Typing events in plain English

In Almanac you add events by typing a normal sentence. As you type, a colour-coded preview shows exactly what Almanac understood. Nothing is saved until you press Return.

Open quick entry

• Press ⌘N or click + in the main window's toolbar.
• Use the quick entry field in the menu bar mini window.
• Press ⌃⌥Space from any app. You can set this shortcut to open the quick entry panel directly in Settings › General (Shortcut opens).

Autocomplete suggests titles, places, calendars, contacts and templates as you type.

Examples

Type	What you get
Lunch with Sam tomorrow 12:30-1:30pm at Blue Bottle	A time range, a place and an invitee in one line
Standup every weekday at 9:30am for 15 min /work	A repeating 15-minute event on your Work calendar
Flight to Lisbon Dec 3 6:15am alert 2 hours before	An event with a custom alert
Conference June 5-7	A multi-day, all-day event
coffee with dana the tuesday after next around half past four	Relative dates and spoken times
todo send invoice friday !!	A task due Friday with medium priority

Dates and times

• Relative days: today, tonight, tomorrow, friday, next friday, next week, the tuesday after next.
• Dates: Dec 3, 3rd of July 2027, 12/24, 2026-12-03, on the 1st.
• Times: 3pm, 9:30am, 14:00, noon, 4 o'clock, quarter to 9, half past four.
• From now: Call mom in 2 hours.

Ranges and durations

• Time ranges: 12:30-1:30pm, from 3 to 5, 2pm until 4:30pm, Saturday 9pm-1am.
• Date ranges: Conference June 5-7.
• Durations: for 15 min, for 90 minutes, for 1 hour.

A sentence with a date but no time, such as Party Dec 3, becomes an all-day event.

Repeating events

• every weekday, every tuesday, on Mondays, every month
• With an end date: Pay bills every month until March 1
• With a count: Physio every tuesday for 6 times at 4pm

Places, people, alerts and links

• Places: at Blue Cafe or in Room 4.
• People: with Sam or with [email protected]. Almanac suggests matching contacts and can invite the people you mention.
• Alerts: alert 15 min before, alert 2 hours before.
• Links: paste a URL into the sentence and it's added to the event.

Choosing a calendar

Add a slash and the calendar name: Picnic saturday /family or Lunch tomorrow at noon /home. Without one, Almanac uses your default calendar.

Tasks

Start the sentence with todo, task, reminder, remind me to or remember to to create a task instead of an event:

• todo buy milk
• remind me to pay rent on the 1st
• todo submit report /work !!!

Add !, !! or !!! for low, medium or high priority. See Tasks.

Changing events by typing

Quick entry also understands commands for events you already have:

Type	What it does
move standup to 10am	Moves the event to a new time
reschedule lunch tomorrow to monday	Moves it to another day
push lunch by 30 min	Shifts it later
bring forward review by 1 hour	Shifts it earlier
cancel gym tomorrow or delete dentist	Deletes the event
rename review to Design crit	Changes the title
done send invoice or complete buy milk	Marks a task as done

If you change your mind, press ⌘Z to undo.

Templates

Type # followed by a template name to expand a saved sentence. For example, #standup expands to “Standup 9:30am every weekday for 15 minutes”. Almanac comes with a few templates, such as #standup, #focus and #1on1.

• Add, edit or remove templates in Settings › Events & Tasks › Templates.
• To turn an existing event into a template, open it and choose Save as Template.

Searching

Use the search field in the main window's toolbar. It understands sentences such as lunch with sam next week, and these filters:

• in:work: only events on a calendar
• with:ana: only events with a person
• at:"room 4": only events at a place (use quotes for names with spaces)

You can combine them: review in:work with:ana at:"room 4".

Apple Intelligence

On macOS 26 with a Mac that supports Apple Intelligence, Almanac can use Apple's on-device model to help with tricky sentences. Choose Off, When unsure or Always in Settings › Events & Tasks › Apple Intelligence. Your sentences are understood on your Mac either way.