The best calendar apps for Mac and iPhone

App	Price	How you pay	Mac	iPhone	iPad	Watch	App Store	Developer	Setapp	Rating
Fantastical	Free to start	Free, with paid upgrades								4.2
Notion Calendar	Free	Free								4.7
BusyCal	Free to start	Free, with paid upgrades								Too few ratings
Structured	Free to start	Free, with paid upgrades								4.8
Dato	$18 once	Pay once								Too few ratings
Itsycal	Free, open source	Free								Too few ratings
Akiflow	From $19	Subscription								Too few ratings

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1. 1

   Fantastical

   Free to startOur pick4.2

   Pick it if you juggle work and personal calendars and would rather type an event than tap through pickers.

   Where BusyCal asks $49.99 up front, Fantastical's free version already covers every view from day to year and turns a typed sentence like "Lunch with Sarah at 1pm tomorrow" into a proper event. It shows Google, iCloud, Exchange and Microsoft 365 calendars in 1 place alongside your tasks. The trade-off is that booking links, meeting polls and Apple Watch support need Premium at $56.99 a year, which adds up faster than BusyCal's one-time price.

   Prices and full verdictApp StoreCompare
   
2. 2

   Notion Calendar

   FreeBest free4.7

   Pick this if you want a free calendar for Google, Outlook and iCloud, especially if you plan in Notion.

   Work on Google Calendar, a client on Outlook and family plans on iCloud means checking 3 places to find a free hour. Notion Calendar shows all of them in one free view on Mac, Windows, iPhone and Android, with a booking link, a menu bar shortcut to join calls and Notion docs attached to meetings. There is no iPad version yet, and without Notion you lose the main reason to pick it over BusyCal.

   Prices and full verdictApp StoreCompare
   
3. 3

   BusyCal

   Free to start

   Pick it if you want tasks, weather and events side by side and prefer a one-time $49.99 license.

   Free on the Mac App Store for everyday calendaring, or $49.99 once from the developer, this calendar puts tasks next to your events and pulls in iCloud, Google, Exchange and CalDAV accounts. Plain-language entry, travel time and an 8-day forecast inside the calendar go well past Apple's Calendar. The App Store's full version is a subscription, so buy the direct license or get it through Setapp if you hate renting software.

   Prices and full verdictDeveloper's siteCompare
   
4. 4

   Structured

   Free to start4.8

   Pick this if you want your calendar and tasks laid out as time blocks so you can see if the day fits.

   A to-do list doesn't tell you whether everything fits in today, and a calendar alone doesn't hold your tasks. Structured lays both on 1 timeline across iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple Watch, and the free version covers the timeline, inbox, subtasks, focus timer and widgets. Pro, which pulls in your calendars and Reminders and adds recurring routines, is $29.99 a year, less than 2 months of Sunsama.

   Prices and full verdictApp StoreCompare
   
5. 5

   Dato

   $18 once

   Pick it if you keep Apple's Calendar but want the next meeting and world clocks in your menu bar.

   For $18 once, with the developer's promise that it will never turn into a subscription, Dato puts the date, your next event and world clocks in the menu bar. A keyboard shortcut joins your next Zoom, Meet or Teams call, and a fullscreen alert makes a meeting hard to miss. The free Itsycal already covers the small calendar part, so Dato is worth it for the meeting tools.

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6. 6

   Itsycal

   Free, open source

   Pick this if a free month view in the menu bar is all the calendar upgrade you need.

   Click a small date icon in your menu bar to see the whole month beside your upcoming events, then add an event or join a video call from the same dropdown. It is free and open source, and it adds ISO week numbers and a menu bar date format you write yourself. It reads events from the Calendar app rather than replacing it, and Macs older than macOS 27 need the 0.15.5 release.

   Prices and full verdictDeveloper's siteCompare
   
7. 7

   Akiflow

   From $19

   Pick it if your calendar is where you schedule tasks pulled in from email, Slack and other apps.

   At $19 a month billed yearly, or $34 month to month, Akiflow costs more than Sunsama, so it makes sense only if your tasks really are scattered across tools. It pulls them from email, Slack and other apps into 1 inbox, then lets you time-block them on a calendar that merges work and personal events. The 7-day trial needs a credit card, and it also runs on Windows and the web.

   Prices and full verdictDeveloper's siteCompare
   

• Fantastical vs Notion CalendarPick this if you want a free calendar for Google, Outlook and iCloud, especially if you plan in Notion.
• Fantastical vs BusyCalPick it if you want tasks, weather and events side by side and prefer a one-time $49.99 license.
• Fantastical vs StructuredPick this if you want your calendar and tasks laid out as time blocks so you can see if the day fits.
• Notion Calendar vs BusyCalPick it if you want tasks, weather and events side by side and prefer a one-time $49.99 license.