Proton Calendar: Secure Events Reviews

I use the entire Proton suite of products and migrated from Google Calendar, but the iOS app is INCREDIBLY slow to load to the point of being unusable. It takes several minutes just to load ProtonCalendar , and several more minutes to view any events or scroll to other views ie daily, weekly, monthly etc.

The web app loads quickly, but it also does not load some changes or additions to other integrated/linked Google calendar events, also to the point of being unusable.

Sounds like more server & processing capacity is needed to make ProtonCalendar load quickly and to be useful for productivity.

After a long development period, ProtonCalendar has finally released, and as expected is nice and stable. Unfortunately the feature set is quite spartan compared to something like Google or Outlook calendar and is missing what I consider to be basic functionality like a monthly view. Being able to see a thumbnail view of upcoming events is crucial, so it is unfortunate it is lacking compared to competing apps.

Hopefully in the future they will add more to create feature parity with the alternatives, for now I will unfortunately have to stick with Outlook for it’s superior UI and customization options.

About as bare-bones as you can get and still be called a calendar app. Pretty disappointing. On top of that, I'm one of the unlucky few for whom notifications don't work (and, yes, I've done the troubleshooting and made sure everything in Settings is correct).

I've gone back to the web calendar for now. Since I'm not getting notifications anyway, Proton Calendar via Safari is superior.

I love Proton overall and have been pretty quick to migrate whatever I can to the platform. Their security and web UIs are fantastic. But it's been apparent for some time that their app development needs a serious overhaul.

The barebones aspect of the initial release is a bit of a handicap…I can deal with that for now since I only *look* at calendars from my phone. I prefer to do all my calendar creation and editing from a device with physical keyboard…so a desktop or a docked tablet. Unfortunately, the editing will have to remain a desktop-only thing for now since this release doesn’t support iPad. On iPad it simply scales down and portrait-izes ProtonCalendar onto a small barely usable slice of the ipad screen.

It’s a decent start but still needs critical features.
1) Editing of events that have attendees. There is no option to edit these events.
2) Deleting events that have attendees, same as editing. As part if that, deleting a single event in a series that have an attendee attached.
3) Ability to create an event by dragging across a timeframe in Day mode. For instance dragging from 8-10 brings up a new calendar entry from 8-10.
4) Other views, including weekly.

Thank you for finally releasing for iOS!

This would be helpful… Email reminders should probably provide more than just “[unnamed] event starting in [x] minutes.” What event? One should not have to go back into the calendar app and figure out what the event reminder was for.

Thank you!

Great app and integration with Proton Products, but lacks many features that most barebones Apple product users use. Some examples: No ETA and notification of “When To Leave”, No autocomplete for Address field like iOS, No “Focus Status” integration with calendar events, No automatically adding to Proton Calendar from various’ apps “Share Menu” buttons, No “Hold On View To Create Event” like in iOS calendar

I use the entire suite of Proton products and I’ve been waiting a long time for the iOS calendar app. Verdict? I love it! Two suggestions: 1) an iOS widget for ProtonCalendar and 2) add holidays to the calendar. Other than that, five stars hands down. Also, please make an iPadOS app!

Would be cool to have a clean home widget that shows list of items due for the day. Also maybe a separate tasks app would be nice (as long as it still had a widget)

Good calendar.

My biggest request is to be able to view my entire month like it shows now. BUT so I can see what’s happening each day at a glance with the time visible.

Not just a dot for an event or more happening that day. I don’t want to click into days or agenda view. I want to see it like a desktop calendar or old fashioned paper calendar on your desk.

That’s just my suggestion, it’s only avail on informant calendar right now or desktop versions.

As always with the Proton team, this is a very clean and functional app. Though it is not feature-rich (as of 2022) it does what it needs to do along with pushing the standard of privacy online ❤️

I want this to be good, but it’s just missing too many key features to use full time. No month view, no widgets, no settings really at all to customize in ProtonCalendar . Doesn’t adjust for time zone changes while traveling.

Hoping they update soon.

Very thankful to finally have this for my iPhone. Love the ability to customize the alert time. Would appreciate the ability to set multiple alerts for an event

I use ProtonMail for my personal and business accounts but I can’t have multiple accounts in the calendar app. Please add this functionality. Ideally, you should be able to see calendars from all added accounts on one page without switching.

I know many features are still in the works, and I’m grateful you released ProtonCalendar anyway! I’m thrilled to have an encrypted calendar!!! And I know you’ll make it feature-rich given time. 🥰

Two years of waiting and we get the most basic app. Integration with the iOS calendar is a must. I don’t want to be checking multiple calendars apps individually to make appointments. Need everything integrated in a single location. Otherwise, I get as much use out of ProtonCalendar as I did from a shortcut to the web calendar.

Finally, Proton Calendar for iOS is here! There are two major missing elements: ability to quickly scroll through months in a multi-year view, and an “Add participants” option on the event editor. I hope these are high on the dev priority list.

The address field should also be connected to Apple Maps so it populates the address automatically when typing in the address

1. an ability to sync with iOS native calendar or transfer what i currently have on iOS

2. a weekly view added

Update 2: the 2.0.1 update fixes the text overlapping problem. Proton was very responsive in following up with with fixing that irritating bug; this convinced me that they are sincere about wanting to make a top quality product. I will happily give the full five stars when ProtonCalendar is fully capable of replacing Apple’s calendar app for my needs.

This calendar seems to work so far, and I appreciate the clean, simple interface.

However, ProtonCalendar does lack a single searchable view of all events scheduled, in case the user is looking for information (or desires to edit) a certain scheduled event. The only way to edit events seems to be through calendar view, which assumes the user has the dates of scheduled events memorized— to find an event, one must know the date. If this were the case, there would be no point in saving an event to a calendar at all.

I’m sure this functionality has not been overlooked and will be implemented in the future. I’m grateful for all the effort the developers have invested in ProtonCalendar.

I love the sleekness of ProtonCalendar but it has very little to offer. The settings and options are basically that there are none in ProtonCalendar compared to the website version. Being able to control those in ProtonCalendar would be a massive improvement.
I would also like to see a search feature to find content more easily.
Another thing that would increase ProtonCalendar ’s productivity potential is an agenda view that shows all upcoming events similar to Apple Lists. Recurring events show the next in line. This is extremely useful for managing financial dates/tasks. Maybe make an option to set tasks that can be checked off. But at least an agenda view that show more than one day. Lists has been really great that way and I would love to replace it with this.
Fix those and ProtonCalendar will be as amazing as Proton Mail has been.

I want to switch fully to this calendar, but it made my phone super hot while adding my scheduled items; I only have about 7 right now. My phone is not plugged in for charging, it’s the newest iPhone and running up to date software yet ProtonCalendar just heated up my phone like I’m FaceTiming inside a sauna. There is no reason a calendar app should be using enough power to cause that. Otherwise it’s a great app,

2 suggestions to make it more user friendly:
- add national/international holidays
- add color options for the little dot on the calendar indicating a scheduled item.
Right now it’s just a green dot, but if I have multiple things scheduled I’d like to make more important items a different color; for example I’d make doctor appointments pink dots, school reminders blue, errands green… this way looking at my schedule I’d know immediately by the color dot if I could easily change plans for something that comes up or if I should see what other options are available because I see I have something less flexible that day. Not having to click on each day to see what I’m doing and have a general idea just looking at the month view would be much more convenient.

Thanks Proton team! We need more functional apps with proper privacy!

I was excited when proton finally released this iOS app for the Calendar product. Overall, Proton Calendar is a good calendar application. I love using it on my laptop browser, but the iOS app still needs work.

It is very very slow in creating events. Whenever I am finished putting in all the info, I have to wait there for another 20 seconds for it save and close the page. Waiting to do that is a big hindrance. It is not yet seamless in allowing me move onto the next thing.

Also, a really handy feature would be tapping on the block of time in the day to create an event. Right now you have to click the plus sign, and then enter in all of the info. This makes using ProtonCalendar on the phone for my calendaring undesirable. I am considering switching back to google or Apple’s iCloud calendar.

The ability to click and drag to change the time of the event (like click the center and you can move it), and also the ability to extend or reduce the time of the event by clicking and dragging on either the top or bottom of the event. That would be amazing. The iPhone’s default calendar app, how you can click and drag, that’s what I would love to be in ProtonCalendar. Would make changing events significantly easier.

Also, if possible, it would be amazing to have dark mode available outside of what my system’s mode is. So if my phone is in light mode, I’d like to be able to still have Proton Calendar in dark mode. I always just go and switch to dark mode on my phone’s settings, which can be a tiny bit annoying.

ETA: and a widget would also be greatly appreciated. Personally, I view my calendar throughout the day via a widget on my Home Screen.

To summarize:
- Click & drag calendar events to extend/reduce time, or change time
- Dark mode (outside of system dark mode)
- Widgets (or just one widget) that displays the calendar (like maybe the day)

I changed the default time zone in a calendar appointment to be my time zone, updated the other appointment details and saved the appointment. The agenda view still shows the default time zone time, but my time zone time is shown correctly when I reopen the appointment. The reminder does go off during my time zone (which is good).
I use Proton VPN & Proton Mail, and I was super excited when I saw you have a calendar app! I would love to start using Proton Calendar, but it is too confusing with this time zone issue - could you please fix it? Also - is there a way to change the default time zone so the I don’t need to reset it for every new appointment?
Thank you so much - Proton is the best!

Nice to finally have a calendar app. One issue however…. I have two Proton email accounts where I receive event invites and only see an option to login to one account at a time. I would like the ability to access both accounts to show events from both or filter as needed with the check box. Am I missing something? I see the option to check or uncheck the calendar which portends that this feature is maybe coming soon?

I’ve had Proton VPN and Mail for a couple years. I added the Calendar in 2022. The VPN stays connected, however I’m finding more and more sites will not open while connected. Most of the time I just move on.

I rarely use the email, because it’s always full of spam. There needs be a way to set up filters so that I can have spam deleted without ever making it into the mail box. Yes, there is a built in spam detector that places everything into a spam folder, but I don’t want to go through 100 emails to figure out what’s spam and not. As of now I’m using a 23 year old POP mail account that allows me to mark sender as spam then set a rule as what to do with it. The down side to the POP mail is I can’t send mail from it with VPN connected. I’ve contacted Proton about the issue, but it’s never been resolved. I would like to get away from POP mail all together, but waiting for better controls with Proton Mail.

As for the calendar… Way too basic! Not a true version for iPad. So for now I’m stuck with big tech…

Even with the issues I just renewed my subscription in hopes of big updates over the next your….

I’ve been a paid Proton user for many years and have been anxiously awaiting a calendar so I can fully break the Google shackles.
The user interface is still pretty clunky. Adding an event should be a few clicks and done; including a click-and-drag-on-the-time-block event creation, quick and easy time entry, etc. These feature are lacking. I’ve been using Calendar5 forever and they have perfected the process, so I guess I’m spoiled.
The number one feature still missing is the ability for me to share a calendar with my wife and allow her 100% edit/delete/add capability. The web app allows this, but ProtonCalendar doesn’t seem to.

I’ve been waiting for the Proton calendar app for iOS. I agree with some of the other comments about ProtonCalendar being fairly basic, but as a 3 year paid Proton Mail user I trust in and look forward to the future development and improvements of ProtonCalendar . Now that the notifications issue has been fixed, I’m using Proton Calendar as my primary calendar.

Since I didn’t see any other comments about it, here are my suggestions for features I hope to see in the future…

1. Widgets!
2. Ability to see holidays
3. Ability to sync the calendar with contacts birthdays because I like to know when it’s someone’s birthday
4. Ability to change the color of events- particularly to distinguish between all day events and isolated ones

Other than that, you guys at Proton are awesome and I praise you for the work you do in raising the standard of privacy! Thank you!

I really want to love it, but so far I am just limping along with it hoping more features will be added. There are many features that “other” calendar has that are incredibly useful. Being able to search the calendar events/entries, being able to view more than one month (my other app allows zooming in or out to any desired level-view the full year, one, two, or three months, etc.). It would be great to have a place to share suggestions in hopes that they will be considered for implementation in future versions. I will happily update my review if my experience changes.

This is pretty pathetic. I’m paying for the whole proton suite and I love the privacy proton offers, but this calendar app is laughably bad. I can’t invite others to calendar events through ProtonCalendar , I can’t click on hyperlinks, for a zoom invitation for example, and no one else can see the events I create through ProtonCalendar even if they’ve been invited to view my calendar. Every free calendar out there has mastered all these basic tasks, but I’m paying a premium for this joke? Put out an update and fix this mess already!!! Don’t embarrass yourself and tell me you aren’t aware of these issues. I’m just wondering why you’d put out an app well before it’s ready for prime time.

What’s with having scroll, scroll, scroll through months, days, years when you want to reschedule something instead of bringing up an actual calendar so you can choose the date you need to move it to? I have to back out of the edit, look at the monthly calendar to pick the new date, then go back to edit and scroll forever to move it to that new date.

I’ve been testing for a few months and provided feedback several times, and they showed no interest in making any improvements. ProtonCalendar doesn’t allow for email notifications. The web calendar allows email notifications but the emails don’t tell you any details like the name of the event or the time so it’s pretty useless. The link in the emails opens the web calendar not ProtonCalendar . When I share feedback like this, I am told that’s the way we designed it. Pretty disappointing as I was hoping to switch from google but I rely on email notifications and these don’t work.

Not being able to invite others for appointments/meetings is a basic feature for calendar apps.

ProtonCalendar looks beautiful. I just wish that worked. Add that feature and the rating would be higher for me, frankly. Going to a browser as a work-around defeats the purpose of downloading ProtonCalendar in the first place.

I wish I could rate it higher but I cannot until this issue has been addressed. ProtonCalendar has been out for 7 months and as a base feature still missing it makes ProtonCalendar feel abandoned. Thank you!

Proton calendar has come a long way, especially the desktop/web version with sharing capability, displays, etc. It seems that that’s where most of the development has gone recently so ProtonCalendar has been lagging. Pretty simple interface, minimal settings and no widgets. Love the privacy, encryption/security and no linked data by Proton. Hoping some more features come on line for ProtonCalendar such as calendar sharing, widgets and calendar editing like we can do on the website. Thx Proton

Good features in ProtonCalendar , but I don’t understand why it doesn’t allow you to add participants in the iOS version. It can added using the web version, so why not in ProtonCalendar ? I’ve been a paying Proton customer for several years and really enjoy the full product line. The calendar app is a good next step in data privacy, but it needs a few extra features.

Update: No more crashing - it seems to have resolved itself and has not happened again. Upgrading to 4 stars! Would love to see the daily agenda/day view expanded to be able to see a week or month agenda/view.

I downloaded this calendar to use together with Proton Mail and ProtonDrive, and it was working pretty well for the last week or so. I also downloaded Proton VPN and started using it today. I don’t know if the VPN is impacting this app or not, but the calendar only stays open now for a couple seconds and then it abruptly closes. I rebooted my phone, but it did not help. This seems to be occurring whether the VPN is connected or disconnected. I don’t want to go back to Google, but I need a calendar on my phone. Hope you can get it fixed ASAP!

Like I said before, this is my first time actually using a calendar app, and so far I’m really enjoying it. Visually, I like ProtonCalendar way better then the default calendar app, it’s just more appealing to me. I also like the privacy policy that Proton has compared to other services. I saw that widgets are on the way, and I’m excited for them! I’d recommend ProtonCalendar to my friends!

To create a calendar without basic search functionality is somewhat incomprehensible. How this was overlooked and not immediately implemented by the Proton Team from day one is beyond me. I love Proton products and use some of them exclusively (I’m a Visionary subscriber), but this product is not one of them. Adding a search feature would be a step in the right direction.

Also, certain functionality is lacking. Take shared calendars for example. You can share a Proton calendar with another Proton user, but on the mobile app that user can’t edit a calendar entry or create an entry on the shared calendar. It works on the web-based calendar, but not mobile ProtonCalendar .

Secondary issues would be allowing the calendar to download and store data on the local device instead of needing to load it each time you switch months or even days. Integrating Apple/Google maps into the GPS/Address function of the calendar, and creating an iPad version is also something much desired.

Performs the basics with reminders, good visualization, location, and making it recurring. Missing the ability to share a calendar currently, which is currently being worked on. This is a core function of a calendar though, and should integrate better with their email services, even if these functions are restricted to other working Proton users. I hate to rate something down for a service it openly declares is not currently implemented, this is pretty central to a calendar app and is currently keeping me from fully migrating to Proton Calendar. ProtonCalendar also needs additional security found on Proton Mail and Proton Drive where it allows for the use of a password/pin and/or biometric on startup. Looking forward to the updates, and of course I will update my review when things change.

edit: Thank you for the reply! I did not see sharing was an option since I primarily use ProtonCalendar on iOS. I will try it out from the PC see if I can share and then still update and use it from iOS. Not ideal, but at least a work around.

I’m new to proton. I just signed up and am starting to migrate my email to proton. I am trying to use the calendar but I’ve run into an issue. If I receive calendar invites in my email that are an attachment (such as an ICS file), there doesn’t seem to be any way to add them to my calendar. From the proton mail app there is no “add to calendar “ button. From the calendar app there is no import that I can find which allows you to import a downloaded file, and in iOS when you try to use the “share” button the calendar is not an option. This means the only way I can find to add some invites to my calendar is to manually enter the information. Ideally an “add to calendar” button should be available from the mail app, and a share extension should be available so you can receive a file/invite into your calendar.

On the plus side: My wife and I are both migrating to proton, so it’s nice to be able to share the calendar with her and both of us to see the same events. I’m still new so as I use this more I can get a better opinion.

As other reviewers have expressed, ProtonCalendar is very barebones. I’m okay with that. I don’t need all the frills of a normal calendar app. I just need to be able to keep up with appointments, birthdays, etc. A scrollable agenda view where you can see multiple days at a time would be great (a similar feature is available in mainstream calendar apps). My main gripe would be the lack of widget support. I really like being able to see my calendar at a glance without opening an app. My current workaround is to use Apple Calendar to view my Proton Calendar events, which sorta defeats the purpose of using a privacy focused calendar. Hoping widget support is coming soon so I can delete all other calendar apps.

My goal is to remove as much of my personal content from Google as possible into a secure, encrypted space. The reality is that everyone else uses Google including friends and organizations that I work with.

As of October 2023, ProtonCalendar doesn’t help me achieve that goal. First, you can’t invite people to a meeting from ProtonCalendar nor does it have a search feature. Both of these are basic requirements for a calendar app. I would also like to see locations populate with addresses and names of businesses. That’s a great feature.

Most importantly, for this privacy focused calendar to work properly the developers should examine the experience of working in proton alongside others who are using Google. That’s the reality. That’s what we need. If I want to share my calendar with someone in Google ideally I could select the data elements I want to share. Maybe free/busy plus the name of the thing or the location. That would be a great feature - A customizable sharing link that only provides the data you select.

Finally, tighter coupling among the mail and contacts apps and the ability to get proton contacts into my phone would be great.

Thanks for creating proton. I would love to help speed up the delivery of features and experience improvements if there’s anything I can do. The speed of your development is currently the limiting factor on my ability to achieve my goal of decoupling from Google.

I like the idea of privacy focus calendar and Ui is decent but it can be improved. On Google calendar you can view all the events in a month with little info detail about the event, that view is what I liked most about Google calendar and I would love to see that in ProtonCalendar. Currently it only shows colored dot I have to tap each date to remind myself what is happening on when which is little bit of annoyance. Love ProtonCalendar so far, keep up the great work 👍

Most useless app on my phone. How do you make a calendar app without knowing the basics of sending event invites. Never once has this terrible app logged a single event sent to me. Yes they are usually attached ics files. No I’m not logging into a website digging down through settings and finding some obscure import to do what Apple does for free just by using Apple calendar. If you make an app called “Proton Calendar” it should be smart enough to integrate with proton mail and at a bare minimum have option to open event from mail and share to proton calendar. It’s not rocket science. Company is so concerned about hiring none white engineers or with non American names don’t expect ProtonCalendar to do anything more than take up room. It’s been over a year and ProtonCalendar is still completely and totally useless what good is encryption if it doesn’t encrypt anything cause it can’t be used with anything. Maybe think through the problem before just creating another useless app. I have spoke to Proton support and I they are so rude and unaware of technology it’s worse then talking to the “Apple geniuses” at Apple Store. You have to avoid long words and anything too technical. I would argue better off using an AI bot then their humans who only concern is to close a ticket and careless about quality.

The calendar app is little more than a calendar viewer. To use Proton Calendar app on your iPhone requires you run an instance of it in the web browser if you want anything more than viewing your events. You still have to schedule from the web version. No quality integration with the email app. I rate Proton 5 stars as a company and am a paying subscriber. Unfortunately, I could not use Proton for my business as its productivity tools are incomplete and do not support non-web true functionality. I hope I get to up this rating to 5 stars one day, however, Proton has been unable to make any significant improvements to the calendar app. TestFlight version doesn’t provide anything special to test. 👎👎 Two thumbs down, unfortunately.

I have been a paid member of Proton for 5 years. I have tried to be patient with their products as I know implementing the type of privacy and security Proton offers is difficult. I don’t expect all the features and consistency of the big tech alternatives. I just want to be able to edit repeating shared events. I pay for the family plan and it should be fairly straightforward for me to be able to share repeating events with my family members and be able to edit a specific event in the sequence, or the whole event with people also using Proton. I can understand sharing and editing an event with someone using Google Calendar not being easy to implement or a top priority, but if I can’t modify shared events to people within my own plan then Calendar is completely useless and I’m just wasting my money.

I’ve been using proton for about a month and weaning myself off Google. So for the time being I’m trying hard to overlook many of the lack of convenience items that come with going with a non big dawg in the calendar space. In general ProtonCalendar does what I need it to do and it’s encrypted so that’s why I’m continuing to use it. Here are the three big features that are missing:

1) I cannot add events from proton mail into proton calendar. This is super annoying and sometimes I go to my laptop just so do this in bulk before I delete emails, or I manually add it on my phone.

2) I cannot add participants in ProtonCalendar . Similarly now I often have to go sit down at my computer to add participants to an event.

3) this is more nitpicky but I find it cumbersome to have to scroll through 60min when setting a time for an event. Almost all of my events are at x:00 or x:30, occasionally at x:15 or x:45. It is actually too much to have to swipe multiple time to change a start time from x:00 to x:30. If a user needs to set it to something weird like x:37 they can type it and the scroll wheel should just have round numbers in it.

Otherwise the value prop of encryption, in addition to knowing this is a growing and developing product is keeping me here and I assume some of these will be resolved over time.

Small thing - I like the logo-ing and the purple:).

It is important to remember that Proton is fighting and an battle. It is much more difficult to create an application, in which everything is by the full secure and encrypted, yet the features remain user-friendly and shareable. They have achieved the most important part: security. Yes, I do wish ProtonCalendar had biometric protection. But my phone is protected, so access to calendar is not on top of my worries. Since being encrypted prevented from being easily synchronized with the iPhone calendar ecosystem, at the very least, I am hoping very hard for a variety of widgets.

I am a Proton Unlimited subscriber because I love the platform and their commitment to privacy.

Pros:
-Simple/attractive UI
-Solid basic calendar features

Cons:
Requires a little extra effort and a few workarounds to tailor this calendar to your personal needs.

Birthdays:
-automatic Integration of birthdays from our contact lists is preferable here but still notably not an option.
Workaround:
-In the meantime, I just created a ‘Birthdays’ calendar and manually added each one myself.

US Holidays:
-Currently, there are a lot of holidays( of which I’m used to being alerted to via iCloud calendar) that are not included in this feature.
Workaround:
-I disabled Proton’s built in ‘Holidays’ calendar and created my own, manually inputting each one.

Thankfully, you can add calendars from other platforms via URL (note that these cannot be altered in the Proton app and this feature has its limitations as it is not updated or synced in real time).

Overall, Proton’s commitment to privacy and putting their users first as well as their continuous improvement to the platform, for the most part, alleviates any reservations I might have otherwise had. I didn’t mind putting in a little extra effort to tailor ProtonCalendar to my needs.

That being said, I hope they continue to listen to user feedback and implement new features sooner rather than later.

Unfortunately while this does the job if you exclusively use protonmail. But like many others I use gmail for work and I won’t be able to connect ProtonCalendar to view work calendars or edit my shared family calendars with those that won’t switch to protonmail. For me it renders ProtonCalendar unusable for now. I requested this feature and I have seen my voted features eventually get implemented so there’s hope. This is a pretty big ask but I think itd make this far more useful.

I don’t need work email on my phone but my calendars all need to be in one place to be useful personal encrypted plus control over shared public calendars.