Google Calendar: Get Organized Reviews

by Rachel Dalton

I downloaded this a while ago and it was amazing. Definitely the best calendar app I’ve ever used by a long shot! But over the past few weeks GoogleCalendar has been a real thorn in my side. The first issues were speed. I would hit something and the lag time would be so great that my phone would dim trying to go to sleep. But eventually it would load and I could put in new calendar entries and see my schedule. It was usable. I would’ve probably given it a 2.5 ⭐️ rating during that period of time. But now I can’t use it at all. It immediately crashes every single time I open GoogleCalendar . Not only have I lost the ability to put in new entries all together but I’ve also lost my ability to even see my schedule. I’m so frustrated. I really loved GoogleCalendar but they really need to make and update to fix this issue and fast. I’m sure they are working as hard as they can to hone in on the issue, but until then, I’ll be using apple’s calendar app and checking my google calendar on a computer. I look forward to hearing the issues have been resolved once they have been.

by Pianoman.82

After a few months of very laggy, unresponsive, disappointing app behavior, I finally have had enough to leave a review in the hopes that it will help someone on GoogleCalendar team realize just how bad things have gotten, at least for me (my wife has the same issues on her iOS devices as well, so it’s not something unique to my account). I was surprised to see how many other reviews I have found with almost exactly the same issues that I have. The fact that the other reviewers have been reporting consistently issues since at least the beginning of 2018 with no improvement is nearly inexcusable.

My primary issues in a nutshell - 1) often app opens to random dates at initial launch; 2) after initial app load, it generally takes 60-90 seconds (sometimes much longer) before the UI is responsive; 3) once everything has finally loaded (if I have not given up and force quit it already) there is way too much UI lag and sputtering as I try to navigate through different UI views — full month, daily agenda, etc. These issues combined render GoogleCalendar nearly useless for me in most everyday use cases.

As an app developer myself, I can appreciate the complexity of creating a performant, well-functioning app. However, given how awesome GoogleCalendar used to be, and the level of satisfaction I expect from an app by Google, I’m just so frustrated and disappointed. I can’t understand why these issues have not received attention yet.

by Chosen7Stone

I want to like GoogleCalendar. On my laptop browser, I keep Google Calendar open in a pinned tab because I rely on and appreciate it so much. But as an app, it’s the worst thing on my phone - and I’ve kept using it because of how heavily I rely on it. But today, I’m searching GoogleCalendar Store for alternatives.
A recent update said they were addressing the freezing issues some users experience. I haven’t seen improvement. This morning, I kept three people waiting so I could let them know whether I was available in two weeks - GoogleCalendar opened, promptly froze, and then zoomed me back to April 2017, then June 1970. I’m writing this in April 2018. The conversation moved on; ten minutes later, I was still checking GoogleCalendar to see if it had caught up and would allow me to scroll forward two weeks. I eventually gave up.
Sometimes I want to edit an existing event and the window halfway opens, then lags/freezes. It takes 5-6 minutes to open, even if I close and reopen GoogleCalendar .
I have no idea how to fix this. It is a wonderful, wonderful app — when it works. I can’t afford to wait for it to be fixed anymore.

by Ibrad14

What changed? I don’t experience crashing however GoogleCalendar is useless. It has all of these bells and whistlesbut it’s impossible to easily put an event on the calendar. When I’m in month review, I should be able to touch the day that I want to add an event to and have it open up that day and then let me pick the time of the event. But instead it tries to be too smart and it opens up instead a daily view but not even the day that I touched. And then when I have to make an event I have to click another ‭+ sign‬ and then choose the events option— way too many clicks compared to other cal apps!!! and then on the next Screen I have to fill out all of these fields but none of them are easy to differentiate from the other and they have too many auto populated fields that are similar… For example the word “at”.... I use “at”for the time but nope the “at” Refers to location. It’s awesome that you can link it to the maps and your contacts and all that however it’s useless with putting an actual event into your calendar. I am finding myself, when I’m scheduling something on the fly, giving myself reminders thru siri for when I get home to put it into the calendar. Because I can’t do it on my phone! I guess I will go back to the CalenGoo app!

by Guess15me

I wanted to love GoogleCalendar so much because I love my Google Calendar on my computer. And initially I did love GoogleCalendar because it functioned fine and brought a lot of color and visuals to my calendar which I really liked for organization.

However as of the last couple of weeks at least GoogleCalendar has been nothing but a headache. It just freezes up whenever I open it. Then it’s completely lagged out. I can hardly ever get to be able to create an event before it just shuts itself down and app disappeared. Every little thing will be logged out. Opening GoogleCalendar and loading it, creating an event, typing each individual letter (which could take 10 seconds before a letter while actually appear), list goes on and on.

Now I highly doubt that there is an issue with my phone because I have only a fraction of my memory used and I keep my phone software pretty squeaky clean. I don’t even have a lot of videos or photos, and I don’t even stream very much. Everything else on my phone functions fine except when it comes to trying to operate GoogleCalendar. Until google fixes this issue, GoogleCalendar is really intolerable and unusable.

by Janepaulinejosemaria

Soooo, we have always been able to have all our multiple calendars accessible from GoogleCalendar . This is why I picked it. LOVE LOVE LOVE how it use to make my life seamless. From our public events that are linked to our website to our personal calendar for doctors appointments. We could see and edit all of them the same as on a computer. Not anymore. Now you get public, private and default. I have catering, public, family, my kids have their school calendars, sports, etc. Nope. My dental was recently on our company calendar because when I added it at on my phone at the dentist to spite making it private it went public. This keeps happening. Yes, we checked. It says private on GoogleCalendar and on our public site, there it is. Multiple calendars seems to confuse GoogleCalendar and it just sents new items randomly to out public calendar. It is making us NUTS. Instead of adding things to our calendar on the fly like I always did now I have to save the info on my phone or send myself an email and set a reminder to add it when I get to a computer. NOT OK. Fix this please!!!

by Supuflourous Flounder

I love google calendar, mostly. I share my calendar with people I need to schedule with, and we keep synchronized.

But what really drives me crazy are monthly recurring events, of the form of “Third Wednesday of the month” or “Second Saturday of the month”. There is no “repeat” option for these kinds of events. I wrote a calendar app in 1977, on a timesharing system, that had this functionality in its 1.0 release. I have been asking google for this feature for several years, and while they keep coming out with cutesy graphics and other worthless features, the fundamental functionality of monthly recurring meetings is missing.

There are insufficient colors for all my activities, mostly because they have chosen a weird subset of colors and assigned cute names to them. I would like to create my own colors and assign my own names to them. Right now, “sage”=“Skype meeting”, “banana”=“medical appointment”, “Tangerine”=“writers’ group”, “grape”=“volunteer”. I would like to say “RGB(255,255,0)”=“medical”, and have the color yellow appear as the color name “medical”. It is annoying to have to keep this dictionary in my head; GoogleCalendar should help me. I’ve been asking for this feature for years as well. Instead, I get cutesy graphics apparently designed to appeal to 14-year-olds, not retired professionals.

So it is a tolerable app for what I need, but a far cry from a professional app designed to support real-world needs.

by *Nanatee*

I like GoogleCalendar ok (would be great if the icon showed the current date). But the widgets are giving me headaches. I NEED to be able to see more than just one upcoming event. Make the bubbles smaller (or remove them) so we can view more upcoming events. Maybe make the font smaller too. The date takes up half the space when it doesn’t need to be that large. To be functional, it needs to show more upcoming events. Right now the widget picks and chooses which events to show if you have more than one full-day “event” such as multiple birthdays. So my widget will show me a birthday and one upcoming event, instead of the two birthdays, one reminder, and one upcoming event. I never know which things it’ll choose to show. Plus the colors keep displaying incorrectly on the widget. Once I click into the calendar, the colors are correct. But this is highly frustrating and keeping me from loving Google calendar.

by Angrymonkeymermaid

GoogleCalendar is great but there are 2 things I wish they did. 1: more colors added for events. I wish they had more colors to choose from when writing in an event. I am the kind of person that likes to keep certain events in the same color so i know that that event is work, party, meeting, holiday, birthdays, vet appointments, etc. But the color selection is a bit limited for me and there are colors that i never use because it makes no sense when i associate that color for that event, like the color flamingo. I wish they had different kinds of blues, purples, greens, reds, oranges, and pink. Especially since the purple for reminder you cannot change, so placing an event in that color confuses me. 2: I wish the photo used for a location was based on a photo of what the location looks like and not from photos that people upload from their cellphone to google maps. The fault is google maps. The photo location for an area should be something you should have the option of selecting in calendar and the logo should be an option. Their should also be an option on google maps where someone can select the primary photo of that location when flagging a picture. For example, my dog vet is pet smart Banfield but the picture shown on my calendar is a lady with her dog. That is not the location of the vet, it should be a picture of the front of the store, even though there is a picture of that, i cant select it.

by JlFinchmockingbird94

A few years ago when I first started using GoogleCalendar, you were able schedule notifications to go off a desired length of time before specific, individual events and reminders. Now they have done away with this option, and it has decreased the usefulness and helpfulness of the calendar altogether. Speaking as someone with ADHD who is also a visual learner, I use this calendar and the different color options to help me prioritize and keep track of things and not forget important commitments, such as doctors appointments and when bills are due. But because of my ADHD brain, I need that extra help that sound notifications provide when it comes to one-time events that are outside my typical schedule, and unfortunately the developers got rid of the settings that used to allow you to do this. I have looked everywhere on GoogleCalendar and on desktop, and the setting for this that used to be there is now nowhere to be found. PLEASE BRING BACK THE OPTION TO SET SOUND NOTIFICATIONS FOR SINGLE EVENTS AND REMINDERS!! If this setting doesn’t return I may be forced to use a different app/platform that does allow this option.

by JT@Itunes

Overall, it looks good but it’s missing the most important thing to be usable for me. I must have it in my Apple Watch and have a complication so I see the next event just by raising my wrist. Google, add this and you’ll win me over from Apple’s calendar.

The other issue is with subscribed calendars. Google’s platform is far superior to Apple because I can subscribe to an external calendar on the site and see it on my phone as well. Perfect, almost. I set up a subscription to my work calendar. We are fully hosted on Microsoft 365. I’m able to see everything that was created PRIOR to setting up the subscription however, nothing new is coming in. After an exhaustive search, this is a Google problem that has existed for a long time. Google, you need to give us an option for subscribed calendars to specify update frequency. A global setting is simply not sufficient. I have another subscribed calendar which only needs an update once per week but my work calendar needs updates every 15 minutes.

I do know I can add my M366 calendar in the default Apple calendar and it works as expected. That’s not what I want. I want all of my calendars in one place.

by Colton2077

GoogleCalendar is one of the most comprehensive as far as what I can do, but it needs fixing in a few areas. First of all, Goals are super glitchy and need improvement. I find that it’s super inconvenient that there is no option to select Goal time/date manually, you have to let GoogleCalendar decide for you. You can change manually it AFTER it is auto assigned, but you have to do them each individually. So if I have a 5 day workout goal and I want them all to be at specific times, I have to manually fix every single day and time to where I want it. It’s super inconvenient. It should simply be an option and nothing more to have GoogleCalendar select times and dates for your goals. Additionally, I find that sometimes they delete themselves, and also, if you set a goal it only lasts about three weeks before you have to recreate them again. You should be able to have the option to select the cut off date or have them running indefinitely, like you can with “Events.” It’s almost better to set your Goals as Events because Events actually works.
Additionally, I find that when I swipe other to the next week it will sometimes ship months or years ahead for seemingly no reason.

by Cups217

Largely I enjoy GoogleCalendar. The ability to sync schedules with my family has been a lifesaver. However, it makes me absolutely crazy that I cannot change which calendar an event goes to within GoogleCalendar . So if I add an event in GoogleCalendar on my phone, it automatically goes to the “default” calendar which is essentially the calendar I last used on the desktop. I have to then go to my desktop version to get the event in the right place. This added step drives me crazy because sometimes I forget to change it on the desktop and then the event gets missed by my family.

NEW: On the task list, I wish the “due date” would stay on the date it was originally assigned to rather than rolling forward. Especially on recurring tasks because I end up questioning myself when there are two there: did I just forget to check something off? When was the duplicate originally assigned? Sometimes I miss things and I’d rather immediately see when it was actually due rather than it just becoming a new item for the new day.

by E.G.G S.

My school uses Google Suite for student email, handout distribution and storage, and turning in assignments, to name a few uses. I use Google Calendar to coordinate all of these things and record my homework. I have a color-coded calendar for each class so I can glance at my week and see my work load easily. Unfortunately, I have to set up each assignment as an event because reminders can’t attach to calendars or change their color. This makes it difficult to see a list of all my homework together, whereas with reminders, I could mark them as done and display them together.

I also encountered an issue where trying to share an event with someone while creating it would cause the event to not be created, but sharing the event after creating it would be successful. Still, these are minor problems and improvements and overall, this is one of the best calendar apps I’ve seen.

by Redneckbassin'

If Google would update GoogleCalendar icon to actually show the day of the month and change with the days like Apple’s calendar app does then they would have the better of the two apps. I much prefer the look and feel and color customization options of Google Calendar when in app, but the icon itself simply shows a never changing 31 instead of the actual date. This is a very small gripe, I know, and even that would be ok if they would update it and make a widget available for the Home Screen instead of only being available in the Today view. Again, minor complaints. For now I keep the widget in the Today view and swipe right to see my schedule at a quick glance, and continue to keep the Apple calendar icon on my Home Screen for a quick view of the day and date without the need to swipe.

by Lalaniam

I love the colors to be able to tell the difference. I also love the ability to share events with people. I do wish that I could add the same event to multiple days. For example, work, for people who don’t work the same days every week. If I work and 7am-7pm multiple days a week; that I could just type in the information and just click on the different days that I work. Another example would be for volunteering events; I have to keep typing them in, because they don’t repeat on the same days of the week each week. It’s a huge downside. I keep hoping there will be an update with it. But I may start looking for another app. Additionally, it would be nice to have more neon colors for color coordination. As me and my husband share calendars and have events for the kids. It would really help separate each of those things. I often run out of colors.

by Tom D. Kim

I love how Google Calendar automagically uploads everything to the cloud. I also love how it suggests locations based on the address one types in (of course it doesn't do this for private addresses, but it is still a handy feature.) It will set reminders by month, day, hour, or minute, and it also asks if one wants to set up recurring appointments for a number of weeks, a number of days, or annually (handy for Birthday reminders.) GoogleCalendar will also convert between time zones across the world—another useful feature. And all of these can easily be set whether one is using a smartphone or a tablet, and also a desktop or a laptop. All of the changes are sent to the cloud, as well. It is possible to export it into many other formats as well, such as iCal, and Microsoft Office. I ❤️ Google Calendar and will continue to use it until they pry it out of my hands. 🙂

by Shelbhoc

I’ve tried all kinds of available calendar apps, but this one is by far my favorite! I often tell my friends to drop their apps and opt for Google Calendar because I really think it is so much better than any other free-cal app out there. I am easily able to look at my daily, weekly and monthly schedule- and I LOVE that the monthly outlook actually tells me what I have going on each day. I can also color-code events/calendars so I can see what realms I have working each day, AND it syncs up online so that I can use it on my computer too. I also have calendars made for my team so that I can put events in all of our schedules at one time. And I can set GOALS and make REMINDERS and CHECK THEM OFF AS I GO??? Amazing. I probably sound like a fake review right now, but I swear I am a human (who never even writes reviews) and I just really really love GoogleCalendar. Do yourself a favor and get this.

by Qveen Bri .

let me mother freaking tell you.. GoogleCalendar is a magical invention. i am a very disorderly person, but google calendar saves me. the minute i find out i have something to do, or somewhere to be. i stop by my favorite app, and fill in what i have to do. it’s very easy to use, AND YES GUESS WHAT… ITS FREEEEEEE. all you need is a google email, which also, a very good and resourceful app and email system. yahoo could never. it even will mark things on my calendar for me, if there is stuff with dates and times received through email or sometimes text. if you’re contemplating downloading GoogleCalendar, stop overthinking and press that button. it’ll change your life. it has changed mine. thank you for stopping by my review, now do yourself a favor & download GoogleCalendar . love you. xoxo.

by MoMo527527

As a high school student that plays sports, has a job, babysits, and is involved in many *many* clubs, GoogleCalendar helps me organize my life!! I love the automatic pictures that come up and how i can share calendars with people (my team etc), and THE COLORS. i legit have corresponding colors for everything and i absolutely love it!!

my one tiny thing is how all events have to last for a period of time. i would love an option to have events just occur at a certain time and have no end time. for example when i need to pick up my little sister that occurs at a certain time and isnt a duration of time, also some meetings for clubs and such dont have an end time so just putting in a random time doesnt really help me. adding this feature would really help me make this a 5 star review because after that i dont know what GoogleCalendar could be missing!

but other than that i absolutely love GoogleCalendar and i dont plan to stop using it anytime in the future!!

by Seanie_Gee

Hey Google. My friends... Long time listener, first time caller. I LOVE my Google apps (generally) and have used Google Calendar as long as it has been available on Apple devices. However, since Apple released their atrocious IOS 11 and every subsequent horrible update, Google Calendar has been less than impressive. I can hardly schedule any personal or business events or meetings with my iPhone or my iPad (which has replaced my personal and business computer). There are SERIOUS lags on GoogleCalendar , to the point where lately I have hardly been able to functionally use it. I do really love that my travel emails and other event emails often sync right from my Gmail into my calendar. I love that I can send event links to family, colleagues, and customers for them to add to their digital calendars. I REALLY LOVE GOOGLE CALENDAR! Please fix it! I hope that you are able to resolve these issues and get Google Calendar working well again so I don’t have to move all of my info over to another calendar of some kind. Thanks. P.S. I literally just uploaded the newest update for the apps, and it still hasn’t solved any issues I’ve been facing.

by Lupe0604

I love using Google Calendar to keep track of everything as it is an app that serves me so well. Its an app that for the past 3-4 years has been steadily reliable and never once failed me. However, time after time again I find myself wishing for more colors to be able to use to differentiate the types of events that go on in my busy lifestyle. More colors would allow for so much more organization to exist within GoogleCalendar . The colors that currently exist within GoogleCalendar are nice, but a fully and well developed calendar app should offer more variation. Please, this is the only issue I have with using Google Calendar, and this reason alone is why I would not give it the full 5 stars it would otherwise get.

All I ask is for more colors. Please.

Edit: Another thing that is irritating is how on GoogleCalendar we can not add a new calendar and have to use a browser. The whole point of GoogleCalendar is to use all the features on GoogleCalendar and not have to grab my laptop every time I want to add a new calendar. I still love GoogleCalendar but I just wish they would add the feature to GoogleCalendar as it would help sooooo much.

by Aghakakajahaha

Recently I had checked google calendar and realized I had a meeting with my boss. I had totally forgotten about the meeting and made it on time thanks to google calendar.

Google calendar is great to use because it has everything in one app. Google calendar allows you to add events, tasks, reminders, and even goals. Tasks are events that you plan on doing. Reminders are things that you want to remind yourself. Goals are things that you want to achieve like exercise. The cool thing is that you can share your events with other people so they know, For example if you’re having a party you can share the event with the party guests and you can add a note with the things people should bring. I promise you, google calendar is the best calendar ever.