Calendar Sync Insights
Which calendar app keeps you most up to date?
Timetastic serves over a million calendar feeds every month. Every time Google, Apple or Microsoft re-checks one, we see it, so we can show how often they actually refresh the calendars you subscribe to.
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calendar feeds tracked right now
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calendar checks we've recorded
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calendar apps & versions seen
Apple Calendar refreshes about 3.7× faster than Google Calendar
Across the calendars we see, Apple Calendar typically refreshes every 1.8 hrs, while Google Calendar takes around 6.8 hrs.
Live, last 14 days
How the big three are refreshing right now
Average time between fetches, per hour. The dashed line is each app's typical pace.
Apple Calendar
iPhone, iPad & Mac
Typically updates every …
Google Calendar
Google's calendar importer
Typically updates every …
Microsoft Exchange
Outlook on the web & Microsoft 365
Typically updates every …
The league table
Sync speed, ranked
How often each calendar client actually re-fetches a subscribed feed. Shorter is fresher.
1
Apple Calendar Fastest
iPhone, iPad & Mac
2
Microsoft Outlook
Desktop app for Windows
3
Microsoft Exchange
Outlook on the web & Microsoft 365
4
Google Calendar
Google's calendar importer
The long tail
It's not just the big three
Plenty of other apps quietly subscribe to these feeds, from calendar power-tools to job schedulers and even a family calendar screen on the kitchen wall. Here's a few we spotted.
Open-Xchange
OX App Suite email & calendar
38 min between checks
Thunderbird
Mozilla's email & calendar client
60 min between checks
BusyCal
Power-user calendar for Mac
60 min between checks
Skylight
The family calendar display
61 min between checks
ServiceM8
Job management for trades & field services
62 min between checks
Fantastical
Flexibits' calendar for Mac & iPhone
62 min between checks
Teamup
Shared group calendars
62 min between checks
Nextcloud
Self-hosted cloud & groupware
65 min between checks
HEY Calendar
37signals' take on the calendar
65 min between checks
Morgen
Cross-platform calendar app
68 min between checks
Workamajig Most patient
Project management for agencies
12.7 hrs between checks
Most of the long tail keeps pace with the big names, re-checking roughly every hour. The most relaxed we see is Workamajig, which catches up about every 12.7 hrs.
What people share
The calendars teams subscribe to
Of the feeds we serve, whole-organisation calendars are the most popular.
How we know this
Timetastic lets people subscribe to their team's time-off as a calendar feed. Calendar apps (Google, Apple, Microsoft and others) re-fetch those feeds to stay current, and we record the moment each fetch happens.
One thing worth knowing: our feeds include the standard refresh hint asking apps to check in about once an hour. Most cluster around that mark, so the interesting part is the deviation. Some apps refresh more often than we ask, and a few lag well behind.
The gap between two fetches is how long your calendar could be out of date. We take the median gap per app over the last 30 days, so a few stragglers don't skew the picture. We see a large slice of real-world traffic, but not all of it, so treat this as a very good guide, not gospel.
Anonymised & aggregated
We only count when calendar apps fetch feeds. We never look at who you are, who's in your calendar, or what any event says. No personal data or calendar content is read, stored, or shown here. Everything on this page is an aggregate.
Made by the team behind Timetastic
Timetastic is the simple way for teams to book and track time off, and it's what powers the calendar feeds behind this dashboard. Give your team a calendar that's always up to date.