Google Calendar is a central part of the Android productiveness bundle — but if all you are the usage of is what you notice on the app’s floor, you are missing out on some pretty effective possibilities.
Yes, oh yes: Just like so many of our present-day digital equipment, there may be extra to Google Calendar that meets the attention. And whilst the majority of the carrier’s advanced alternatives revolve around the Calendar website, the Calendar Android app has its proportion of on-hand out-of-sight alternatives, which are particular to the cellular revel in. From time-saving shortcuts to performance-boosting options, they may be all matters which have the ability to make your lifestyles simpler in small but huge methods.
Find time in your timetable to check out these 8 hidden Google Calendar functions on Android. Trust me: You’ll be happy you probably did.
1. Event-sensitive silencing of your smartphone
This one is technically an Android feature, but it really works hand in hand with Calendar and is one of the maximum practical options obtainable: the ability for your telephone to silence itself anytime an event from your Google Calendar automatically is underway.
All you have gotta do is enable it: Head into your phone’s settings and locate the Do Not Disturb segment (with the aid of both searchings inside the Sound phase or absolutely searching for “Do Not Disturb” inside the container on the pinnacle of the screen). Tap “Schedules,” carry your pretty little finger to the line labeled “Event,” and tap the equipment icon along it.
[Get fresh tips and insight in your inbox every Friday with JR’s Android Intelligence newsletter. Exclusive extras await!] That’ll pull up a screen that appears something like this:
The first option at the display, “During occasions for,” lets you pick which of the calendars associated with your device will trigger the cellphone-silencing behavior. You can go away it set to the default placing of “Any calendar” to have any occasion on any calendar reason your phone to be silenced, or you could slender it right down to one unique calendar — like your work calendar — and go away all of the others out.
[ Take this mobile device management course from PluralSight and learn how to secure devices in your company without degrading the user experience. ] The 2nd line helps you to specify what styles of activities will reason your phone to be silenced. You can inform the gadget to silence your phone handiest if you’ve replied “Yes” to an event, if you’ve replied “Yes” or “Maybe,” or if you’ve replied “Yes” or “Maybe” or have not answered at all. (Those alternatives are for events that different humans created and invited you to attend; any event you created for your very own will continually remember as an automatic “Yes.”)
And eventually, the 1/3 line we could you decide whether or not your cellphone must use its default Do Not Disturb behavior or if you’d rather create your own custom settings for a way the smartphone needs to behave on this specific circumstance. The custom settings choice gives you lots of flexibleness for the way precisely your smartphone must act whilst a Calendar occasion is underway: You can opt to allow calls or texts from starred contacts to come back through, for instance, or to allow activities and reminders to alert you even supposing no different sounds are accepted. You can even personalize how specific kinds of notifications seem visually all through an appointment.
Bonus tip: If you’re using a cellphone with an older model of Android or one whose manufacturer has fudged around with this part of the working gadget, you may set up your very own simplified version of the identical characteristic by using embracing this IFTTT applet.
2. Quick responses for institution events
Just like Android permits you to ship a prewritten short reaction whilst you’re rejecting a name, Google Calendar can permit you to send a fast be aware to every person involved in an upcoming assembly — all with a couple of quick faucets on your cellphone.
To configure the function, open up the Calendar app, tap the three-line menu icon inside the higher-left nook, and pick “Settings” from the menu that looks. (You might also have to scroll down a piece to discover it.)
Next, select “General,” then scroll down till you notice “Quick responses.” Tap that — and there, you will see four options for prewritten messages you can hearth off on the fly whilst en route to any appointment concerning more than one person.
Oddly, Calendar does not assist you in creating additional responses, but you could edit any of the default responses to make them say whatever you need. Just tap any individual of ’em and then update it with anything. Text your stupid ol’ heart goals.
To position your custom quick responses to apply, open up any upcoming event with at least a different person invited. Tap the 3-line menu icon in its upper-right corner and pick “Email guests” — then faucet the reaction you need from the list.
That’ll take you at once to a geared up-to-roll electronic mail together with your message in the vicinity and the recipients brought in. All this is left is to hit the “Send” button — and maybe let loose a guffaw in pride, must think strike.
3. Duplicate an existing event
Ever find yourself needing to create a new event? It truly is remarkably much like the one already on your schedule? The Calendar Android app has a clean way to copy an occasion and then use it as a blueprint for a brand new one: Tap the occasion you want to emulate, faucet the three-dot menu icon in its higher-right nook, and pick out — you guessed it — “Duplicate.” And it is it: Your new event will show up with the authentic occasion’s info filled in and equipped to be tweaked as wished. Doesn’t get a good deal simpler than that.
4. More beneficial notification instances
Google Calendar’s default notification times for brand new activities aren’t proper for all of us. If you locate yourself converting the putting for whilst an event will notify you extra regularly than not (and/or quietly muttering innovative curses every time an event notifies you in advance or later than you would like), do your self a desire and alter your Calendar’s default notification instances so that they work better for you.
Just head again into the Calendar app’s settings segment — and this time, find the segment for the Google account you want to modify and tap the “Events” line underneath it. That’ll give you a display on which you can trade the default notification times for general new activities in addition to all-day occasions. You can even add more than one notification if you want, and you can trade the default coloration for occasions on that calendar whilst you are at it (ooh, ahh, and so on).
If you need to alternate the default notification time for reminders or for any secondary calendars you’ve created inside a selected Google account, locate the best line underneath the account’s header and choose that instead of “Events” — then make the equal styles of changes there.
5. Custom calendar dreams
In addition to regular ol’ events and reminders, the Android Calendar app allows you to create ordinary goals. And regardless of the cheesy-sounding nature of the characteristic’s call, it may, in reality, have a few actual costs from a productivity perspective.
To test it out, faucet the circular plus icon in the Calendar app’s lower-proper nook, choose “Goal,” and then glance through the sections that appear. Most of the categories are pretty goofy — workout, spending time with family, reading, and different such responsibilities that I find it hard to accept as true with everyone might actually be placed onto their calendar after which observe — but the ultimate object inside the list is known as “Organize my existence.” It is really worth, at the very least, looking through.
Once you faucet that segment, Calendar will come up with a few recommended goals to timetable. Ignore those and tap “Custom.” The app will then give you a list of factors you may honestly want to agenda on a ordinary basis:
You can ignore those, too, even though, and type to your very own activity — whether it’s processing invoices, making plans conferences, or something surely essential like identifying what sorts of sandwiches ought to be ordered for lunch (I advise pastrami). Once you’ve chosen something or typed for your own custom item, Calendar will ask how often you need to do it, for how lengthy, and at what time of day — and it’ll then find open times in your timetable and work your item in as regularly as wanted.
You can preserve tune of the way regularly you accomplish your purpose over time via telling Calendar on every occasion you finish it. You can even choose to use something called “clever notifications,” which provide you with a warning both before and after your scheduled consultation so you can “prepare and music development” (and/or grumble approximately the stressful nature of “clever notifications”).
It’s nothing modern using any approach — but if you have a ordinary, recurring undertaking that seems relatively aim-oriented in nature, it could be an exciting and visually distinct way to manage it to your calendar.
6. Speedy deleting of activities
Here’s a without difficulty unnoticed and relatively reachable gesture in the Calendar Android app: From the agenda view, you could swipe any event or reminder closer to the proper to delete it in a single, fast motion. Bam.
7. Quick monthly calendar view
When you want to look at a full-month view while searching through your activities, take note of the subsequent Calendar shortcut: You can tap or swipe down on the app’s pinnacle bar — where it says the cutting-edge month’s call — to convey a monthly view into recognition. Please tap on the bar a 2nd time (or swipe back up, together with your finger beginning simply underneath that place) to cover it while you’re executed.
And speakme of shortcuts…
8. A accessible way to snap to today
Anytime you’re scrolling through your schedule view in the Calendar app and need to leap again to the modern-day day, faucet the small calendar icon (the field with a blue dot it in, directly to the left of the menu icon inside the upper-proper corner of the display screen). It’ll zip your lower back to these days, regardless of how away into the destiny you’ve got traveled.
Bonus: A better calendar widget
Last but not least is a tip that is not technically a characteristic of the Calendar Android app itself but is actually related. Google’s Calendar app has its own home display screen widgets — a month-to-month-view one and a timetable one. And they are…Ok. Fine, sincerely. They get the job performed.
But, properly, you can do higher. The respectable Calendar app’s widgets provide little in the manner of pliability or customization, for one. The month view widget is cluttered and confined in function. And the agenda widget would not let you see very a ways ahead to your timetable, which certainly limits its usefulness.
You’ll get a superior calendar-on-the-home-display setup with my Android widget hints of Calendar Widget: Month for a month-to-month view and the awkwardly named Calendar Widget by Home Agenda for a scrolling agenda association. Both are advanced to the default Calendar app widgets and take your property display screen up a substantive notch.
Calendar Widget:
Month (shown at left, above) is loose with a non-compulsory in-app improve for additional layout alternatives, while Calendar Widget, with the aid of Home Agenda (proven right, above) fees two dollars to download and use. And with that, your Android calendar revel in is officially upgraded. Now all you have gotta do is get everything for your agenda performed — and that, dear amigo, is all on you.
