How do I add birthdays to Google Calendar without Contacts

Contrary to popular belief, Google Calendar is more than just a place where you can keep track of doctor’s appointments and business meetings. While it is undoubtedly better suited for those who lead a busy life, it is no slouch when it comes to a particular task: keeping track of your friends and family’s birthdays and anniversaries.

To achieve this, Google Calendar works in conjunction with Google Contacts. It requires that you manually input the dates you want to keep track of into that person’s contact card, and it will display those dates for you on a separate calendar. Here’s how you do it.

Input birthdays or any important dates into Google Contacts

The birthday/anniversary information in Google Calendar can only be as good as what you feed it, and that all comes from Google Contacts. This means you will want to ensure that you have all your birthday and anniversary dates entered correctly. The downside here is that these dates have to be entered manually by you. It is not like on Facebook, where the other party input the dates, and a reminder gets sent out to everyone on their friends’ list. The goal is not to depend on third parties for this data, and instead take control of what’s in your calendar.

To proceed, open Google Contacts, which you can reach from contacts.google.com. Next, pull up the contact card for the person whose information you want to update. You will notice that there will be a default “Birthday” field for this contact; go ahead and enter this date in mm/dd/yyyy format. However, if you want to also keep track of another special date, like an anniversary, you can add a new field for an “Event” and label it “Anniversary.” That’s it. You can click save to make sure you don’t lose any of the information you just entered.

Enter the birthday or anniversary information in Google Contacts

I just want the steps!

1. Access Google Contacts via contacts.google.com

2. Open the contact card for the person you want to add a birthday or anniversary for

3. Input the date and event type in the proper field

4. Save

Enable “Birthday Calendar” in Google Calendar

Once you have all your contacts updated, at least the ones for which you care to have this information handy, we can now move on to Google Calendar. In Google Calendar, open your Settings. On the left, you will see a section where you can add new calendars, in here, select “Browse calendars of interest.” Next, scroll up the page, and in the Birthdays section, toggle on the “Your Contacts” calendar. You should now be able to go back to the main calendar and see a new calendar added called “Birthdays.” New birthday and/or anniversary entries should appear on the calendar themselves.

I just want the steps!

1. Open Google Calendar and go to your Settings

2. On the left, click on “Browse calendars of interest” in the Add calendar section

3. On the right, scroll all the way up and toggle on the “Your Contacts” calendar in the Birthdays section.

Limitations of using this method

Although this system is very clean and puts you in charge of your contacts’ information, there is still a glaring limitation that I hope Google addresses soon. As crazy as it sounds, the birthday calendar does not provide notifications. In Google’s own documentation for this feature, the recommendation is to manually create a recurring event, which in my opinion defeats the purpose of having a dedicated birthday calendar. Regardless of the drawbacks, this is my preferred way of keeping birthdays and all my contacts’ information synced in one place, especially if said contacts are not on Facebook already sharing their birthday info.

This article was co-authored by wikiHow staff writer, Darlene Antonelli, MA. Darlene Antonelli is a Technology Writer and Editor for wikiHow. Darlene has experience teaching college courses, writing technology-related articles, and working hands-on in the technology field. She earned an MA in Writing from Rowan University in 2012 and wrote her thesis on online communities and the personalities curated in such communities.

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As long as you have a birth date listed in a contact, that information will display on your Google calendar. But what if it doesn't appear on your calendar? This wikiHow will teach you how to add birthdays to your Google calendar through your contacts and manually.

• Birth dates listed in contacts will display automatically in your Google calendar.
• Be sure to check off "Birthdays" under "My calendars" to sync.
• To manually add birthdays, create an event and adjust the settings to repeat "Annually" or "Every year".

1. Click or tap ☰ if the side menu isn't visible. If you already see your calendar options on the left side of the page, skip this step.

   • You'll need to tap this if you're using the mobile app.

2. Click or tap to check the box next to "Contacts" or "Birthdays" under "My calendars." If you're using the mobile app, tap Birthdays instead.

   • Now any of the birthdays listed in your contacts will appear on your calendar. If you need to add a birthday to your contacts, open the Contacts app (the Google app), and add their birthday.

1. Click or tap the multicolored plus icon. You'll find this either in the top left corner of your web browser along with the word "Create" or in the lower right corner of your phone or tablet screen.

   • You can also tap the date on which you want to add the event. If the birthday you want to add is on May 23, you can tap May 23 to get the "Add Event" window.

2. Tap Event (mobile app only). If you're using the web browser, "Event" is the default setting.

3. Click More options (web only). You'll see this at the bottom of the "Add Event" window and it will load the event creation in a new window.

   • You don't need to do this on the mobile app because the options you need are already available.

4. Add a name for your event. You'll want to name the birthday so you can easily recognize it.

5. Click to check the box or tap to toggle the switch next to "All-day." This will change the event to one that lasts all day instead of a set time. If you want to set a specific time, you can do that instead.

6. Click or Does not repeat. You'll get a drop-down menu.

7. Click to select Annually (web) or Every year (mobile app). This makes the event pop up every year on the same date.

   How do I populate Birthdays in Google Calendar?

   In Google Calendar, select the Main menu. Under My calendars, select the Birthdays check box to enable the Birthdays calendar. Birthdays are synced automatically via Google Contacts. You must set up birthdays in Contacts to have them appear in Calendar.

   How do I add Birthdays to my calendars?

   Add birthday to google calendar as a repeatable reminder.

   Open the Calendar app and tap on the plus icon in the lower right corner, then tap on "Reminder". 1 / 2..

   Add “[person's name]'s birthday” or something similar in the reminder text field and select the date. ... .

   Tap on Save in the upper right corner and you're done..

   Why don t all of my Contacts Birthdays show up on my Google Calendar app?

   Under "settings for my calendars" on the left, make sure Contacts/Birthdays is not already listed as an option. If it is then check the "eye" icon to the right of the calendar name and make sure it's set to "show in calendar list". If it's not listed then you need to add it first.