Shared family calendar apps

[Storygirl]

What do you use that you like? Is it easy for family members with EF issues to see and add things to the calendar?

I personally prefer a paper calendar and will continue to use it, but I also want to have a digital calendar to share with my teens that they can use to record their work hours, doctor appointments, and so on. There are a lot of options in the App Store, so I wanted to ask for some recommendations.

[fraidycat]

We use Cozi. Like you, I prefer paper, but it's handy to have the online calendar to reference when out and about and having to make follow-up appts. at the point of service.

Edited November 20, 2021 by fraidycat

[Laura Corin]

We use Google calendar.  It works well for us - you can set your display to show a family calendar plus individual calendars all on one page. Here's an old page showing family events plus Husband's and mine.

[catz]

We use google calendar.  It works on all our devices (iPads, androids, laptops, bring up in any browser).  Can set custom reminders and notifications.  Can break stuff up by calendar - we have 1 for each of the 4 of us, then a family one, a homeschool one, a holiday one, etc.  You can also print them out and post them.  We've been using it for years and I love it so much.  

[Farrar]

Cozi. We pay for it. Totally worth it. I hate Google Calendar. Love Cozi. It works across platforms.

[Lady Florida.]

We used to use Cozi but switched to Google years ago. It works well for us. Everyone gets a different color. You can share what you want and keep what others don't need on their calendar private so as not to clutter it up. It's free and functional.

Edited November 20, 2021 by Lady Florida.

[marbel]

Google here too. Each of us has a color, and there is a fifth color for family activities. It works very well for us. Between the 4 of us there are two android phones, 2 iphones, and various windows lap/desktops.

[Harriet Vane]

20 hours ago, Farrar said:

Cozi. We pay for it. Totally worth it. I hate Google Calendar. Love Cozi. It works across platforms.

Same. 

[KungFuPanda]

We use the Google calendar. It’s just so easy and works with everything. I like how if someone texts or emails you a date you can just add it to your calendar with one or two clicks. 

[Laura Corin]

22 hours ago, Farrar said:

Cozi. We pay for it. Totally worth it. I hate Google Calendar. Love Cozi. It works across platforms.

Just so I know what I'm missing, what's better about Cozi?

[Farrar]

19 minutes ago, Laura Corin said:

Just so I know what I'm missing, what's better about Cozi?

So, for me, a lot of what I like more about Cozi is that it never suddenly imports a whole other calendar that I can't figure out how to get rid of - which is a "feature" that Google Calendar seemed to have. I find the Cozi interface so much easier to use. I'm sure I could get better at Google Calendar... and it's been a few years since I regularly tried it... but I found everything about Cozi intuitive and almost nothing about Google Calendar and getting it to sync very intuitive at all and led to a lot of issues for me - events lost, events added that I didn't want there, etc. Again, I'm sure I'm "wrong" and that most people who really like Google Calendar aren't missing anything at all. In the abstract, I understand that Google Calendar has more features and is better. But also, I'm happy with my product and don't really want to be told that if I would only spend hours learning to use the more complex app more effectively that I'd be happier with it.

Cozi has a free version that has all the core features. Most of what I pay for is the ability to have different calendar views and add additional reminders to things. I mean, there are more features with premium, some of which I use, but those are the core things. 

[SounderChick]

We use Google with lots of reminders on our phones and Alexa.

[2squared]

We use google calendar. No issues with it or time spent learning the features. 

I would not be able to convince all my family members to add another app or use a different product. We have personal Google email addresses, so gmail is a natural extension. 

[73349]

I hate Google calendar with a passion (e.g., right now it isn't letting me delete something that happened ONCE and it made yearly) and was hoping somebody had another option than Cozi. I might try Cozi again.

Edited November 22, 2021 by Carolina Wren

[PeterPan]

On 11/20/2021 at 2:18 PM, Storygirl said:

There are a lot of options in the App Store

Are you on apple or android? 

If you're on apple, you have the ability select which calendars accounts you want to show on any particular calendar you're using. So each child needs to have their own apple or google id and then you add that account and go through each device telling it which calendars to sync/display and which to skip.

Potential issues? 

-privacy--You're assuming the people will not tick boxes for calendars you don't want them to see. This is more of an issue with the *apple* accounts, which will all show, than the google, which you add one by one. 

-deleting--My ds DELETES things from his google calendar. There is no nice french for how frustrating this is, because it's the system many of his therapists use to communicate appointments. So if you have an ODD or otherwise ornery person, honestly you're going to need some redundancy or safety or accountability/consequences or something. Every time my ds gets angry, he just slashes out and deletes that person, sigh, making work for them and me. 

That's about it. Otherwise, I love having the calendars sync. Google calendar doesn't always play nicely with apple products, so you'll just have to see what happens. I use the Calendars5 app, have for several years now, and I use it on the LARGEST SCREEN phone I can get (something max pro). I super hate the apple calendar app that is native. All those stupid dots are just incomprehensible. I keep everyone color coded and use shades for that person to differentiate private calendars, school, etc. So when my dd was at home ,she had a school calendar (homework, etc.), social calendar, and then a private calendar, all shades of the same color. I set my device to show only the appropriate calendars and I can instantly tell from the colors whose events I'm looking at. 

Triple bonus. You can sync your calendars with alexa and then use alexa, siri, whatever you're near to get alarm reminders, change appts, etc.