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Use the Windows 11 Calendar App to view and manage your calendar appointments, meetings, and events.

Quick reference

Use the Calendar

Use the Calendar App in Windows 11 to create and manage meetings and appointments. 

When to use

If we have chosen to use the Calendar App in Windows 11, we need to know how to view our calendar, create appointments and create and respond to meeting invites. 

Instructions

When we link out mail accounts to the Mail App in Windows 11, the calendars also associated with those accounts will synchronize. This means we can manage our calendar appointments and meetings. 

The Calendar App is a separate app in its own right. We can search for it and open it but it's basically just a way of getting to the Calendar area within the Mail App. So, we don't have to search for the Calendar App to use it, we can just use the Mail app and switch to the Calendar part. 

Open the Calendar

  • Open the Mail App. 
  • Click the Calendar icon at the bottom of the folder list. 
  • OR, click the Start button or press the Win key. 
  • Scroll down to 'C' or type Calendar into the search bar. 

View Multiple Calendars

If we have multiple accounts linked to our Mail, we can view the calendars for each of these accounts.

Notice on the left-hand side underneath the mini-calendar, we can see our linked accounts. The calendars currently showing will have a tick in the box next to them. Unlike Outlook, multiple calendars do not show side by side; instead, they are merged into one calendar making it easy to see appointments and meetings across all of our accounts. 

Add Holiday Calendar

We can keep on top of holidays in our country by adding a holiday calendar. 

  • Click Add Calendars. 
  • Click Holiday Calendars. 
  • Select a country. 
  • Click Add. 

Calendar Views

We can view our calendar in a few different ways: 

Today - View all calendar items scheduled for today. 

Day - Click the drop-down to view 1 - 6 days. 

Week - Click the dropdown to view a week (Mon - Sun) or a working week (Mon - Fri). 

Month - View an entire month.

Year - View the entire year. 

We can toggle easily between these views and customize what we consider to be a working week in Settings. 

Appointments vs Meetings

We can add appointments and meetings to the calendar. An appointment is something we create for ourselves. It can be set for a specific time frame e.g. a dentist appointment between 3pm and 4pm or we can create all-day appointments. Appointments can also be set to recur on a regular basis. 

A meeting is different from an appointment. Meetings have invitees. We can create a meeting, invite our colleagues, and track their responses. Meetings can also be set to recur on a regular basis. 

Add an Appointment

We can add an appointment in two ways. 

  • Click on the day in the calendar. 

The Event window will open. From here we can add the details of the event. 

  • Click the drop-down arrow next to the grey circle. 
  • Choose an icon to represent the event. 
  • Type the event name. 
  • If this is an All day event, leave the tick in the box. If it isn't, remove the tick. 
  • Enter a Start time and End time. 
  • Add a Location if required. 
  • Set a Reminder. 
  • Click Save.

Note, if we want to add more information we can click the More details button. 

The second way to add an appointment:

  • Click the + New event button above the mini-calendar. 

This opens the new event window in the details view. We can go through and choose our appointment settings. Notice the padlock icon at the top. We can click this to make the appointment private. That means that if we have given a colleague access to view our calendar, they won't be able to see the details of this appointment, only that we are busy during this time. 

  • Click Save. 

We also have a People area. This is where we can invite people and turn this appointment into a meeting. If we do not add people, the event is just an appointment. 

Create a Meeting

  • Click the + New event button above the mini-calendar. 
  • Complete the event details. 
  • In the People area, type in the names of the invitees. If the invitee exists in our contacts, we can select them from the list. If not, we can type in their full email address.
  • Click Send. 

The meeting will be added to our calendar and an invite sent to all invitees. Invitees will receive the meeting invite in their email and have the choice of accepting the meeting, declining the meeting, or proposing a new time. 

Track Responses

We can track the responses to our meeting invite to determine how many people will be attending the meeting. 

  • Click on the meeting in the calendar. 
  • In the People area, click the drop-down arrow next to Sort by. 
  • Choose Response status. 

Cancel a Meeting

We can cancel a meeting even if we have already invited attendees. 

  • Click on the meeting in the calendar. 
  • Click the Cancel meeting button. 

This will send a meeting cancellation notification to all invitees and remove the meeting from their calendar. 

Recurring Meetings and Appointments

A recurring event is something that repeats. For example, we might have a team meeting every Monday morning at 9am. Instead of adding this to our calendar each week, we can create it once and set it to repeat each week. 

  • Click the + New event button above the mini-calendar. 
  • Add the details and invite people if required. 
  • Click the Repeat button. 
  • Select a Start date. 
  • Click the drop-down and choose how often the meeting is to repeat: Daily, Weekly, Monthly, Yearly. 
  • Choose the Day. 
  • Select an End date. 
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  • 00:04 Much the mail app in Windows 11, the calendar app allows us to manage
  • 00:08 our meetings and appointments across one or more accounts.
  • 00:13 As we saw when we were looking at mail, when we switched to our calendar,
  • 00:17 it actually opens a new window and that is because it is effectively a separate app.
  • 00:22 So let's take a look at some of the things that we can do with our calendar.
  • 00:25 So let's press the Windows key on our keyboard and
  • 00:29 we can open the individual calendar app from here.
  • 00:32 Alternatively, we could open mail and switch to calendar in that way as well.
  • 00:37 But we're just going to open the app.
  • 00:39 Now, once again, I've already tailored my theme so
  • 00:42 that is why it's showing in this pink color.
  • 00:44 Yours might look slightly different, but
  • 00:46 in general it will look the same as what we have now.
  • 00:49 Now, if you've used calendars in other applications then you're probably not
  • 00:53 going to find this too different.
  • 00:54 If we start out by taking look over on the left hand side where we have our
  • 00:59 mini calendar view.
  • 01:00 So this is where we can just see an overview of the current month with
  • 01:04 the current day highlighted.
  • 01:05 So you can see that today is July the 23rd, 2022.
  • 01:09 We have up and down arrows if you want to scroll to the next month and
  • 01:13 back months as well.
  • 01:14 And then underneath, it's showing us the account that this is linked to.
  • 01:18 So currently this is just showing my calendar for my Outlook account,
  • 01:22 which is my cellmates email account.
  • 01:25 Now, I can add other accounts in here and view multiple calendars for
  • 01:29 different accounts.
  • 01:30 And we're going to do that in a moment.
  • 01:33 For the time being, notice I have calendar ticked,
  • 01:36 United States holidays, and also birthdays.
  • 01:39 If I deselect calendar, it's going to get rid of all of my calendar information for
  • 01:44 my Outlook account.
  • 01:45 If I click it again it's going to put it back.
  • 01:48 Now, these other calendars are ones that you can add in through the Calendar app.
  • 01:53 So sometimes it's quite nice to be able to add in the holiday days for
  • 01:57 your particular country or region.
  • 01:59 So I currently have United States holidays but I'm located in the United Kingdom.
  • 02:04 So what I'm going to do here is just click the drop down arrow, and
  • 02:08 I'm going to remove this calendar.
  • 02:10 Let's click on continue.
  • 02:12 And what I'm going to do is am going to add in the holiday calendar for
  • 02:16 the United Kingdom so that I can see which days are public holidays,
  • 02:20 which day Christmas is going to fall on, things like that.
  • 02:23 So all we need to do is click on add calendars at the bottom and
  • 02:27 I'm going to choose holiday calendars at the top.
  • 02:31 Notice we have lots of other different categories in here.
  • 02:33 So if you're really into your sports and you want to know when the Formula 1 day
  • 02:38 is, the Grand Prix are going to occur, you can add those calendars as well.
  • 02:42 Now, I'm going to choose holiday calendars and
  • 02:44 from here we just need to select the country that we live in.
  • 02:47 There we go, United Kingdom, let's select it and
  • 02:50 it's going to add that holiday calendar in.
  • 02:53 So now, if I take a look at the current month,
  • 02:56 I can see that the August bank holiday is occurring on the first of August.
  • 03:01 Now, you might think that if you want to add multiple accounts you would go to add
  • 03:04 calendars.
  • 03:05 But you don't.
  • 03:06 We add other accounts in a slightly different way.
  • 03:09 So for this we need to go into the settings by clicking on the cog icon.
  • 03:14 And from here right at the top, we can manage our accounts.
  • 03:17 So you can see here currently,
  • 03:19 I only have my Outlook account linked to this calendar app.
  • 03:23 So I can go to add account and then maybe I can add a completely different account.
  • 03:28 So I'm going to just add this top one just here, click on done.
  • 03:32 And because this is also an Outlook account, I can see Outlook 2 just here and
  • 03:36 it's showing me the calendar for my other account.
  • 03:39 And the cool thing with this is that it automatically merges all of your calendars
  • 03:44 into one.
  • 03:45 So I'm not having to switch between different calendars and
  • 03:48 kind of marry up what I have on which days for each of these accounts.
  • 03:52 If I don't want to display the items for Outlook 2, I can deselect and
  • 03:56 it's going to remove those items from my calendar.
  • 03:59 Now, right at the top here we have a search bar.
  • 04:01 So if we're looking for particular items in our calendar,
  • 04:04 we can definitely use that.
  • 04:05 And then over on the right hand side we have two different ways that
  • 04:08 we can view our calendar.
  • 04:09 So if I click on day, that's just going to show me today, or I can click the drop
  • 04:15 down and show the next two days, the next four days, so on and so forth.
  • 04:20 I can do the same with week.
  • 04:21 So I can show the work week which is just Monday to Friday or
  • 04:26 I can show the entire week.
  • 04:29 Now, if you have a work week that isn't Monday to Friday because that does differ
  • 04:33 in different countries, this is something you can customize underneath settings.
  • 04:37 So if we click on the cog icon again and go to calendar settings,
  • 04:41 this is where we can choose what the first day of our week is and
  • 04:45 which days we want to include in our work week.
  • 04:49 Now, in general, I prefer to view my calendar in month view,
  • 04:52 that's just my personal preference.
  • 04:54 So let's take a look at how we add items into the calendar.
  • 04:57 Now, when it comes to adding items,
  • 04:59 there are kind of I guess two to three ways that we can do this.
  • 05:03 We can add appointments, we can add all day events, or we can add meetings.
  • 05:08 So let's click on the new event button in the top left hand corner.
  • 05:13 This is going to open up the event and this time I'm going to add an appointment.
  • 05:17 And it's going to be a doctor's appointment which I need to attend on
  • 05:21 Monday.
  • 05:22 So let's give the event a name, we're going to call it doctor's appointment.
  • 05:27 I can choose a little icon to represent this if I want.
  • 05:30 So let's choose this little medical kit,
  • 05:32 and I can choose which of my calendars I want to add this to.
  • 05:35 So I'm going to add this to my cellmate's account, let's choose that calendar.
  • 05:40 I can add a location if I want to, I don't have to, and
  • 05:43 then I can set the start date.
  • 05:45 So this is going to be Monday, I'm just going to leave it at 2 o'clock for
  • 05:50 quickness, and it's also going to end on Monday and
  • 05:53 it's going to be until let's say 3:30.
  • 05:56 I can then add in details if I want to in this space below.
  • 06:00 Now, notice at the top here we do have a ribbon.
  • 06:03 So I can choose to save this to add it to my calendar, I can delete it,
  • 06:07 I can turn it into an online meeting.
  • 06:10 So if I was to say it's going to be an online meeting,
  • 06:13 it's going to post a link in the body of the email.
  • 06:16 And if I was to invite anybody else and turn this into a meeting as opposed to
  • 06:20 an appointment, they would just need to click on the link to join the meeting.
  • 06:24 My time is going to show as busy in my calendar and I can also set a reminder.
  • 06:30 Now, if this is something that's going to repeat, so maybe I have to go to
  • 06:34 a doctor's appointment every Monday for the next six weeks, I could use the repeat
  • 06:38 option just here and I can choose how often I want this to repeat.
  • 06:41 We can also mark our appointments or our meetings as private.
  • 06:46 So what this basically means is that if anybody else has access to view your
  • 06:50 calendar, they can see that you're busy during this particular time period,
  • 06:54 2 to 3:30, but they can't actually see any details related to this appointment.
  • 06:59 So maybe I don't want everybody in the office to know that I'm going
  • 07:03 to the doctor's on Monday, I could mark it as private.
  • 07:07 Now, I'm not going to do any of that, this is just a regular appointment.
  • 07:10 Let's click on save to add that into our calendar.
  • 07:13 And you can see there it is.
  • 07:15 If I need to edit, I can simply click on it,
  • 07:18 click on doctor's appointment to reopen that back up, make my changes, and save.
  • 07:24 Now, if you want to create an all day event, and I'm just going to do this on
  • 07:28 Tuesday, notice that when I click on Tuesday, I get this mini pop-up.
  • 07:32 So it allows me to very quickly add an event.
  • 07:35 If I want to add more details,
  • 07:37 I can click on the more details button to reopen that window.
  • 07:40 Now, maybe on Tuesday I'm out of the office all day at a training course.
  • 07:45 So I'm going to say training, I can choose an icon if I want to,
  • 07:51 let's just use the star just here.
  • 07:54 I want to make sure I'm saving it into the correct calendar, but if it's going to
  • 07:59 be an all day event, I want to make sure I have the all day button selected.
  • 08:04 If I deselect this, it allows me to enter in a timeframe.
  • 08:08 So that's really the only difference between creating an appointment between
  • 08:12 two times and an all day event.
  • 08:14 So let's click this, click on save to add that into the calendar.
  • 08:19 So those are the two different types of appointment that we can make.
  • 08:22 Now, what about meetings?
  • 08:24 Now, the only difference between an appointment and
  • 08:27 a meeting is that a meeting has invitees.
  • 08:29 So maybe I want to create a meeting next Tuesday, let's go into more details.
  • 08:35 And this is going to be let's just say a Sales Meeting,
  • 08:39 I can add in all the details as usual.
  • 08:42 So this isn't going to be all day,
  • 08:45 it's going to be between let's say 10 AM and 10:30 AM.
  • 08:50 And the only difference here is that we invite people to this meeting.
  • 08:54 So I can type in Jen, let's invite her, and I could also invite Andrea as well.
  • 09:01 My button changes from save to sent.
  • 09:05 So I can click on send to send this out.
  • 09:07 Both Jen and Andrea are going to receive an invite and
  • 09:10 they can then choose if they want to accept or decline that meeting request.
  • 09:15 And if I go into this sales meeting, I can keep track of who's responded to this
  • 09:20 invite and whether they've accepted or declined by going over to the people area,
  • 09:26 clicking the drop down and choosing response status.
  • 09:29 Now, nobody has replied to this yet.
  • 09:31 But say for example, Jen had accepted this meeting request,
  • 09:35 I would see accepted underneath her name.
  • 09:38 So it's a really nice way of keeping track of who's going to be there.
  • 09:41 So that is pretty much it when it comes to using this calendar app.
  • 09:45 Fairly standard, and if you've used a calendar app in another application
  • 09:49 before, I don't think you're going to have too many problems using it in Windows 11.

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