Tips for Getting More Out of Apple Calendar

Apple Calendar comes pre-installed on every iPhone, iPad, and Mac, and when you're signed into iCloud, it syncs automatically across all of them. An event you add on your iPhone appears on your Mac within seconds. Despite how familiar it looks, Apple Calendar has a number of features that most people never discover.

One of the most convenient ways to add events is through Siri. Rather than opening the Calendar app and tapping through menus, you can say "Hey Siri, add a dentist appointment Thursday at 2pm" and it creates the event for you. Siri can also create recurring events ("Add a staff meeting every Monday at 9am") and check your schedule ("What do I have tomorrow?").

Travel time is a feature that many iPhone users don't know about. When creating an event, scroll down past the time and toggle on Travel Time. Choose how you're getting there (driving, transit, walking), and Calendar will automatically remind you to leave early enough to arrive on time. It can even use your current location to calculate the actual travel time.

Apple Calendar supports multiple alerts per event. You can set a notification 10 minutes before, and another 1 day before — useful for appointments that require preparation. To add a second alert, tap Add Alert when creating an event.

You can create multiple calendars and color-code them. For example: a blue "Work" calendar, a green "Personal" calendar, and a red "Medical" calendar. This makes it quick to see at a glance what type of events fill a particular day. To create a new calendar, tap Calendars at the bottom of the screen, then Add Calendar.

Sharing a calendar with a family member is straightforward. Tap Calendars, find the calendar you want to share, tap the info icon, and add a person by their email address. They receive an invitation and can view (or even add events to) your shared calendar once they accept.

You can also subscribe to external calendars — sporting event schedules, national holidays, school calendars — by URL. On a Mac, go to File > New Calendar Subscription. Many sports teams, schools, and organizations publish calendar subscription links on their websites.

On Mac, Apple Calendar also supports Natural Language input. Click the + button in the toolbar, type something like "Coffee with Sarah Friday at 3pm at Blue Bottle," and Calendar creates the event with the right time and a location note.