# InstaCal: Menu Bar Calendar — Reminders, Meetings & Widgets > Fast, multi-view calendar with natural-language input and cross-device native apps. (iPhone/iPad app by Higher Bar, LLC.) - Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/instacal-menu-bar-calendar/id1247292524 (this page in markdown: same URL + `.md`) - Developer: [Higher Bar, LLC](https://appshunter.io/developer/495581007) - Category: Productivity, Utilities - Price: $19.99 (on sale, was $29.99) - Age rating: 4+ - Requires: iOS 18.0 · 38 MB - Languages: American English, Dutch, French (France), German (Germany), Italian, Japanese, Korean, Brazilian Portuguese, Russian, Chinese (Simplified, China) and 2 more - Released: 2017-07-13 - Data updated: 2026-09-01 - Monetization: paid - User reviews in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/instacal-menu-bar-calendar/id1247292524/reviews.md ## What is InstaCal? InstaCal is a fast, complete calendar for iPhone and iPad: six views built for touch, your events and Apple Reminders in one agenda, and natural-language Quick Add in 12 languages. One purchase includes native Mac and Apple Watch apps too—no subscription, no platform add-on. ON IPHONE AND IPAD Take the whole calendar with you in six touch-optimized views: Agenda, Day, Week, Month, Quarter and Year. Month and Year scroll continuously, multi-day events draw as banners across the grid, and events, Apple Reminders, weather, moon phases and meeting Join buttons appear together. On iPad, an adaptive multi-pane layout keeps the agenda, calendar and event details visible at once. IN YOUR LANGUAGE InstaCal is fully localized in 12 languages: English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, Brazilian Portuguese, Russian, Japanese, Korean, and Simplified and Traditional Chinese. Not only the interface — Quick Add reads dates and times in each one, so "Mittagessen mit Ana morgen um 15 Uhr" or "réunion jeudi à 9h" becomes the right event. Wording follows Apple's own in every language, and week start, date order and 12- or 24-hour time follow your region. ONE PURCHASE. FOUR NATIVE APPS. • iPhone: six calendar views designed for touch • iPad: an adaptive multi-pane calendar, agenda and inspector • Apple Watch: Now, Next and Later at a glance, with complications • Mac: a customizable menu bar panel plus a full calendar window • No subscription or separate mobile unlock PLAN FASTER • Create events and reminders with natural-language Quick Add, in any of the 12 languages • Move, rename or cancel events with Quick Edit • Search from the same field • Add plans with Siri, Shortcuts and the Quick Add Control STAY AHEAD • Calendar events and Apple Reminders in one agenda • Multi-day events as continuous banners across the month • One-tap Join buttons for online meetings • An invitation inbox: pending invites ring a bell until you answer, and you reply right there • Weather and moon phases in your day headers • Alert and repeat badges on events at a glance • Countdowns to the dates that matter • Travel time, leave-by guidance and notifications WIDGETS AND LIVE ACTIVITIES • Ten widgets — agenda, month, next event, now and next, week map, days ahead, countdowns, reminders and more — for the Home Screen, the Lock Screen and the Mac desktop • A Live Activity keeps your next event on the Lock Screen and in the Dynamic Island, counting down to its start • A Quick Add control for Control Center and the Action button • Eleven Apple Watch complications: now and next, leave by, countdowns, conflicts, today's load and more MAKE IT YOURS • Arrange every button on your bars — or fold the view switcher into one compact button, with a press-and-hold shortcut straight to the view you choose • Calendar sets, customizable colors and a second time zone • Your settings follow your devices through your own iCloud ON MAC Click the menu bar or press a global shortcut to see what's next without losing focus. Open the full calendar window for Day, Week, Month, Quarter, Year and List views, then drag events to reschedule or resize them. WORKS WITH THE CALENDARS YOU ALREADY USE Use calendars available through Apple Calendar, or connect Google and Microsoft accounts directly for richer event and invitation support. ZERO DATA RETENTION InstaCal has no servers, no account and no sign-up—nothing about you is collected, stored or analyzed by us. Ever. There are no analytics and no tracking of any kind. Your calendar stays on your device and syncs through the accounts you already own; settings sync travels through your personal iCloud; natural-language parsing happens on your device in all 12 languages; account tokens never leave Apple's Keychain. Some features require supported devices or services. ## Key features - Six touch-optimized calendar views - Integrates events and Apple Reminders - Natural-language Quick Add in 12 languages - Native Mac and Apple Watch apps - Customizable widgets and Live Activities - One-time purchase, no subscription ## Recent user reviews (10 of 25) All indexed reviews: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/instacal-menu-bar-calendar/id1247292524/reviews.md ### 5/5 — LOVE IT!!!! *2026-08-23* InstaCal is *insanely* awesome! I literally use it every single day. It makes adding new events to my calendar so quick and easy right from my laptop. No more fumbling back and forth between my computer and phone just to add/edit something to my calendar. It’s simple, convenient, and has genuinely made my everyday workflow so much easier. LOVE it! Thank you for making an awesome app! :-) **Developer response:** Thank you, this made our morning. Adding an event without reaching for your phone is the whole reason InstaCal exists, so it is good to hear it lands that way. ### 5/5 — Très patraque *2026-06-15* Une très bonne application qui ajoute un pti plus fort sympathique à MAC Os. L’utilisation est très simple et s’intègre très bien à la barre de menu. JE recommande **Developer response:** Merci beaucoup pour ce retour, ça fait vraiment plaisir. Content que l'intégration à la barre des menus vous plaise. ### 2/5 — I wish this worked a little bit better *2023-05-03* I hate to be critical because the concept is so great, but at the end of the day I can't give this a great rating if my calendar doesn't sync properly. I tried first reaching out to app support, but the link in the app store doesn't work. Developers: I will absolutely change this review to 5-stars, but a major bug needs fixed. When I click the refresh button, my calendar does not update. I might make a subtle change in google calendar such as adjusting the time of an event to earlier or later in the day, and it just doesn't update in the widget. Or sometimes, events from the past don't show up. A small bug which wouldnt affect my rating but you may want to know is that the color options don't work properly. There is no way to "submit" the color you have chosen for a calendar. Sometimes it randomly updates, 99% of the time it just doesnt change and I don't know how to fix the color change I made. This is a cool simple widget for quickly checking today's date and today's calendar events, but without correcting the integration, I will slowly stop using this app and eventually remove it from my menu bar if my calendar is exactly correct when I check this. The difference between an event time change could mean being late to (or missing) a zoom meeting with a client – which costs me business and my livelihood. If the updating / integration gets fixed, I will give this 5 stars and vouch for it to friends. Until then, it's a 1- or 2-star app at best. ### 5/5 — Très bonne app. *2023-01-24* Très bonne app. Un bogue ce mois de janvier noté january 2022 mais février est bien en 2023. Un affichage permanent sur le bureau pourrrait être une option utile. ### 1/5 — Crashes frequently and doesn't sync my calendars *2022-11-15* I would've prefered to avoid leaving an negative review, but when I tried to use it, I got a, "you need an invitation to join this private Community" Anyway, our company switched to Microsoft 365 and the calendars are only viewable online or with Outlook. I was hoping this app would be a work around. Unfortunately it's not. I get an error when I try to sync my calendars except for one. The app also crashes anytime I try to change the color of more than one calendar at a time. The last issue si the menubar display. It doesn't change color if the menubar turns black so the app basically disappears. It would also be nice if you could have time as well as date appear. I can only hope that Dato or Calendar 366 get Microsoft 365 support. ### 5/5 — Use it all the time! *2022-07-15* This is such a handy app. The only thing I wish is that it would stay where I put it on the menu br. I like it on the right, but every time the computer restarts it moves all the way to the left. I have. lot of menu items so it is often hidden on the left side. ### 4/5 — Missing support *2021-05-01* As mentioned, this is a good replacement for the original Fantastical. I had trouble setting it up initially but eventually was able to get it to sync with an Office365 account. However, all events show up 3 times. I cannot find any online help and there does not appear to be a way to contact the developer. This is very annoying and so only 3 stars. If there was a way to fix this, i would rate it 4 stars. It does not show the details of the events (links, notes, etc) and this would keep it from being 5 stars for me. Update: I found that by deleting the birthday and holiday calendars, events only appear once. Loss of the holiday and birthday calendars is not critical as this computer is used for work. So upgraded to 4 stars. Links to meetings sometimes are clickable, sometimes not. Would be nice if this were fixed or more consistent. ### 4/5 — One request *2020-10-17* This app is pretty amazing and almost perfect for me. I was hoping to request one addition. Can you please add a way to hide the appointment/reminder panel in case a user doesn't need it? When I click on the calendar to drop down - I was hoping it would show Only the calendar and not cover up the rest of the screen with appointments/reminders. I disabled all calendars but I still get a large empty box that covers up the stuff I'm working on in the background. Thanks! ### 4/5 — Handy Calendar *2020-09-04* The calendar is always at hand; easy to access and close, allows one to see appointments and tasks whenever needed. Of all the calendars I've sen, this one integrates exceptionally well with just about every other calendar I have used. It syncs immediately behind the scenes and picks up everything in Google Calendar, so that I am alwyas up to date. I would love to see each event expand when double tapped. There is only one negatiive: I wanted to clean my macbook pro and needed to delete the app to do so. As far as I can tell, there is no way to delete the app once it is installed. Being able to delete the app is actally important. In this case, one of my calendares was malfunctioning and I needed to delete them all to identify the problem area. This app just cannot be deleted once you install it. I think the programmers shoiuld allow the user to delete it if necessary. ### 2/5 — My Fantastical Replacement *2020-07-17* All good things come to an end. I switched to Calendarique because InstaCal’s menu bar location always showed up on the far left (and hidden) instead of being able to be moved (even with the help of BarTender). InstaCal started asking me to relog into my Gmail account after reboots and making me go thru my calnedar selections again and again. For a tool designed to save time I was wasting a lot so I’m out. >>My Original Review My Fantastical Replacement I switched to InstaCal after Fantastical moved to a subscription model. It is a very functional easy to access your calendar from the menu bar app. You shouldn’t have any qualms about getting it to work with your Google Calendar - works great for managing my family’s 5 calendars. Feedback for the developer: - Please work with BarTender 2.0. Your menubar location seems hard coded to stay on the left. BarTender is a great app for organizing placement (I move you next to my clock and cardhop). Everytime I turn on my Mac you go back to your old location. - Please add a text field to the top of the drop down calendar that lets you enter text and then choose either a + icon to add it to your calendar, or a magnify glass to search for the item in your calendar. - Please add a shortcut to open a calendar app/website. You could let folks choose in preferences if it is Apple Calendar, Google Calendar, BusyCal, etc. I find myself double clicking on entries hoping to open the full calendar but I have to do it manually. ## Frequently asked questions about InstaCal ### What is InstaCal? InstaCal is a fast and comprehensive calendar application for iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple Watch. It offers multiple calendar views, integrates with Apple Reminders, and supports natural-language event creation in 12 languages. ### How much does InstaCal cost? InstaCal is a paid application with a one-time purchase price of $29.99. This single purchase includes native apps for iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple Watch, with no subscription required. ### Does InstaCal have ads? No, InstaCal does not contain advertisements. The application is ad-free, providing an uninterrupted user experience. ### What devices does InstaCal support? InstaCal is available on Mac, Apple Watch, iPhone, and iPad. Your settings and data sync across these devices via iCloud. ### Can I create events using voice or text with InstaCal? Yes, InstaCal features natural-language Quick Add in 12 languages. You can type or speak phrases like 'Lunch with Ana tomorrow at 3 PM' to quickly create events. ### Does InstaCal work offline? While the description does not explicitly state offline functionality for all features, calendar apps typically allow viewing and basic event creation offline, syncing when a connection is re-established. Specific offline capabilities would need to be confirmed. ### How often is InstaCal updated? InstaCal was last updated on August 28, 2026, indicating a recent update. The developer, Higher Bar, LLC, typically provides regular updates to enhance features and ensure compatibility. ### What age rating does InstaCal have? InstaCal has an age rating of 4+, making it suitable for a wide range of users, including children and adults. ## Version history (last 1 release) ### 3.5 — 2026-08-28 No release notes. ## More apps by Higher Bar, LLC - [Word Farm: Daily Word Puzzle](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/word-farm-daily-word-puzzle/id495581004) - [Forecast Bar - Weather + Radar](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/forecast-bar-weather-plus-radar/id1057030968) - [Comic Exclamation Sticker Pack](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/comic-exclamation-sticker-pack/id1316792109) - [Conference Room Calendar](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/conference-room-calendar/id1384195130) - [SandForm For Oasis Sand Table](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/sandform-for-oasis-sand-table/id6759307184) All apps by Higher Bar, LLC: https://appshunter.io/developer/495581007 --- *Data collected daily from the US App Store and indexed by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/). User reviews are verbatim App Store reviews. Ratings, prices and chart positions refresh continuously; this snapshot is from 2026-09-01.*