Calendar Alerts

Your next meeting on an Elgato Stream Deck key, counting down in color so you're never caught by surprise.

Download the Plugin View on GitHub

Free and open source. For macOS 14 or later and the Stream Deck app 6.4 or later.

    11–15 minutes to go: yellow.

    A countdown you can read from across the desk

    The key shows the title of your next event today and how long until it starts. As it gets closer, the color changes, so a glance tells you how much time you have.

    1. A key reading Quarterly planning, 1h 30m, with no color.60 min or moreHours and minutes
    2. A key reading Design review, 45m, on light blue.31–59 minLight blue
    3. A key reading Team standup, 25m, on blue.16–30 minBlue
    4. A key reading 1:1 with Sam, 12m, on yellow.11–15 minYellow
    5. A key reading Customer call, 8m, on orange.6–10 minOrange
    6. A key reading Dentist, 3m, on red.1–5 minRed
    7. A key reading Dentist, NOW, on red.Final minuteFlashing NOW

    What it does

    One key that keeps an eye on your calendar, so you don't have to.

    Color-coded countdown

    Light blue, blue, yellow, orange and red as the event gets closer, then a flashing NOW in the final minute.

    An alert you'll hear

    Your Mac's alert sound plays at 60, 30, 15 and 5 minutes before each event. Pick other times, every minute for the last five, or turn it off.

    Only what's still to come

    The key shows the next event today. Cancelled events and events you've declined are skipped.

    Birthdays and holidays

    When the meetings are over, the key shows today's all-day event, marked All day, until a time you choose. Or leave all-day events off.

    Press to open the event

    Pressing the key opens your calendar app or web calendar, and where it can, goes straight to the event it's counting down to.

    A key for each part of your life

    Every key has its own calendars and settings: one for work, another for the family.

    Tidy titles

    A leading room number is trimmed, so "101 Team Standup" fits as "Team Standup".

    Tonight's moon when you're done

    When there's nothing left today, the key shows the actual phase of tonight's moon, or another image you choose.

    Private by design

    Your calendars are read on your Mac and never leave it. There's no account, no tracking and no cloud service.

    Press the key, see the meeting

    Choose what the key opens in its settings: Calendar, Fantastical, BusyCal, Outlook, Zoom, Things and the other calendar, meeting and task apps you have installed, a web calendar such as Google Calendar, Outlook on the web, Outlook.com, iCloud or Proton Calendar, any other app, or any web page.

    Where the app supports it, the press takes you to the event the key is counting down to. When there are no more events today, it just opens the app.

    Open inPressing the key shows
    CalendarThe event
    BusyCalThe event
    Notion CalendarThe event, for accounts where macOS knows the email address
    FantasticalThe event's day
    Google CalendarThe event's day, in the event's Google account
    Anything elseThe app or page, as it last was

    When the day is done

    After your last event, the key shows something nicer than a blank square. Pick the one you like in the key's settings.

    A photograph of the moon in tonight's phase.
    Tonight's moonThe default
    A smiling calendar page, light.
    Smiling calendarLight
    A smiling calendar page, dark.
    Smiling calendarDark
    A clock face with an infinity sign, light.
    Infinity clockLight
    A clock face with an infinity sign, dark.
    Infinity clockDark
    A calendar page with a checkmark.
    Checkmark calendarAll clear
    The words No more events today.
    Just the wordsText only

    There are also ✅, 👍 and 🌙 emoji. Or choose Your own message… and type what the key should say, sized to fit, or Your own image… and drop in any picture.

    Install in a minute

    The installer is signed and notarized by Apple, so it opens like any other download.

    1. Download the plugin. Get com.joeangell.calendar-alerts.streamDeckPlugin from the latest release.
    2. Double-click it. The Stream Deck app opens and asks to install the plugin.
    3. Drag it onto a key. In the action list, find the Calendar Alerts group and drag Next Appointment onto a key.
    4. Allow calendar access. When macOS asks whether "StreamDeck Calendar Alerts" can access your calendars, click Allow.
    Download the Plugin

    To update, download and double-click the newer installer the same way. You can also install it by hand or build it from source.

    Credits

    Standing on the shoulders of some good ideas.

    The idea and the colors

    The idea, and the colors for each stage of the countdown, come from TJ Luoma's icalbuddy-km-and-stream-deck, which uses icalBuddy and Keyboard Maestro to show the time until your next meeting on a Stream Deck key.

    Shortcuts, before the plugin

    Before this plugin there was a Shortcuts version, an idea that came from ringmaster's iCal Daily Schedule via iOS/OSX Shortcut on the Obsidian forum.

    The moon

    The moon-phase images are courtesy of NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio, from its Dial-A-Moon gallery, made with data from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.

    PerpetualComing soon

    The plugin icon, the smiling calendar and the infinity clock are from Perpetual, my calendar app that's coming soon, and the moon phase is worked out the way Perpetual does it. The other images are drawn in code.

    Opening events

    Opening an event in Apple Calendar uses the link that MeetingBar uses. The other apps' links come from their own documentation: Fantastical, BusyCal and Notion Calendar.