Managing your time has long been a part of the knowledge worker’s day, and calendar apps have been around almost as long as email. But while the quantity of available options is high, the number of quality calendar apps is a small handful.

1. Calendar Application For Mac
2. One Calendar For Mac
3. Calendar Programs For Mac

Embedded software - Comes with device/other software. MacOS Calendar - Comes with Apple's Computers like MacBook; iOS Calendar - Comes with Apple's Phones like iPhone X; Facebook Events - Comes with Facebook application which runs on all major platforms; Google Calendar - Comes from Google and they have variants for all major platforms; Microsoft Exchange Server - This is the backend. 4 of the Best Calendar Apps for Mac. By Robert Zak – Posted on Dec 2, 2018 Dec 2, 2018 in Mac. MacOS does come with a fully-featured calendar app, but it’s possible that you may not like it and are looking for a better alternative. If you’re one of those users who aren’t satisfied with. If the shared calendar is enabled for instant syncing, and the user is viewing it on Outlook on the web, Outlook for iOS, or Outlook for Android, the new sync experience is in use. If the user views the shared calendar on Outlook for Mac, they'll see the new sync experience if the calendar was added by accepting a sharing invitation. 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 option that is best suited for you will depend on your needs, but a closer inspection has shown us that, for most people, Fantastical 2 is the best calendar application for macOS users.

What We Looked For When Looking for the Best Calendar App

A calendar app on its own is a simple thing. You put items on it to show where you need to be, how long you’re going to be there, or what you’re going to do. Any calendar app must include those features to be useful in any way.

But a useful and effective calendar app requires those features to be well-designed, as well as include other functionality. Here’s what we looked at to arrive at our decision.

• Ease of use: The number one priority of a calendar app must be the UI. How intuitive is the app? How easy is it to add a new event? A task or reminder? To add some notes or details to an event? How hard is it to invite people to an event? These are some of the questions we asked when comparing the options.
• Aesthetics: For many people, using a calendar application is a necessary evil. It’s a tool to manage how other people are using up your time. But if you’re going to have to spend time managing this part of your life, an attractive interface can make the chore more enjoyable.
• Power: Once you have a smart UI in place, the next thing to consider with a calendar app is the feature set. What can the user do from this application? The best app will need to meet the needs of the novice (your grandma) as well as the power user (your CEO’s assistant). And those features cannot detract from the usability of the app. No small order, there.
• Price: With many categories of desktop applications, the price can often be irrelevant as the gap is narrow and most options are similar. However, because of Outlook’s inclusion in our comparison, price factored into our decision.
• macOS integration: How well the application fits the environment is always key — especially for cross-platform tools. At the risk of sounding painfully obvious, a calendar app for macOS must work with iCloud. And not just for the calendar functionality: Reminders are a key tool for Apple users and need to be accessible in our selection.
• Third-party integrations: Because macOS users do not all use the same calendar service (iCloud, Google Calendar, Exchange, etc.), our desktop app must work with all the available options.
• iOS versions: Lastly, because most of us live in a multi-device environment, it is beneficial to have iOS versions of each app.

The Calendar App Contenders

• Calendar (Free): Included in macOS, Apple’s option covers all the basics. It sports an attractive interface, but suffers from several usability issues.
• BusyCal ($49.99): The BusyMac team has been in the app-making business for some time. And their flagship app, BusyCal, has long offered more features than its macOS counterpart. The focus here is functionality.
• Fantastical 2 ($49.99): This option started as a menubar app for macOS, often used in tandem with the other desktop calendar options. It originally launched in May, 2011 and has since made its way to iOS. However, Fantastical 2 for macOS sports a new interface and is now a full-fledged desktop app.
• Outlook ($6.99/$9.99 per month, $139.99/$219.99): The old behemoth chugs along. Outlook was a key cog in the Microsoft dominance on the PC, but it’s always felt like an ugly duckling on macOS. We wanted to know if that was still the case.

The Verdict: Fantastical 2 is the best calendar app for Mac

The original Fantastical for macOS was the best option for quickly adding and reviewing calendar entries. Version 2 keeps all its advantages while adding the functionality of more robust calendar applications.

Ease of Use

There is a lot to like about a number of these calendar apps, but what makes Fantastical stand out is the first item on our list of criteria: it’s the easiest to work with. For a calendar app, ease-of-use needs to be considered in a few different ways.

First, how easy is it to glance at your day, week, or month and quickly get a feel for how your time is going to be spent? Second, and perhaps more importantly, how easy is it to get items into your calendar? Because many calendar apps do a decent-to-good job of displaying your events, we could argue that ease-of-entry is the most vital part of a desktop calendar app.

And, in this regard, Fantastical leads the way.

Aside: savvy macOS users could point to the fact that desktop utilities such as Alfred, LaunchBar, and Spotlight make ease-of-entry a non-sequitur. And I agree: I often use LaunchBar to add events to my calendar rather than Fantastical … but this is a review of the full-fledged functionality of the desktop calendar app landscape. If launcher type utilities are your thing, check out our review.

From its inception, the focus with Fantastical was its natural-language parsing, the ability for the user to enter random bits of text into the entry box and the app just figures it out. It’s almost magical and it set the bar for calendar apps on macOS.

That has not changed with Fantastical 2. Although the app is no longer just a menubar utility, the ease of getting items into your calendar is the same. The great part of Fantastical 2 is that for those who loved the simplicity of the first version, you can use it in the exact same fashion. The full fledged app interface never needs to be seen.

Indeed, the menubar functionality is now a must-have for a calendar application. I want to be able to glance at my day without having to open the full application. Fantastical gives me that option and builds on the original experience of the first version to also give the full functionality and bigger long-term views of more traditional calendar apps.

Apple makes every effort to turn the phrase “it-just-works” into reality. Flexibits does the same with its ability to take what you throw at it and turn your words into events that make sense. And, as alluded to earlier, ease of use also includes a few other touches. Viewing a calendar filled with events and tasks is one factor, but we’ll touch more on the UI below.

Another way many calendar apps cause frustration is in editing events already in your calendar. Some of our options add friction to the process of editing existing entries, most often in the form of multiple clicks. Fantastical does no such thing. Simply click on an existing event, and update fields as desired. Other options require you to click a button or double click an entry before field values can be added. Advantage Fantastical!

There are a few other common tasks that are (thankfully) easier than was common several years back. Adding invitees, locations, or notes to a calendar entry is a fairly simple process in Fantastical, BusyCal, and Calendar.app — both in creating a new entry, or with editing an existing one. In this regard, Outlook adds slightly more friction to the process.

Aesthetics

In many interfaces, the “less is more” mantra is an ideal goal. Most clean, well-thought out UI’s make ample use of whitespace and contrast to differentiate between different types of content.

The hard part of designing a calendar application is that the designer has to give the user the ability to view a large amount of information (a month or year view of a busy person’s calendar), yet still maintain clarity. No easy task. In this regard, Flexibits has done a laudable job with Fantastical.

The desktop calendar space for macOS had long been ruled by options putting functionality over aesthetics or options that came close to usable, but slightly missed the mark (Apple’s own Calendar app).

Power Play

The problem with many of the apps that place the highest priority on aesthetics, ease of use, and a clean experience is that power features are often sacrificed. And in most cases, this is a good thing.

But applications that can provide a clean user experience and full functionality will rule the roost. That’s the case with Fantastical. No one could ever accuse BusyCal of not delivering on features, but it, and other options, lack the grace of Fantastical. So, when talking about feature sets, this must always be kept in mind.

How does Fantastical fare with features in mind? Very well, thank you! It integrates with iCloud and Google accounts, the two most used options for macOS users. But it also plays nicely with Exchange (for those poor souls living double lives), Yahoo, and CalDAV accounts. Is your Google account configured to use two-factor authentication? No problem.

In essence, desktop calendar applications can be thought of as wrappers. The full functionality is dependent on the background service (iCloud, Google etc). But each client on macOS integrates with those backend services to differing degrees. Fantastical does a fair job of offering the majority of options that iCloud and Google calendar apps provide.

However, one feature Fantastical does not include is the ability for users to share their calendars. But, neither do any of the other options we considered (apart from Outlook giving you options to share Exchange calendar accounts). Overall, most of the apps considered have parity in this regard. None of the other options add enough functionality to overcome Fantastical’s excellent design.

Price

For many comparisons of desktop applications for macOS, cost is not a determining factor, simply because the range of prices is mostly consistent, but with Calendar apps, price does come into the discussion. This is due to the fact that Apple provides a free option within the desktop OS, but also because Microsoft Outlook is more than 4 times the cost of the other contenders.

With Fantastical and BusyCal sitting at $49, people have two questions to answer. First, do these third-party applications offer enough advantage over the free app already installed on their computer? If the answer to that question is yes (and for many people, it likely is), the next question to answer is whether or not Outlook offers enough advantages over Fantastical and BusyCal to justify the $219 price tag.

Lastly, one consideration when factoring in price to a decision such as this is support. When a Mac user makes a purchase of this nature, choosing a third-party tool over what Apple already provides, you have to consider what kind of company your purchasing power is supporting. Part of what makes macOS so special is the thriving community of developers. They truly make macOS a better platform (as well as iOS), extending what it can do beyond what Apple envisioned.

It’s just another reason that makes Fantastical our top choice. It feels good to support the Flexibits team. Reciprocal benefit is a beautiful thing!

Fitting In

Another vital aspect of a desktop calendar app for macOS is fitting in and being a good neighbor. With iCloud, an app that makes adding and viewing reminders has a distinct advantage over an app that does not. And again, Fantastical meets the need, and does so better than the other contenders.

This may be one of my favorite touches with Fantastical. To add a reminder to one of your Reminder lists, simply toggle the switch in the new entry window.

The same benefits to adding an event to your calendar apply to your Reminders. Simply start typing in the entry window, then toggle the switch as shown above. Want that reminder to have a due date? Not a problem — just type it in like you would for an event. The natural parsing of Fantastical handles events and reminders with ease.

Displaying your reminders is also done well. In the Mini Window (capitalized for your pleasure), your reminders are placed at the end of your list of events. If one has a due date and time, it shows amidst your events at that time. In the full app window, the reminders show in both the sidebar and the full calendar view.

Apple has made an attempt to have Reminders be the default to-do list of the casual computer user. Unfortunately, they fell short making the experience fluid. However, Fantastical makes up where they lack. With Fantastical 2, the experience of adding, viewing, and interacting with reminders makes it feel as if Reminders is a natural extension of the calendar.

Fantastical has a fantastic (sorry … you knew it was coming!) Today widget. None of the other contenders offer that functionality. If the menubar is not your thing, then a quick three finger swipe can bring up the Today window for a look at what’s coming.

Basically, Fantastical makes working with your calendar and your reminders an experience. It’s the best option for fitting in with macOS. By far!

iOS Counterparts

Although not essential to the experience on macOS, any desktop application that has counterparts on iOS (or Android) extends the overall experience. Outlook is complete in this area, as is Apple’s Calendar app. However, the same smart design touches that make Fantastical the preferred option on macOS also give it the edge with the iOS versions.

We’ve written in detail about the Fantastical iPhone app in a separate review. Read more about that here.

Once again, Fantastical comes out ahead in our comparison.

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Other Candidates

BusyCal

Probably the most feature complete option we considered, BusyCal is the best choice for those who value function over form. It certainly gives you all the features you could want. Where it lacks for yours truly is the aesthetics: it looks and feels a little like corporate software.

I used BusyCal several years back when there were less options available to replace Apple’s iCal (you can almost smell the faux leather). Today, BusyCal is greatly improved, even to the point where it competes feature-by-feature with Fantastical.

A good example is the menubar functionality. Although BusyCal started as a full desktop app, in contrast with Fantastical’s progression from menubar utility to full app, it includes a nice menubar option that allows for quick calendar entry. It even uses Fantastical-like language processing.

Where it falls short of our choice is the overall look and feel.

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.

For this review, it did not. If an all-in-one approach is your preference, then Outlook is certainly a potential good fit for you. But, when considering calendar-specific 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 this author’s mind. 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, the other options are all a better fit.

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Calendar

Last, and certainly least, Apple’s own Calendar must be considered. It’s free, it’s installed on every Mac, and it has improved over the years (the Scott Forstall faux leather years, to be specific). For the most casual user, it can certainly fit the bill.

Where does it lack compared to Fantastical? Well, it does not have a menubar option. As mentioned under ease of use, this is a must have for yours truly.

The oddest part of Calendar is its lack of integration with other iCloud items. Want to interact with your Reminders in your calendar app? Then Calendar is not for you. Same for the Calendar Today widget. Because Apple separates Reminders into its own app, you cannot see these tasks (even if they are time-based) in the view of your day. You’d have to keep both apps open.

Once again, the completeness of Fantastical surpasses the contender.

Why this over other options

With our full comparison, while there is feature parity for the most part, none of the options can compete with Fantastical in terms of overall design and ease of use. BusyCal comes close feature-wise, but is lacking the grace of a more well-designed application. And while Apple’s Calendar has the benefit of already being on your machine, it falls short in terms of usability.

Fantastical is the king of the hill. You need look no further!

We spent months testing, trying, and using many different apps for the iPhone in our search for the best calendar app. We wanted to know which apps were the easiest to use for entering new events, viewing your current agenda, and more. Based on several different criteria, Fantastical was the clear choice for the best calendar app for the iPhone.

In a nut, what makes Fantastical the best calendar app is its great design, superior natural language text entry, and its support for iCloud reminders.

Criteria for the best calendar app

We defined the following metrics to help us evaluate all the iPhone calendar apps objectively:

• Easy and fast to view appointments: The best calendar app needs to make it quick and easy to view your calendar. This means it provides different calendar views that are easy to switch between so you can visualize your events in the way that is most helpful to you.

• Easy and fast to use for adding new events and finding upcoming ones: The best calendar app needs to have fast and easy event entry. To us, this means great natural language parsing (but more on that in a bit).

• Works with necessary services (Google, iCloud, Exchange): If the calendar app can’t interface with the calendar syncing service you’re using, it can’t be the best because the app would be silo’d to your iPhone only.

The best calendar app for iPhone: Fantastical

Fantastical meets all our criteria for a great calendar app, and we recommend it unreservedly for iPhone users of all ages, professions, and varying degrees of busy-ness.

It is the easiest to use (for adding/editing events) and the easiest to read (for checking schedules) for most people. Fantastical’s natural language parsing is second to none, making it fast and easy to add events, and it has a simple-yet-powerful design. The week ticker makes it easy to visualize your week ahead, a simple pull switches to a month calendar view, and it supports any calendar you can add to iOS.

Fantastical’s design

Fantastical has two view options: list view in portrait mode with a week ticker or month calendar sitting on top, or switch to landscape mode for a week “block” view. The views can either just show events, or it can integrate events and iCloud Reminders.

• The week ticker is a great way to get a general overview of how busy the upcoming week is and to quickly swipe ahead to a specific date. The ticker shows lines (color coded to your calendars) indicating when you have events throughout each day.

• With a simple pull on the week ticker, you can swap it out for a monthly calendar view, making it easy to get an overview of any month and the day of the week a date lands on, etc. Each date on the calendar with events scheduled shows a dot (again, color-coded to your calendars).

• If you rotate your iPhone into landscape mode, then you get a week “block” view, similar to what you see in Calendar in OS X. This gives you a great visualization of how your time is blocked out over the next week while also seeing details for each day. From the block view, you can also drag and drop events to change the time and date.

Along with these three views, you also have the option to turn on a great dark theme for the vertical interface. It is clear that everything in Fantastical’s design was carefully considered and serves to improve the functionality of the app.

What makes Fantastical easy to use

Late last year, we took a little poll on Twitter regarding people’s calendar use on their iPhones. The results are not scientifically conclusive, but they do provide some interesting data points.

In the poll, we asked people how many events they enter into their iPhone on a weekly basis. Of 179 total responses:

• 73% enter 1 or fewer events per day (130 people)
• 21% enter an average of 2 events per day (38 people)
• 6% enter an average of 3 events per day (10)
• Less than 1% enter 4 or more events per day (1)

So, 94 percent of the total respondents use their iPhone calendar app two or fewer times per day to enter in a new event, while most of those people actually use it once or less per day.

Of the majority who do not enter multiple events per day on the iPhone, we think it’s safe to assume they never become deeply familiar with the user interface of their calendar app. This unfamiliarity leads to friction when entering events, whether you know it or not, because your brain has to process and re-learn the interface every time you enter a new event.

What is an “interface” we are extremely familiar with? Natural language.

We say things like “Meet Joe for lunch tomorrow at 12:30” all the time. It’s called “natural language” for a reason — we say these sentences in our conversations, emails, text messages, etc.

A calendar app that can accept and parse natural language is one we can use as infrequently as we want without suffering the consequences of an unfamiliar input interface. With Fantastical, you don’t have to enter text like a computer for the app to understand it.

Fantastical has the best natural language input mechanics of any other calendar app, far and away. Not only is it fast and intelligent at parsing just about any event- or reminder-based sentence, but Fantastical has easy-to-understand animations that let us know how the app is translating our words.

As Dr. Drang pointed out, Fantastical’s animations do more than dazzle:

The animations are providing instant feedback on how Fantastical is parsing your words and, more important, they’re teaching you Fantastical’s syntax.

Natural language parsing makes it easy to switch between entering an event or a reminder. For a reminder, you simply start by typing “task,” “todo,” or “reminder.” You can also toggle a switch (if you prefer) that tells Fantastical you’re entering a reminder and not an event.

Some examples of natural language expressions you can enter:

• Shopping at Giant Eagle Saturday at 8am: Fantastical will create an event called “Shopping” with location “Giant Eagle” and schedule it for this upcoming Saturday at 8 am.

• Vacation in Canada Aug 9-15th: Fantastical will create an event called “Vacation” with location “Canada” and schedule it as an all-day event August 9-15th.

• task pick up milk at 4:30pm: Fantastical will create a reminder called “pick up milk” and alert you at 4:30pm.

• Meeting every Wednesday at 1:30pm repeat weekly alert 10 min: Fantastical will create a repeating event called “Meeting” scheduled to repeat every Wednesday at 1:30pm with an alert 10 minutes before the start time (rather than the default reminder in the app).

(If you need a little more help making the most of natural language entry in Fantastical, make sure to download the guide at the beginning or end of this review).

iOS Greatness

The app comes with a Today view widget that can be used to replace the stock iOS Calendar widget. This means tapping an event will open it in Fantastical, making it easer than ever to ignore Apple’s app entirely. If the Calendar option is enabled for the Today widget, it’s easy to jump ahead or back in time right from the Today view without going into the app:

The extension that comes as part of Fantastical is crazy powerful. Instead of a bare-bones UI, the extension packs the app’s entire event creation UI behind the Extension button.

The most common use case for the widget is probably Safari. Tapping the extension will create a new event with the URL saved, but if you have any text highlighted, the extension will place that text in the event’s title field.

This is where the magic of Fantastical’s text parsing comes into play. If you’ve highlighted the date and time of an event, the extension will take that and build out the event. It’s a little weird to explain, but in practice, it makes creating an event from almost anywhere in iOS super fast.

On the iPad, Fantastical supports Slide Over and Split View, making it fast to look at your schedule while doing other work on your tablet. You can also use iOS 11’s latest Drag & Drop features to drop an event into the event creator or straight into your week ticker or monthly view. This is a great feature for dragging events out of your email inbox and into your calendar.

The app supports Quick Actions on the iPhone 6S or greater. 3D Touch on the app icon to reveal shortcuts to create a new event, show reminders, search, and see what’s up next on your calendar.

Likewise, Fantastical offers rich notifications that have more information just a 3D Touch away.

Lastly, as of version 2.8, the app offers an iMessage sticker pack, making it easy (and fun!) to tell someone you’re running late or need to reschedule something.

On the Wrist

Fantastical’s Apple Watch app is flexible and powerful. You can view events as a list or on a timeline, giving you a sense of events’ length and gaps in your schedule.

With watchOS 2 and higher, you can even create new events and reminders right from your wrist using natural language. Simply Force Touch the app and speak, and Fantastical will take care of the rest.

Fantastical ships with a custom complication that is most useful when used in the large spot in the Modular face.

Tips and Tricks

In apps as rich as Fantastical, there are always little shortcuts and tricks. Here are some of our favorites:

• Gently pull down on the day ticker or calendar to reveal the search box.
• Tap the month and year header to go to today’s date.
• Tap and hold the month and year header to go to a specific date.
• Fantastical has some great URL schemes and supports x-callback-url for those of you who want to automate adding events.
• When using Fantastical to add Reminders, there is an option for custom repeat intervals (something the iOS Reminders app doesn’t offer).
• Fantastical offers notifications of events and reminders. If you don’t want to get duplicate reminders, remember to turn off either the Calendar/Reminders notifications or the Fantastical notifications. In version 2.1, Fantastical added the ability to snooze reminders, making the Calendar reminders unnecessary. We suggest you stick with the Fantastical notifications.
• For the power users, Fantastical has keyboard shortcuts for external keyboards baked into the app. Check out the complete list in the Settings → Help → Tips and Tricks section.
• If you want to add a specific location to an event, tap the arrow in the Location field to search for locations that are in your Contacts list or nearby on the map. This is helpful if you need to specify which Chipotle you want to meet your friends at.

Who else is recommending Fantastical

Not only did Fantastical 2 win a Macworld Eddy, it is also a favorite around the internet…

• Our friends over at MacStories call Fantastical 2 “…useful and dependable, intuitive and powerful.”

• Shawn Blanc named it “…the best calendar app on the iPhone. It was great before, but now, it’s, well, fantastic.”

• 9to5Mac touts that it is “the calendar Apple should have built… again”.

• AppAdvice says “If you’ve been searching for the perfect calendar companion for your iOS 7 device, then look no further.”

• TUAW finds it so useful they would pay more than the list price: “Buy Fantastical 2 — it will make dealing with appointments, calendars and reminders so much easier it’s worth far more than what they are charging for it.”

The competition

Another calendar app worth checking out is Calendars 5.

Calendars 5

One of the biggest selling points of Calendars 5 over Fantastical 2 is that the former is a universal app. If it’s important for you to work with the same interface across your iPhone and iPad, Calendars 5 is definitely worth your consideration. However, iCloud syncing allows you to easily use Fantastical 2 on your iPhone and Fantastical 2 on your iPad (or just about any combination of calendar apps).

Calendars 5 has several great view options: List view, day view, week view, and month view. Getting to these different views, however, requires a few taps and can be tedious.

With its own integrated task manager (which can sync with iCloud Reminders) and the ability to sync with Google Calendar on its own, Calendars 5 can stand alone from the iOS native Calendar and Reminders if you want it to.

Calendars 5 also offers some nice gestures, including a horizontal swipe to change between the day/week/month/or year in view, as well as drag and drop to move events around. Drag and drop is a handy feature for easily changing the time or date of events — just tap, hold, and drag.

The list view offers a unique “timeline” type list with icons on the left-hand side illustrating what type of event or reminder each item is. On the iPad, this is accompanied by a block calendar view on the right, which is a unique view to Calendars 5. The week and month views also show your events in block view, which we find useful for visualizing time in the day. The year view provides a great overview, with color coding of each date for how busy you are.

For entering events, Calendars 5 also offers natural language parsing. Merlin project management for mac. However, it is missing the visual cues of Fantastical. While you do see an animation when parsing is happening, it doesn’t quite have the impact of the Fantastical animations.

Calendars 5 makes it easier than ever to invite people or add locations to events. Using the same natural language parsing, the app suggests that you invite people that you mention and also looks up locations that you can add to the event. For example, if you type “Coffee with Joe at Starbucks at 2,” Calendars will suggest that you invite Joe to the event and will also show you a list of local Starbucks shops.

Week Calendar

When you search for a calendar app on the iOS App Store, you’re almost sure to discover Week Calendar. Week Calendar is consistently one of the top-grossing and most-used calendar apps available for the iPhone thanks to its power-user feature set.

Week Calendar offers batch processing, allowing you to shift appointments and events on a batch basis. You can also customize Week Calendar as well, something you can’t do with Fantastical. From colors to alerts and menus, Week Calendar can be manipulated to your heart’s content. Lastly, if you create events with similar parameters time and again, Week Calendar offers templates to make short work of adding the similar events.

While Week Calendar is a great option for power users, we feel it’s too complicated and busy for most people. The weekly calendar view is extremely busy and feels overwhelming upon first encounter. And Fantastical’s natural language parsing is simply difficult to beat.

If Fantastical’s feature-set doesn’t meet your needs, take a look at Week Calendar.

Calendar Application For Mac

Another type of calendar app altogether

Shifts makes managing an irregular work schedule easy by creating shift types that you can easily apply to your calendar. Once you create the shift types, inputing your schedule is quick and simple.

At first, it was tedious to add all the shift types, especially if you have a crazy schedule. For shifts that start in varying 30 min increments, we had to create individual types, each with a colored icon. It felt like a lot of taps.

Once the shift types were entered, however, inputing our schedule was quick and easy. You simply select the shift type and stamp it on the applicable days. It took a minute to get used to the input method, but we liked it in the end.

You can view your schedule in calendar or list mode and add notes to any day. Opening at Starbucks on Monday, class on Tuesday, and it’s all customized and color-coded. You can have multiple shift types in one day, and you can even apply rotations for regular shift types like class.

Our favorite feature is importing existing calendars. Once you give Shifts permission, it will add calendars from Apple’s Calendar app so you can view the schedules side by side.

Keep in mind that Shifts will require some initial commitment before you start to see its genius. We love the customization and color-coding, and when we saw that it could display events from other calendars, we were sold.

Because of it’s extremely narrow scope, Shifts doesn’t really content with Fantastical as our favorite calendar app for the iPhone (but Shifts isn’t trying to take that spot). It’s an app that, as they say, does one thing very well.

Other apps we tried:

• Native iOS Calendar also offers day, week (horizontal, or as a running list in vertical mode), and month views. The flat design makes it hard to read and the app lacks gestures and natural language processing.

• Moleskine Timepage is a beautiful calendar app with a nearly unmatched design. It also works great with Moleskine’s Actions app. However, Timepage’s subscription pricing is more expensive than Fantastical’s one-time purchase price and is high for Timepage’s feature-set.

• Vantage Calendar is a new app with a unique (and customizable) interface. Vantage is unique enough to catch your attention, but the UI will take some getting used to when compared to other calendar apps.

• Logacal offers a unique way of looking at your calendars. By displaying time in a logarithmic format, it displays your calendars in a list view, starting with “Today” and “Tomorrow” and then moving to “Upcoming Days,” “Upcoming Weeks,” and “Upcoming Months.”

• Horizon displays the weather along with each of your calendar events. In the list view, you can see the high and low for the day along with a pictogram of the weather. In the day view, you can see the temperature and a pictogram for each of your events (based on time and location).

• Cal offers a similar date ticker/month calendar interface to Fantastical and also integrates with the todo manager, Any.do.

• donna. seems to be an answer to Google now, attempting to predict when you will need certain information from your calendar.

• Mynd offers a unique dashboard interface to your calendar and also seems to be inspired by Google now. Mynd also has a cool feature where it will notify you in advance of an event that it’s time to leave (assuming Mynd knows where your event is located).

• Tempo combines your calendars with many other things, including a smart address book, LinkedIn & Facebook integration, flight status information, driving directions, and more.

• PlanBe integrates with the todo manager, Toodledo, but has a cluttered calendar view.

• Popcal has a swipe-based interface and a unique event entry panel, but isn’t much better than the native Calendar app.

• QuickCal offers good natural language processing but does not have an appealing user interface.

One Calendar For Mac

Wrap Up

Calendar Programs For Mac

Fantastical 2 is our pick for the best iPhone calendar app. A great design, great views of your calendar events, and superior natural language parsing for event and reminder entry keeps this app on our home screens.