Google Calendar on the web is getting its first major refresh in years today with a modern and responsive new design.

Which is great news: Google Calendar on mobile has long been a visual treat, but the web version is … decidedly less so. But that’s about to change.

“Starting today, a fresh look and new features are coming to Google Calendar on the web to help you manage your time more efficiently and get more done,” Google Calendar product manager Lars Krüger writes. “We’re taking a lot of what you know and love from Calendar’s mobile application, like the modern color palette and sleek design, and bringing it to the web with a responsive layout that auto-adjusts to your screen size. We’ve also added more features for enterprises to help teams schedule and prepare for meetings.”

Here’s what’s new.

Responsive design. Like Google Calendar on mobile, the web version now sports a modern, colorful, and sleek design. It’s responsive, too, so it should look and work well across different form factors.

Meeting room details. G Suite admins can now configure detailed information about their organizations’ meeting rooms so employees can find out where it is, how large it is, which amenities it offers, and so on.

Rich formatting and hyperlinks. I’ve never understood why Google Calendar’s event details pane was only plain text, but now it (finally) offers rich formatting, including hyperlink support. You know, like a big boy calendar.

Side-by-side calendars. Now, you can view two or more calendars side-by-side in separate columns. (You must be in Day view to access this feature.)

But wait, there’s more. “Now you can see contact information of meeting participants when you hover over their names in a Calendar invite,” Krüger explains. “There’s also a new way to view and restore deleted items in one place in case you accidentally delete a meeting invite. Additionally, Day, Week, and Month views are now more accessible, featuring better compatibility with screen readers.”

You can learn more about the changes in Google Calendar support.

According to Google, the changes are rolling out to personal users (with Gmail accounts) immediately, and you can select a “Use new Calendar” option in the upper right to access it immediately. I’m not seeing that with my Gmail account, however. At least not yet.

If you’re on a G Suite account, you might need to wait: The new Google Calendar will rollout starting on November 14 for those on Rapid Release and November 28 for those on Scheduled Release. Each rollout will occur over 8 weeks, so it could be early 2018 before some users see it. (You can also choose your own timing in the G Suite Admin console.)

Tagged with Google, Google Calendar