How to Add Calendars to Calendar in Windows 8.1

For most, there are only a few essential things their device needs to do for them to stay productive. The first is give them access to their email account and Microsoft’s Mail app for Windows 8.1 does that pretty well. The second is keeping track of their various appointments and obligations with a Calendar. Luckily, Windows 8.1 does a pretty competent job of that too.

Here’s how to add calendars to the Calendar app in Windows 8.1.

Chances are that you’re new to Windows 8.1 because you just purchased a new notebook, tablet or desktop running it. The Calendar app featured in this tutorial is specific to Windows 8.1, meaning if you have a device running the older Windows 8 operating system you’ll need to upgrade. To be clear, you can add multiple calendars to the Calendar app featured in Windows 8 too, it just looks and works a bit differently. Windows 8.1 is a completely free upgrade that Microsoft made available to users back in 2013.

Let’s begin.

First press the Windows key on your keyboard or the Windows button on your touch-enabled Windows device. What you want to do is go back to the Start Screen.

Now look for the Calendar Live tile. In our example it’s the rectangle to the far left highlighting today’s date Monday, January 26th. If you only purchased your Windows device a short while ago and haven’t customized anything the Calendar app should be pinned to your Start Screen. If you’ve removed it from the Start Screen you want to click on the arrow at the bottom of your screen to bring up a list of installed apps. Touch users should place their finger anywhere that doesn’t have a Live Tile on it and swipe up to see the same list of apps.

Tap or click on Calendar.

Welcome to the Calendar app. The one in our example is a bit crowded, chances are that your Calendar app is crowded too. Microsoft integrates the Calendar app automatically with its Outlook.com email and client tool. Any appointments that you’ve already stored there are going to be available in the Windows 8.1 Calendar app the moment you open it.

If you’re reading this tutorial it is because you stored your events in a calendar created somewhere else like a work email or a web service like Google’s Gmail service. Before we continue, it is important for you to know that explicitly, Google’s Gmail service isn’t support by the Calendar app. You can’t important from Microsoft’s Outlook.com email service either.

Touch users should place their finger on the right edge of their screen and slide it to the left to reveal the Charms Bar. Mouse and keyboard users should place their cursor in the top-right corner to bring up the Charms Bar.

Either way you manage to open it, select Settings at the bottom.

Select Accounts from the Settings fly out menu. It’s the option setting at ahead of all others toward the top of your screen.

If you’ve only added a single Microsoft Account to your PC, you should now see it on the right side of your screen. Tap or click the Add an Account button if there’s a calendar that you want to add that isn’t listed.

Now it’s time to choose which of the account types you’d like to add. Obviously, if you’re using Microsoft’s Outlook.com service you’ll want to go with that one. The second option in the menu is there for users who’d like to add a work calendar and email to Windows. Choose that one if your workplace supports Office365, SharePoint and more.

That’s it, you’ve successfully added a calendar to the Windows 8.1 Calendar app.

From this point on all of your appointments and events will sync to Windows 8 behind the scenes. Alerts and reminders will surface before an event on the right side of your screen as a sort of pop-up. You’ll also see your latest appointment surface on the Calendar apps Live Tile in the Start Screen. It’s worth noting that once you add a Calendar to Windows 8.1, that Calendar syncs to other devices automatically too. If you don’t want your new Calendar showing up on other devices, you need to remove it manually from the devices you don’t want it to appear on.