Tips and Shortcuts for the Calendar app on the Mac

The Mac’s Calendar app is easy to use, but it’s even easier with these tips and shortcuts. Keyboard shortcuts, usability tips, links to calendars you can subscribe to: they’re all here.

Keyboard shortcuts

Switch to Day, Week, Month, or Year View:

• ⌘-1: Day View
• ⌘-2: Week View
• ⌘-3: Month View
• ⌘-4: Year View

Move forward and back a day, a week, a month, or a year:

• ⌘- →: forward one day, week, month, or year, depending on the current view
• ⌘- ←: back one day, week, month, or year, depending on the current view

Move to a particular date:

• ⌘-T: go to Today
• ⌘-Shift-T: go to any date

Adjust font size (works in Day, Week, and Month Views)

• ⌘- + (plus): increase font size
• ⌘- – (minus): decrease font size

Miscellaneous Stuff

• ⌘-R: refresh the calendars (particularly useful for calendars you’ve subscribed to)
• ⌘-N: create a new event, in natural language (typing “Lunch tomorrow with Jeff” to put the event into your calendar for tomorrow, from noon to 1 pm). This is only slightly easier than doing it by hand but it all adds up.

Mouse and trackpad stuff

• Click the Today button to jump to Today
• Click the Calendars button to show and hide the calendar list
• In week view, click and drag to make an appointment of any length
• Option-drag an appointment to duplicate it wherever you stop dragging
• ⌘-click the checkbox next to a calendar to turn them all on, or all off
• ⌘-Option-click the checkbox next to a calendar to turn that one on, and all of the others off
• Control-click an event to quickly move it to another calendar

Subscribing to calendars

Interested in the phases of the moon? The NBA Playoffs? College Football bowl games? Calendars like these already exist, and you can subscribe to them, saving yourself tons of work. Here are some of my favorites:

• Phases of the moon
• NBA Playoffs (calendar made and maintained by me)
• College Football bowl games (me again)
• College Football Schedules (my article, ESPN’s calendars)
• Various sports (ESPN)

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