Events and invitations

This page covers everything you do with events. For finding your way around Calendar, see The calendar. For connecting calendars, see Calendar accounts.

You can add events to any calendar that accepts them: My calendar on this device, and connected calendars that are not read-only. Invitations read from mail can be answered, but not edited.

Create an event

With New event

1. In Calendar, click New event at the top of the sidebar, press C, or choose File › New Event.
2. Fill in the editor. See The event editor.
3. Click Save, or Save and send if you added guests.

A new event starts at the next whole hour, lasts the time set in Settings › Calendar › New event length, and goes into the calendar set in Default calendar.

By clicking or dragging in the hour grid

In Day, Work week or Week view:

• Click an empty place in a day. The editor opens for an event starting at the nearest half hour, lasting your default length.
• Drag down an empty part of a day. A box shows the times as you drag, in 15-minute steps. Let go to open the editor with those times.

On a day in Month view

1. Point at the day.
2. Click the + button at its top right, New event on date.

The editor opens for an event at the start of your working day on that date.

In the all-day lane

In Day, Work week or Week view, double-click a day in the lane above the hours. The editor opens for an all-day event on that day.

With Quick add

Quick add reads one line of English and shows what it understood before anything is saved. Nothing you type leaves this computer.

1. Click Quick add in the sidebar, press Q, or choose File › Quick Add Event….
2. Type the event, for example Lunch with Sam tomorrow at 1pm.
3. Check the preview under the line: the title, when, how it repeats, where, and any guests.
4. Press Return or click Add.

The event goes into the calendar named at the bottom left, In calendar, which is your default calendar (Settings › Calendar › Default calendar). It gets your default reminder and your default busy or free setting. Calendar moves to the event’s date, and a message says Added “title” to calendar**.**, with Undo.

• Until the line contains something Quick add can use, the preview reads What, when and where — “Dentist Friday 4pm”, “Gym every Tuesday 7am”, “Offsite 3 September for 2 days”.
• If the line contains email addresses, the button reads Review and send… and opens the full editor instead, so you can check who is invited and from which account before anything is sent.
• More options… opens the full editor filled in with what Quick add understood.
• Press Esc to close without adding.

What Quick add understands:

Rules for what is left:

• A date with no time makes an all-day event.
• A time with no date is the next time it comes round: today, or tomorrow if it has passed.
• A line with no date or time starts at the next whole hour.
• Words Quick add does not recognise stay in the title. The 4 in Room 4 review is part of the title, not four o’clock.
• A range such as 9-5 with no am, pm or from stays in the title rather than being guessed.

Create an event from a message

1. In Mail, select a message.
2. Choose Message › Create Event from Message…, or right-click the message in the list and choose Create event….

The editor opens with:

• the subject as the title, without Re: or Fwd:,
• everyone on the message except you as guests,
• the day and time, when the subject names one — “Lunch Friday 1pm?” gives Friday at 13:00 — otherwise the next whole hour,
• a note saying About “subject”, from sender**.**

Nothing from the body of the message is copied, because an event’s notes go to every guest. When no calendar can be written to, the menu item is greyed out and Create event… is missing from the right-click menu.

Duplicate an event

1. Click an event to open its details.
2. Click the Duplicate button.

The editor opens with a copy of that occurrence: its day and time, title, location, notes and guests, with you as the organiser and no answers carried over. You can duplicate any event, including an invitation, into a calendar you can write to.

The event editor

The footer shows New event or Edit event, Cancel, and Save — which reads Save and send when there are guests.

• Press ⌘Return (Ctrl+Return on Windows and Linux) to save.
• Press Esc or click Cancel to close without saving.

Repeating events

The repeat list offers:

In the Repeat dialog:

1. Next to Every, type a number and choose days, weeks, months or years.
2. For weeks, choose the weekdays. At least one stays chosen.
3. Under Ends, choose Never, On a date, or After a number of times. Picking a date or typing a number chooses that ending for you.
4. Click Done, or Cancel.

A rule that came from another calendar and matches none of the choices is shown in words and kept exactly as it was, unless you pick something else.

Reminders and showing as busy or free

• Each event has one reminder. New events start with Settings › Calendar › New event reminder.
• An all-day event starts at midnight, so its reminder goes off at a time of day: The day before at 8 AM (when your working day starts, set in Settings › Calendar › Working day), The day before at 6 PM, 2 days before or A week before. A new all-day event starts with the day before, when your working day starts, unless New event reminder is None. Turning All day on or off moves the reminder to the other kind.
• Show as decides whether the event blocks your time. Events that show you as free are drawn faded. New events start with Settings › Calendar › New events show me as.

Where reminders go off is set in Settings › Notifications › Calendar reminders. See The calendar.

Guests and invitations

When an event has guests, Save becomes Save and send.

• In My calendar, Nixt Mail sends the invitations itself, by email, from the account in Send invitations from — or your first connected account when there is only one. Each guest gets a message titled Invitation: title, saying who invited them and when, with the event attached in the standard calendar format, so their calendar can add it and send back an answer. Changes you save send an update the same way. Deleting the event sends Cancelled: title.
• In a connected calendar, the calendar’s own service is responsible for telling guests.
• Only the organiser’s changes are sent to guests. Nobody is told about an event they are not on.

Keep the guest list private

To invite people without showing them who else is invited, set Guests see to Only themselves before saving.

• In My calendar, each guest gets an invitation of their own, listing only you and them.
• In a Microsoft calendar, Microsoft shows each guest only themselves.

Other connected calendars send invitations themselves and always list every guest, so the choice isn’t offered there.

If no mail account is connected, saving an event with guests in My calendar shows Connect a mail account to send invitations from. If the sending account is not connected when the event is saved, you see Saved, but the guests were not told: the account it is sent from is not connected.

Overlap warning

While you choose a time, the editor warns when it overlaps another event that shows you as busy and that you have not declined. All-day events are not counted.

Open an event

Click an event in any view. A card opens beside it.

Change an event

Edit an event

1. Click the event.
2. Click Edit.
3. Change what you need and click Save.

If the event repeats, you are asked which occurrences you mean. See Change a repeating event.

A message says Saved., or Saved, and N guests were sent the update., with Undo.

Move or resize by dragging

In Day, Work week or Week view, for an event in the hour grid that you organise — or that has no organiser — in a calendar you can write to:

• Drag the event up or down to change its time, in 15-minute steps. In Work week and Week, drag sideways to move it to another day.
• Drag its bottom edge to change how long it is.

A message says Moved “title”., with Undo. Moving an event across a daylight-saving change keeps its time of day.

Change a repeating event

Whenever you move, edit or delete one occurrence of a repeating event, a dialog asks This is one of a series. Which do you mean?

This and following events is not offered on the first occurrence of a series, where it would mean all of them, or when moving an event to another calendar. You are asked every time; Nixt Mail never remembers an answer, because the choices do very different things to other people’s calendars.

Move an event to another calendar

1. Open the event in the editor.
2. Choose another calendar from the calendar list.
3. Click Save.

The event is added to the new calendar, then removed from the old one. A repeating event moves as one occurrence or as the whole series; This and following events is refused with A repeating event moves to another calendar as one event or as the whole series.

Delete an event

1. Click the event.
2. Click Delete.
3. For a single event, confirm in the dialog Delete “title”?, which says either The guests will be told it is cancelled. or It will be removed from the calendar. Click Delete, or Keep it.
4. For a repeating event, choose This event, This and following events or All events.

The message says Deleted “title”., Deleted this “title”. or Deleted “title” from here on., with Undo.

To remove an invitation read from mail, answer No, or delete the message in Mail.

Undo a change

Every new event, edit, move and delete is announced in a message at the bottom of the window with Undo. Click Undo to put the calendar back as it was.

• Undo removes events the change created — including the new half of a split series — and writes back the ones it changed or deleted.
• For an event in My calendar that you organise, undoing also sends the guests the restored version.
• If undo succeeds, the message says Undone. If it cannot, for example because someone changed the event on the server meanwhile, it says Couldn’t undo that. and the reason.
• Changes to Microsoft 365 calendars are announced without Undo.

Answer an invitation

In Calendar

1. Click the invitation.
2. Under Going?, click Yes, Maybe or No.
3. For a repeating event in a connected calendar, choose This event or All events.

The card closes and a message says Your answer was sent to organiser**.** — or Answer saved. when the event has no organiser.

• For an invitation in a connected calendar, the calendar’s service passes your answer to the organiser.
• For an invitation read from mail, Nixt Mail sends your answer by email.

In the agenda, Not answered marks invitations you have not answered.

From the message in Mail

A message carrying an invitation you can answer shows a bar at the top of the message with the date and time, and Your answer goes to organiser and nobody else.

1. Click Yes, Maybe or No.
2. The bar changes to You said yes. The organiser has been told., You said maybe. The organiser has been told. or You said no. The organiser has been told.

The bar appears only for a real question: not for a published calendar, a cancellation, someone else’s reply, or your own invitation coming back to you.

The organiser’s updated event is the record of your answer. After you quit and reopen Nixt Mail, the bar shows the question again when you open the message.

What is sent

An answer sent by email goes to the organiser and nobody else. Its subject is Accepted:, Tentative: or Declined: followed by the event’s title, and it carries a short line such as “Your name has accepted this invitation.” with the answer attached in the standard calendar reply format, so the organiser’s calendar updates the event. It names only you, not the other guests.

Messages

Connection and sign-in messages for connected calendars are listed on Calendar accounts.