BusyCal: Calendar & Reminders 4+

Love BusyCal

It is far superior to Apple Candle! Love the color coding options, the coordinating todo options, the flexibility of the users choice to show this or that list and not show another. Very well planned, maintained, and a long time standard for me on my macbook pro! I've tried others..... none compare.

Only addition I'd like to see is a user "NOTES" page along side of (or 1 click away ) where a user can write long details of the day, events, add pictures or files attached to the date but on a separate full page per day. It would function somewhat like where they allow you to put "notes" at the end of each event, journal, banner, todo, or timed todo, but would provide you a dedicated space for each day (although you wouldn't have to write on each day .....so just a daily template available you could click to bring up) where you put other things happening that won't fit on the little squares of monthly calendar boxes. BTW I know you can type on the daily page, but it' s not geared to journaling or recording events and the details or adding pictures, files or memories for the day.

Overall, I'd give them 10 stars for the functionality, reliability, fast email customer service requests, color coding, syncing !!! PERFECT SYNCING!! and the daily view which I find very helpful...like a timeline. Keep up the good work guys!

DO believe the "hype", this App fixed my calendar chaos

iCal (as it was), Google Calendars x3, kids' calendars, etc--I couldn't find a way to keep things simple, but I had read reviews (reddit, elsewhere) of people recommending BusyCal for MacOS and iOS. I'm on the bandwagon now. It has helped me organize, streamline, simplify my calendars--centralizing things and being able to spend less time reorganizing things. I think there are a few minor wishes (can't send emails without MacOS "Mail" opening despite this not being my OS default app which is Gmail on Chrome, missing native Google Workspace features like seeing Google Calendar resources or invitees schedules, more granular control of tasks prioritization) but these don't stop me from giving this a 5 over a 4 (4.5 would've been my choice if it was possible). I installed this on my phone and feel the same. I still might use Google for some situations (like above) but I usually start from BusyCal and take over elsewhere for anything that needs native features. Hopefully, the devs behind this will find wasy to tap in to those features or maybe make their own solution. I'm a fan and think if you are struggling with multiple calendars, this will be your solution.

Developer Response ,

Thank you so much for your kind words and recommendation. Google calendar sadly does not support these features when it comes to 3rd party apps syncing via their public APIs. You can see invitees schedule / availability though via the availability viewer in BusyCal. It’s available under the menu or appears as a button when you add an attendee. Chrome on Google does not support replies with attachments and so BusyCal has to open Mail app for such replies. Once Google allows such customizations we will add support for these as well.

Saves Me From Myself

My job involves a lot of deep work. Often I'll be so locked into the task I'm working on that hours will go by without me checking my mail or calendar. I also have multiple screens, and the web-based cal apps and the Apple cal app all only show notifications in the top right corner of the screen. These notifications are remarkably easy for me to miss, and therefore they make it too easy for me to miss the start of an imminent meeting, which I was previously doing often. Not a great look for me.

Busy Cal's pop-up meeting alert panel saves me. I set it to pop up and remain on top of all my other windows until I dismiss it, and to pop up both in advance of and right as a meeting starts, so that I'm prepared for the upcoming meeting too. I never fail to notice it - so finally I'm no longer showing up late for meetings on account of not failing to notice my meeting alerts.