Tiny Calendar: Planner & Tasks Reviews

I almost never submit reviews but since I paid to have TinyCalendar until September I feel compelled to speak. I really wanted to like TinyCalendar. And I guess if I only had one calendar to manage I would probably love it. I like the interface, the different views available, etc. Unfortunately, I have multiple calendars, for work and personal use, that I need to manage in a calendar app. And when I add an event in one calendar, say my Google calendar online, I need it to automatically sync across that calendar on my phone and iPad. It did that for a little while, but apparently over the last few days, TinyCalendar decided that I didn’t need to see updated event info on my iPad that I created on my phone, or vice verse. Or that an event I created on my MacBook calendar didn’t need to sync to my iPad calendar. I have tried to be patient. Uninstalling and reinstalling TinyCalendar multiple times. I timed it and it’s been over 20 minutes since I created a test event in my personal Google calendar on my MacBook that STILL has not shown up on my phone or iPad calendars. I have done everything imaginable to remedy this (like constantly hitting the sync button and toggling calendars on and off within TinyCalendar ) but nothing is working. So, goodbye Tiny Calendar. It’s been real but when my paid subscription expires on September 2 so will my use of TinyCalendar.

I’ve tried several calendar programs and have actually come BACK to Tiny Calendar. Of all the ones I’ve suffered through these many months, Tiny Calendar is the most user friendly and synchs with and consolidates my iOS and Google bits so I can accept a Google calendar invitation on my desktop, for example, and it will then get pulled into Tiny Calendar (i.e., you can continue to use your other calendar and reminder apps for easy data input, and use Tiny Calendar as the hub of everything.

Why not 5 stars? Well, even the paid version of Tiny Calendar doesn’t have the ability to add details to Tasks (besides due date and a label.) I can setup repeating events, set reminders for events, etc. - but not for Tasks. I live and die by my to-do list and like to have it on a real piece of paper, so I’m really bummed. I like to have that oh-so-small-but-gratifying experience of crossing stuff off with a pen.

I do like that you can choose to export (email or print) your calendar in a few different versions. Unfortunately I can’t export Tasks... if I could just have a way to print my Task list...

Being a busy working, soccer and blended family Mom I always loved that I could remember our family’s busy schedules, birthdays, and phone numbers for everyone off the top of my head. I have lupus and have a lot more drs appointments than the average person and lately I haven’t been able to keep my calendar in my head like I’ve always been able to in the past. Missing drs appointments, practices and a parent/teacher conference within the past couple months, I decided I needed to rely on more than just my brain.

I tried 2 other apps before Tiny Calendar and was not satisfied. I love how easy it is to add new appointments, or anything for that matter to this calendar. That was the problem I had with the other apps I tried... it was too time consuming just to add anything to the calendar that I never wanted to mess with it. I also like the different views that you can look at your schedule in, for the day, week, or month. Try it... you’ll like it!! 😁

This is by far the most convenient calendar app I have tried.I’ve been using it for over a year, and it has been great. I particularly like that in the month view, dots for events have the color of the calendar they are from, so I can quickly glance at the month view and see what days have different types of activity.

Unfortunately, ever since upgrading to iOS 12, I’ve been experiencing a random/intermittent issue where if I am typing the name of an event to add the calendar, it sometimes freezes. Mid-typing, with the last letter I pushed still expanded up from the keyboard. The only way to get out of that is to close TinyCalendar . I hope the developers will release a new version that fixes this.

One other time issue: when typing the number in an event name, the number sometimes gets removed and converted to a time. Eg. when putting in my class schedule, “Biology 101” would get shortened to “Biology” and the time changed from what I had input to 1:01 PM. I hope future versions will include an option to disable this feature.

For the most part, I’ve always liked my Tiny Calendar. There are many features that are very helpful. However, one of the features that is intended to be helpful isn’t! Most of the time, any birthdays or anniversaries that are recorded in your google contacts list are automatically transferred into your Tiny Calendar, although for some reason, Not All of those recorded dates make the jump. In addition, once that data from your contacts list is in your Tiny Calendar, it’s in there permanently. [Events that you load into the Tiny Calendar directly (and are not transferred automatically from your contacts list) do not have this issue.] This is frustrating because if there is a mistake in your contacts list, even if you correct it there, the mistake remains in the Tiny Calendar and Can’t Be Removed!! It is especially aggravating that even if the contact is deleted from your contacts list, the data from that contact remains on your calendar! Ugh!! I have an iPhone 8 (which at this point, is the newest iPhone available), so the problem is not that my phone is old.

Have not been able to properly use TinyCalendar I paid for for a couple weeks now, as it will not sync properly. I use this calendar to keep tabs on scheduling for a business between myself and three other people, so if syncing issues take place it can cause huge scheduling issues for our business. Please fix this ASAP so I may continue using TinyCalendar and not switch to another, which would end up being complete waste of the seven dollars I spent on TinyCalendar. Giving two stars because the performance of TinyCalendar was decent before this catastrophic issue. It will not sync no matter what I try.

UPDATE, OCT 2020
TinyCalendar has been fixed and has been working for a while now. I did not mean to leave a low rating review for that long 😬. Great calendar alternative app to Apple calendar and Google calendar with a few customization options not available in the latter two. 🙏🏻

I like that you can have dark mode now. I’m very unhappy with the new view of Month—now in the list of the selected day’s events (below the month calendar), it puts a bunch of preview of the notes, and a lot of space between each thing. When I have 10+ events in a day (between my and my husband’s calendars), now I have to scroll through a bunch of notes that I don’t need to see just to get to the afternoon’s events. Please put it back to how you just saw a concise list of the times/titles of each event, showing as many events as possible there without a bunch of extra space. Or at least give an option to have those previews on or off. Thanks. I may have to find a new calendar, I really liked this one because I could see the whole month at once and click through the different days and easily see what was coming on each day. It works well for my brain to have these two things up at once but having to scroll now is frustrating.

Love this calendar app! Could never get into using a planner and tried quite a few other apps but once I found this one I continued to use it to help track and plan my days for several years now. It’s been a lot of help, keeping me organized through school. I originally stuck with this one because of how easy it was to change and move things around, changing the time of events with a simple drag. I also love the multiple views, I needed something with a easy, readable weekly view and TinyCalendar gave that to me better than any other app, including the iOS app— no, in fact they one-upped my expectations with the custom view which I set to a 2 week view.
Would definitely recommend TinyCalendar to anyone! Also they recently added the widgets which I am so excited about, I was hoping they would make some!

It's a handy smaller version of the Google calendar (obviously). Unlike some claims, I've had no syncing issues as far. It works as advertised...I will update this review as needed.

Sadly the best calendar app I have ever used is found on a 20-year old device. Say whatever bad things you want about Apple's Newton MessagePad, but it is still--even now--far and away the all-around best at managing one's agenda. From the decades-old but still-current Get Things Done (GTD) system to an ability to link with other functions, this device was unparalleled. Unfortunately the inability to synchronize with a modern-day PC or Mac has forced its dedicated users to keep essentially two calendars, the Newton one and another on a PC or Mac, with no easy way for one to update the other.

TinyCalendar shows some promise, though, toward that Newton ideal.

After three decades of dragging around a ball and chain to keep track of my work life schedule, my then assistant showed me a better way by downloading TinyCalendar., kidnapping my handwritten daily planners and basically forcing me to rely upon the Tiny Calendar. Greatest advancement by human kind since sliced bread IMO!!! If I were not so computer illiterate, the Tiny Calendar would have a perfect score from me. Unfortunately, I’m one of “those” people who press the wrong button - frequently - and cause their own problems … My only remaining difficulty maneuvering about TinyCalendar on several devices is that I cannot figure out how to remove the links that let our former interns keep track of the office schedule and input their planned events. All of the interns have long since graduated and headed out to greener pastures. I just have no idea how to remove their names (and regain control of the colors they chose)

Tiny Calendar has been great on my iPhone for the whole time I’ve used it- over 2 years. I love that it gives me a week view that doesn’t scroll through the days- Sunday stays on the left and Saturday on the right- which a visual person like me needs. When scrolling the day up and down, sometimes a new event opens up instead of just scrolling. I’ve mostly gotten use to it.
However, a small bug has popped up that I can not get used to: when I change the calendar of an event, I get a double event, one of which is orphaned from any assigned calendar, and then TinyCalendar crashes closed. For example: changing a dentist appointment from my calendar to the family calendar results in this crash and double event. Please fix this so it can go back to being a wonderful calendar!!

4/6/19- I tried uninstalling and reinstalling TinyCalendar to fix the bug issues above but it didn’t work.

Paid/used for this calendar for a few years and always have mixed feelings to download updates because each time I lost some of my data. I have change phones throughout the years and it only allows me to download the free app instead of the pro which I paid. Changed phone again and the same thing, can only download the free one. Support is non existent. You can reach the “support “ by email only and they respond to ONE issue at a time within a week. Up to now all the other questions I have are not addressed. The PAID FREE app does not allow iPhone and iPad data to sync. You CANNOT delete calendars you have added even after all these updates. Calendars which you may have used or added by mistake in the past are still in the list of calendars, does not fly for a neat freak. You are stuck with them. I’m beyond annoyed with TinyCalendar but i think it’s better than the apple or google calendar. I can see the whole month schedule instead of the dots. I have gotten used to it and it may have only cost me <10 but I PAID for it.

I was using the Apple Calendar for years, but once I noticed some of my events were missing, I had to switch to Google. Like email apps, I searched a good bit and tried many different calendar apps, but Tiny Calendar proved to be the most versatile and reliable. The only hiccup I had was on the iOS 11 Beta where TinyCalendar would immediately crash, but after downgrading back to 10.3.3, it was perfectly fine. That's the joy of beta testing. So far, Tiny Calendar is still my go-to on iPhone!

*UPDATE*

Still going strong, however I’ve noticed that TinyCalendar ’s badge (I have it set to show the amount of events that day) will show the previous day’s amount of events until opening TinyCalendar to sync. Not a big deal, but a tad bit annoying to see a badge icon when you know there aren’t any events that day. Also it’d be nice to see an update to accommodate for the iPhone X.

I was initially very excited to get TinyCalendar and once downloaded, I was disappointed that all of the ‘splash’ of color that is shown in the advertising (referring to color coding calendar items by catagory) was not available. That to me is false advertising. A few days later I received an email advertising a discount if I upgraded to the pro version. Thinking that maybe that would give me the color coding I thought I was getting the first time around I signed up and paid. Absolutely no difference from the free version. OK, so there’s a glitch. I tried sending a message through “Contact Support” and my first message, as well as all consecutive messages got bounced back. I checked my Apple apps to see if maybe I hadn’t paid for the Pro version. Yes, I have. I went to the website to follow directions and they are either updated or wrong. So, I’m out the money, I can’t reach the company through TinyCalendar and I’m frustrated. Can you hear me Tiny Calendar? I’m just trying to use the service I’m paying for.

I bought the pro version about 3 years ago and loved it. I do still love how Tiny Calendar presents the information.

However, an update a year or so back seemed to break synchronization with Google Calendar - crashing every time it tried to syncs my calendar. I gave up after multiple uninstall/reinstall cycles and just went back to using the Google Calendar app. But I don’t like the Google Calendar app, so I really wanted this one to work. After 8+ months not using Tiny Calendar, I tried again and it worked!

But my happiness was short-lived. First, syncing can take forever or not happen at all and TinyCalendar freezes or maybe just crashes. But sometimes it works fine. Secondly, there’s been this new feature enabled that bags me when I haves opened Tiny Calendar for a few days and I cannot figure out how to turn it off. I don’t care if I haven’t opened TinyCalendar recently. And when I do open it, it just won’t give me what I need anyhow. It won’t even show me the info it has from the last time I used it...it has to sync first.

I've been using multiple Google calendars for years and never had a problem with them until now, with my iPad Air. Not sure what the deal is, I suspect it has to do with the OS and perhaps Google updates not meshing. At any rate, meetings and appointments, etc would randomly disappear and sometimes reappear in a different time slot or day. After researching, many people have experienced this issue and none of the "fixes" have been effective. A couple of weeks ago, I missed an important appointment and lost income as a result. I downloaded Tiny Calendar the next day and so far it's working beautifully. It integrates with my existing calendars but does not have any of the bugs that I had been experiencing. It's simple and intuitive...love it.

I have early Alzheimer disease from
my father’s side, so I have to have a reminder if i need to do something otherwise i would forget it so this is a big help

I used to use the Notes app to make an event, and its so annoying to type everything! but i had to since I'm so picky

Ive been on a hunt for a good calendar for a very long time til i finally found this,

this is now something i can never live without its so convenient

i love this, i put everything that i need to do!

you can include an address and when you click it, it’ll take you directly to the MAP APP! so this saves you time since you don’t have to waste time typing the address n all

Other perks are putting the exact time from when it starts and when its done or can just put all day if theres not a specific time.

you can repeat, options are None, Daily, etc. and custom, you can CUSTOMIZE it!

Can add attendee tho i don't usually use this

and i save the best for last, you can put notes in it!

It is so useful when anything to remember about that event is included with it and when you click the event it will show up everything including the note, arghh life saver!

I sync with my entire family on TinyCalendar: we couldn’t live life without it ; when you have children or jobs or a combination of children , jobs , school and things of that nature especially if you have extra curricular activities like karate , ballet , school meetings... any and everything to do with our family goes on that app any and everything to do with our jobs goes on that app ...so each of us knows what each other’s plans are 24 hours a day so if I want to make an appointment I know what my husbands doing Wednesday at 3 o’clock if I want to look and see what he’s doing Saturday at 10 AM I can look at my Tiny Calendar and it tells me what he has planned for that dayI literally could not run our life without it !!

Developers contacted me very quickly to explain the (actually simple) fix to my complaint. The view I had always had and liked is back with one click. I will be staying a loyal Tiny Calendar user! Thank you for helping me with my issue!!
Previous review:
Why would you "fix" something that's not broken??? I loved the mini month view where I could see all my events for the month as soon as I opened it. Now it's actually a tiny calendar that is only on the top half of my phone with nothing but a bunch of ridiculous dots!!!
After many years of using only this calendar and recommending it to everyone I know I will be finding another one and deleting this one!!

I’ve tried dozens of calendars to find one that is simply a calendar. One that is visually simplistic, easy to use, and don’t have overwhelming bells and whistles. This fits the bill! However, almost every time I open the calendar, which is several times a day, I have to wait while an ad screen times out and gives me an exit button to press so I can get to the actual calendar. I’ve used TinyCalendar for years, and I will give the developers credit for being responsive to feedback. It used to be that whenever I’d open TinyCalendar a video ad would come on at full volume and last anywhere from 5 to 15 seconds. This was not just annoying, it was disruptive in a professional setting. Now at least the ads are silent. I’m guessing I wasn’t the only user who complained...

Update:~~~ Still removes half my text typed, which is aggravating. Took another star off. When I type “call due at 4pm”. I expect it to set time at 4pm, but not remove the typed message I “Want To read”. Still use despite the issues. Just retype over and over and over. ~~~
I love this calendar to help keep my life straight with appts and important info.
Update: Took a star off rating because I started having trouble constantly with my typed subject "disappears" everytime I type words or times to remember. It takes off the typed time and changes the time of I already out in... Or it removes half of the words I typed to remember. This is being beyond "annoying". Plus now ads pop up almost everytime I open calendar. I've been more than happy with this calendar up until last 6 months-year with whatever changes you made.... Now cause typing nightmare by having to"retype over and over my missing subject line and having to change the times it plugged in.

I like TinyCalendar a lot, it’s been really useful for organizing and getting visual of my schedule. I love clicking on the week POV because it really lets you see exactly what you have going on al week. It’s pretty user friendly too. I’d say that the only things I don’t like about it are that the time slots can move from like 3-8 to 5-10 kind of easily while you’re swiping around and when you’re initially inputting times/a title for it sometimes it just erases part of the title and changes the time so I try to double check it to make sure it’s the right time and title. Overall TinyCalendar is very useful and helpful. 5/5!

Edit from original review: I’m docking one star because of the full page ads that now pop up 90% of the time I open TinyCalendar (free version). This is supposed to be a productivity app, and having to cancel out of the ads that often really disrupts my workflow. Not worth $5 a month just to avoid ads—I will likely switch to a different calendar app instead. Such a shame.

Original review: Tiny Calendar is my favorite calendar app of the 3-4 I’ve tried in addition to the iOS native calendar app. I like the format and ease of use. They finally made it better by allowing the full features on the free version, like setting up repeating dates. Tiny Calendar ties perfectly to my Google calendar so it syncs across all my devices, including my desktop computer. So convenient!

I used to really like my Tiny Calendar
I have to take it back.

2018 Review:
As of December 2017 I began having trouble with my “Pro” version of this Calendar. I tried several times to get help to fix my issue.— I couldn’t sync my calendar with my wife’s GMail.
I never got a reply from the developers. I tried again to get help in January 2018. Again—no response from the developers.
I’m fed up with the lack of support. I’m dumping my Tiny Calendar Pro. It’s no use to me if I cannot coordinate my calendar with my wife’s.
I found a new version of Google Calendar that works very well.

2016 Review:
I have had TinyCalendar for more than 3 years. I bought the premium subscription. I like it because I can sync and coordinate the Tiny Calendar with my iPhone and iPad. I can also pick up and post to my wife's Gmail calendar. But Tiny Calendar will not pick up my Gmail calendar which is on my desk computer.
I would give this five stars but support is poor. There is no manual or online instructions. You are on your own. I have gone on the website 3 times and tried to ask for help using the "email support" help option. But I have never even received a response. There are a number of options available when selecting calendars for home, IOS, etc. But I don't know why because they all seem to do the same thing.
Add an online manual with explanations and this could be 5 stars.g

Fix: putting in a location on a new even can be difficult to streamline to the correct location if a place has updated its name and while it may work in a google search tiny calendar has difficulty finding the place. (My dr office never comes up correctly in the location and what does come up is in a different state , if the full address were listed in subscript this would help)

Everything else: like me and have multiple calendars that you need streamlined in one place so you don’t have multiple calendars everywhere? How about getting helpful alerts when you need to leave? Get TinyCalendar then cause it does that and more. I paid for it because I love TinyCalendar and like to give money for a good product.

A year later, still the same problem. Once in a while, syncing fails - on my iPhone or on iPad. VERY inconvenient. I rely on the calendar in every aspect of my life. Please resolve or provide guidance how I can do it.
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Except for when it doesn't sync. Still trying to figure when and why it happens. Have missed a few important appointments, because my entire life is in google calendar and I rely on reminders. So, once in a while, events I add in using web browser on my computer do not show up on my iPhone (not within a few minutes, but at all - days later still not there). And the only way to fix the issue appears to be - remove TinyCalendar from my iPhone and then download it again. Then all the events show up. Happens seemingly randomly... Probably, after app gets updated. Not sure. Hope the issue gets resolved - I would be happy to give a higher rating.

I really like this calendar. I use it on an iPhone 6s, which has a pretty small screen. It’s easier to work than Apple’s calendar & has multiple a reminder option for each event. I need a LOT of reminders.
Easy to switch between day, week, & month views. There used to be a bug where it would freeze in landscape mode, but that’s been fixed (thank you).
A small peeve: On TinyCalendar icon it always says 31st. I’ve gotten used to looking at Apple’s calendar icon that shows the current date; I’m always looking at it. But that’s a minor issue.
All in all, a great basic, well featured, easy to use calendar that automatically syncs with Apple’s & other calendars.
I’ve not used it on a ipad, just my phone & it works great.

This is a great app. It has multiple views: month, week, day, and even a rolling agenda view. It offers the ability to setup multiple alerts for the same meeting. You can setup 5 or more alerts if you want to. This is great if you tend to miss some alerts.

The only thing preventing me from giving this 5 stars is that when you setup an alert it only notifies you on the device from which you setup the appointment. I have TinyCalendar installed on my iPhone and iPad. If I setup the appointment on my phone I do not get notified on my iPad. I could choose to send the alert via email to get around this, but I usually don’t like cluttering up my inbox.

Overall a very good app. Much better than the Apple or Gmail calendars.