Archived Post

Easily duplicate calendar events on your iPhone

Last week, we asked our readers, “What’s bugging you?”, and many of you responded. Now, we’re addressing your frustrations! In this post, I’ll address easy duplication of calendar events. 

Reader George Jetson wrote (Daughter Judy! Jane, his wife!):

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In iOS, I have been wanting a copy/paste function in Calendar since the beginning…Primarily needed, for instance, after visiting a doctor, and making a new appoint for the next visit. I don’t want to type in the same info with a different date, and I don’t want to change the date of the appointment I just had, as I need to keep a record of when I was there throughout the year.

I’ve been annoyed by this myself several times. Fortunately, there is something you can do. You may wonder, “Is it possible to learn this power?” Yes, but not from a Jedi. Instead, we must look beyond Apple’s Calendar to a third-party app called Fantastical.

Fantastical from Flexibits is beautiful, crazy useful, and has a feature that I think will solve George’s problem. Let’s say I’m ending a doctor’s appointment and she requests a follow-up in two weeks. All I need to do this:

  1. Tap and hold on the current appointment in Fantastical

  2. The edit window appears. Select a new start date and time

  3. Hit duplicate

That’s it. All of the information I entered in the initial appointment entry — name, address, notes, etc. — are carried over. I don’t have to re-type any of it. Great, eh?

George, I know this “fix” doesn’t work with Apple Calendar. But Fantastical is a more-than-worthy replacement. Good luck.

Steve Sande
the authorSteve Sande
Steve is the founder and former publisher of Apple World Today and has authored a number of books about Apple products. He's an avid photographer, an FAA-licensed drone pilot, and a really bad guitarist. Steve and his wife Barb love to travel everywhere!