In the past, we’ve covered lots of tips and tricks for using the default Calendar app on iPhone and Mac. Today, we’re going to expand on these posts with another key tip, adding location and travel time alerts to your calendar events.
You can find some of our other articles on using the default Apple Calendar here:
Before diving too deep into this article, let’s take a look at what location and travel time alerts in the Calendar app are.
Locations in the Calendar app are exactly as they sound. Whenever you create a calendar event, you can choose to add a location to that event. For instance, say you have a doctor’s appointment. You can add the address of your doctor’s office in the calendar event’s description.
This makes it easy to remember where you need to go for a particular appointment. It’s just a neat way of adding more information to your calendar events.
Travel time alerts, on the other hand, are an extension of this location data. After you add a location to a calendar event, you can also choose to receive travel time alerts. When doing so, you’ll specify how long prior to an event you would like to be notified to leave, so that you have enough time to arrive there.
For instance, if you have an event at 3pm, and you know that you live fifteen minutes from this location, then you’ll want to create a travel time alert that’s around fifteen to twenty minutes long.
Unfortunately, Apple doesn’t automatically calculate travel times for you. You can’t enter a location, and then have Apple automatically calculate how long it will take you to arrive there based on your current location. It’s up to you to manage your time and ensure that you know how far away a particular location is.
How to add location and travel time alerts on Mac and iOS
Alright, now that you have an idea of what location and travel time alerts are and why they’re useful, let’s dive into how you can start adding them to your calendar events.
1. Create a calendar event
Before you can add location and travel time alerts to a calendar event, you need to create a calendar event! Fortunately, doing so is super easy. Just open the Calendar app and click/tap the + icon. Or, if you’re on Mac, you can also right-click the date that you want to add an event to and choose New Event from the popup menu.
Go ahead and add the title, date, and time of your event. If you’re not sure how to do this, click here.
2. Add a location to a calendar event
Once you’ve created a calendar event, you’re going to want to add a location to that event. This is pretty easy. If you’re still creating the event, just fill in the Location field.
If you’re editing an event that you’ve previously created, double-click it on Mac or tap the event on your iPhone, then tap Edit in the top-right corner. Once you’ve brought up the fields for this event, go ahead and enter the location of the event in the Location field.
When adding a location, you want to type in the address. Don’t enter something like “Doctor’s Office” – your calendar probably won’t know where that is. Instead, enter something along the lines of “1234 Address, City, State”. That way, you can be sure that the location data is accurate.
3. Add a travel alert
The last step in adding location and travel time alerts is to, of course, add the travel alert. Again, this is pretty easy.
While editing the event, on Mac or iPhone, select the Alert field. Then, choose an option from the travel time dropdown menu. If you choose Custom, you’ll be able to enter an exact time rather than one of the preset options.
And that’s it! That’s all that there is to adding these alerts to your calendar events on Mac and iOS. Again, hopefully Apple will automate the travel time estimates for users at some point in the future. But for now, you have to enter this information manually.
Location and travel time alerts on Mac and iOS: Are there better options out there?
You may have noticed that at the start of this article, I linked to another article where I explore alternatives to the default Calendar app. That’s because, while the default Calendar app is fine, there are a lot of better options out there.
Not all of these are going to have travel time alerts, but a good chunk of them will. Don’t hesitate to explore these options if the default Calendar isn’t for you!
Start using location and travel time alerts to arrive at all of your appointments on time
And that’s it! Now you know how to create and add location and travel time alerts to your Calendar events. Use this tool to make sure you’re never late for an appointment again.
And that’s it! That’s all that there is to adding these alerts to your calendar events on Mac and iOS. Again, hopefully Apple will automate the travel time estimates for users at some point in the future. But for now, you have to enter this information manually.
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