Set default calendar - Microsoft Support (2024)

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If you have more than one account set up in Outlook for Windows, you can change which account’s calendar to display and change the order in which the calendars are displayed in the Calendar view.

You can also make sure that all your meetings and appointments go on one calendar by moving items between calendars and setting a calendar as the default calendar.

In this article

Change which calendars are displayed
Move items between calendars
Change the default calendar

Change which calendars are displayed

If you've set up more than one account in Outlook, you can choose which account calendars to display.

In the Calendar view, under My Calendars, click to select the check boxes for the calendars you want to see. If you can’t see the list of calendars, click the arrow next to My Calendars to expand the list.

Set default calendar - Microsoft Support (1)

Tip:You can change how multiple calendars are displayed in the Calendar view. To see all calendars at once merged into a single calendar, right-click each calendar in the My Calendars list, and click Overlay. To always see a specific calendar at the top of the calendar view, right-click the calendar in the My Calendars list, and click Move Up until the calendar appears at the top of the list.

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Move items between calendars

If you want to put all your appointments on one calendar or separate them by account, you can move items between calendars.

In Outlook, click Calendar.
In the Folder pane on the left side of the screen, select the check boxes next to the calendar names. The calendars appear in the Reading pane side by side.
Drag and drop the item you want to move from one calendar to the other. The item now appears in both calendars and is set for the same time. You can delete the item from the first calendar if you want.

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Change the default calendar

When you create a meeting or appointment, it's automatically saved to your default calendar. You can change which account calendar is set as the default.

Click File > Info > Account Settings > Account Settings.
In the Account Settings dialog box, click the Data Files tab. It shows you a list of all your accounts.
Select the account in which you want your calendar information stored by default, and then click Set as Default. The changes are saved automatically.
Click Close. The default calendar now appears in your To Do bar.

Notes:

Only the meetings and appointments created by you go automatically to the default calendar. When you receive a meeting request by email, it’s saved to the calendar of that email account, not to the default calendarwith one important exception*.
* Meeting requests sent to an email account with no associated calendar folder are saved automatically to the default calendar. IMAP (e.g. Gmail) accounts which are added as secondary accounts in Outlook do not have a calendar folder. See important considerations for calendar sharing in the section below.

Default calendar sharing with secondary IMAP accounts

If you have given other people permissions to view your default calendar, they will also be able to view meetings sent to your secondary IMAP account which get saved automatically to the default calendar. If you do not want other people to view meetings sent to your IMAP account, you can take one of the following actions:

Stop sharing yourdefault calendar by following the steps in Share an Outlook calendar with other people.
Set your IMAP account as the default by following the steps in the section, Change the default calendar.
Create a separate mail profile for your IMAP account and delete the IMAP account from your existing mail profile, or create a new mail profile and add your IMAP account as the first account followed by your other account. For instructions on how to create mail profiles and add accounts, seeCreate an Outlook profileandAdd an email account to Outlook.

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