events or changing schedules. You should also take a look at the synchronization features, particularly across multiple devices such as your smartphone and PC.
Additional features you may need
Think about any additional features you may want from an electronic calendar, like automatic scheduling, third-party software integration, and advanced syncing.
Free or paid?
Depending on your budget or needs, you may be able to get by with a free version of the calendar app you’re eying. But if you want certain features – like ad-free use – you may need to ante up some cash on a monthly, yearly, or one-time basis.
8 best calendar apps
Finding the right online calendar planner for you can be challenging. However, to keep you moving through your schedule, we did the research to find the best calendar apps with all the handy features you'll ever need.
1. Google Calendar
Google Calendar is one of the most widely used calendar apps available today. In addition to being free to use (with a Google account), this calendar integrates completely with the Google Workplace Suite that includes Gmail and Google Drive.
It even allows you to create and schedule events from Gmail into Google Calendar, making it an excellent shared calendar app for offices or families. You can also easily subscribe to multiple calendars, which means you can schedule an upcoming meeting without interfering with an existing event.
While there’s no standalone desktop app, you can load and use Google Calendar in your preferred web browser. There is, however, a mobile app for Android and Apple devices.
2. Friday
Friday is built specifically for remote work, and it’s a beacon for busy remote workers who want to roadmap their day. Friday can actually sync your existing Google Calendar and Microsoft Outlook Calendar accounts into a single location, allowing you to plan personal and professional events at once. It also integrates with a lot of project management and team communication software, including Trello, Asana, Clickup, Slack, Zoom, and Microsoft Teams.
Friday stands out because it compiles a lot of distributed info into a single space. Plus, it helps you precisely schedule and communicate with your remote team. This app is free for up to 10 users, after which it charges $6 per user, up to an additional 40 users.
3. Calendar Pro
Calendar Pro is a free calendar app built specifically for use with Microsoft Teams, which makes it a must for organizations using Teams as their primary communication channel. This app makes it easy to create specific calendars for each Team channel and offers private messaging as well, so you don’t necessarily have to share meeting schedules with everyone.
Calendar Pro integrates directly with the Office 365 suite. It also has a private tab feature that allows you to schedule all of your personal appointments within the same scheduling app, without the rest of your team seeing them.
4. Outlook Calendar
Outlook Calendar is the official digital calendar of Microsoft's Office 365 software suite, allowing for easy integration with Outlook, Word, and Excel.
Outlook Calendar has several excellent features that help it to stand out, including syncing directly with your Windows account. This allows you to schedule events directly on your PC that then automatically sync with your smartphone’s Outlook app.
You can even connect your LinkedIn account and sync your connections to your calendar. This is useful if you regularly search for new business contacts.
You can use Outlook Calendar for free on your desktop, or you can pay for the full-featured Microsoft Outlook Premium version for $19.99 per year. You can also buy it as part of the Microsoft 365 Personal package for $69.99 per year.
5. Timepage
If you like the feel of Moleskine notebooks, then Timepage may just be the right calendar app for you. Designed by Moleskine Studios, this all-in-one electronic calendar has a refined aesthetic and intuitive interface that reflects the level of design you'd expect from Moleskine.
Timepage isn’t just easy on the eyes. It packs an array of stellar features, including a "heat map" view that displays your schedule a month at a glance. It also easily integrates with a wide variety of apps, including weather apps, ride-sharing apps such as Uber and Lyft, and GPS apps to estimate travel times between events.
If you frequently work on the go, Timepage is an excellent pick. It costs either $1.99 per month or $19.99 per year.
6. Calendar.com
Calendar.com bills itself as an evolution of the digital calendar experience. To back up this claim, it uses the power of machine learning to give smart suggestions for where and when meetings should take place.
Calendar.com even recommends whether the meeting should be in-person or virtual. You can view these smart suggestions within an analytics dashboard, which gives you an extra slice of control over your schedule and how you spend your time.
The app also comes with smart scheduling software, which schedules meetings with team members and clients depending on their availability. This can save you a lot of time, because you’re outsourcing your scheduling needs to the platform.
Calender.com's basic version is free, but you’ll pay $6 per month (per user) for its standard offering. The standard version provides more advanced integrations and the analytics feature.
7. DigiCal
Calendar apps don't have to be complicated. The goal of DigiCal is to make the planning and scheduling process as seamless as possible. The app uses a series of customized widgets that allow you to view your calendar in a number of different ways, including customizable widgets for your agenda, day, and month.
DigiCal also has integrated weather forecasts, so you can plan around upcoming rain or snow. It works well with the built-in location search feature, too, which helps you plan your route.
The interface is smooth and easy to use, but this elegant electronic calendar app is available exclusively on Android devices. DigiCal's ad-supported version is free to use, but you can pay a one-time $5 fee for an ad-free experience.
8. SavvyCal
SavvyCal is just as savvy as its name suggests, and it helps avoid any possible headaches associated with scheduling meetings. It’s particularly useful for larger organizations with fully distributed teams.
Where SavvyCal shines is in its automatic scheduling and integration with Google Calendar and iCal (Apple’s calendar app). It constantly syncs with those apps to make sure everyone's availability is up to date.
When you schedule a meeting through SavvyCal, you can create a personalized link that shows your availability. This lets your colleagues pick a time that works best for you and for them. And once they pick a time, it automatically appears on your schedule.
SavvyCal also loads other users’ calendars to the scheduling page, too, so you can see when others on your team are available. This speeds up the meeting scheduling process, and cuts down on the back and forth. It integrates with Zoom, Zapier, and Google Meet, too, so you don’t have to worry about scheduling within those apps.
SavvyCal is available for $12 per user per month.
Summary
Finding the best calendar app for your needs is more than just another way to track your schedule. Today’s options integrate with your most-used software, sync up with your coworkers and loved ones, and do so much more. Plus, many of them are free.
For current Google users, you can’t go wrong with Google Calendar. But if you’re looking for ways to use your calendar with your most-used work software, consider adding Friday or Microsoft Calendar Pro to your digital kit.
About the Author: Daniel Horowitz is a contributing writer for HP Tech Takes. Daniel is a New York-based author and has written for publications such as USA Today, Digital Trends, Unwinnable Magazine, and many other media outlets.
