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TMO Quick Tip - Displaying Birthdays in iCal

by , 7:30 AM EST, January 29th, 2007

Address Book lets you store all kinds of information about the people in your life, including birthdays. Keeping track of those birthdays, however, can be a pain - unless you let iCal display them for you.


You can display birthdays from Address Book in iCal.

Address Book can share birthday information with iCal, so each birthday you've added to Address Book appears in your schedule. The feature is off by default, but it's easy to activate. Here's how:

  • Launch iCal. It's hiding in your Applications folder.
  • Choose iCal > Preferences.

    • Use iCal's preferences to activate the Birthdays calendar.
  • Select the General tab.
  • Check Show birthdays calendar.


iCal's Birthdays calendar from Address Book.

Now iCal will display a special calendar just for the birthdays you have entered into Address Book. The Birthdays calendar also automatically updates itself when you add, change or remove birthdays from Address Book.

Jeff Gamet is TMO's Morning Editor and Reviews Editor. He lectures, teaches and speaks on Mac OS X and design-related topics, and is the author of The Designer's Guide to Mac OS X from Peachpit Press.

if you have tips or tricks to share, or Mac-related questions you want answered.

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Observer Comments

Show: Subjects Only | Full Comments
View Name:Guest
Mon Jan 29, 2007 11:21 am Subject: Spelling
View Name:Guest
Mon Jan 29, 2007 3:55 pm Subject: Half Baked
Close Name:LaurieF -   TMO Forum Mod Posts: 3498 Joined: 15 Jun 2001
Mon Jan 29, 2007 4:17 pm Subject:

The birthdates are editable in your Address Book.


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View Name:Guest
Mon Jan 29, 2007 10:35 pm Subject: Please don't tell me ...
Close Name:Scooby Doo Posts: 1 Joined: 20 Jan 2006
Tue Jan 30, 2007 2:16 pm Subject: Alarm

How do you set an alarm for Birthdays taken from your address book?


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Close Name:LaurieF -   TMO Forum Mod Posts: 3498 Joined: 15 Jun 2001
Tue Jan 30, 2007 3:28 pm Subject:

First, to the guest two posts up: you sure took your stupid pills today, eh?

Scooby Doo: Unfortunately you can't. There are some free- or donation-ware apps around that provide the functionality. I've also had some minor but ultimately unsatisfactory success using Automator. I can get an Automator app to speak to me on demand whose birthday it is today, but I can't quite get it to tell me via an iCal alarm. Almost, but not quite.

I'd like to see it in a new release...


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View Name:Guest
Mon Apr 14, 2008 6:37 pm Subject: Birthdays hit or miss in iCal
Close Name:LaurieF -   TMO Forum Mod Posts: 3498 Joined: 15 Jun 2001
Tue Apr 15, 2008 1:18 am Subject:

Ah - I think you may need to upgrade... You're two versions of the OS behind. I don't have 10.3 running on any of my machines (and only one running 10.4), so it's hard to diagnose.

If it's any help, it works very well on 10.5!


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