By default, Windows 11 and earlier versions of the Windows operating system display a calendar when you click on the date/time on the taskbar. The calendar helps you quickly glance through dates and months without leaving the desktop or an open app.
Many Windows 11 users have asked how to access the calendar, as it might not appear when you click on the taskbar date/time. In fact, some users believe the calendar has been removed from the taskbar.
The calendar has not been removed from Windows 11. It’s pretty much part of Windows 11.
The following are the two ways to open the calendar from the Windows 11 taskbar.
NOTE: Please note that this guide shows you how to open the taskbar calendar and not the Calendar app (Mail and Calendar), which has now been removed from Windows 11.
Open the hidden taskbar calendar in Windows 11
Step 1: Click the date/time on the right of the taskbar to open the Notifications Center. Alternatively, use the Windows logo + N keyboard shortcut to access the Notification Center quickly.
Step 2: Once the Notifications Center is open, but the calendar is not visible, all you need to do is click the small up arrow/caret icon (^) next to the date located at the bottom of the Notifications Center (refer to the picture below) to reveal the calendar. That’s all!
From now on, the calendar should appear every time you click on the date/time in the taskbar.
Press the Esc key or press the Windows logo + N keys again to hide the Notification Center as well as the calendar again.
Tip: To quickly scroll through months of the current year in the calendar, click on the month/year at the top left and then select a month. If you click on the year here, the view will change to the years of the current decade.
Linda says
Thank you.
Chris Thornton says
I completely agree with Alex, why change something functional since the beginning all of a sudden?! It’s like saying “Hey, remember how you used to push the button on your phone to answer a call? Well now you have to touch the back of the phone and turn around in a circle with GPS on, then say ‘By the power of Greyskull!'”
LanLady says
Thank you for knowing the easy answer to this question! Microsoft made their reply so complicated and it didn’t work anyway!
admin says
Yes, even I believe that this could have been designed better.
Alex says
This is actually a serious question about GUI design and Windows being the worst for changing default behaviours without consent from their customers.
How do we complain to Microsoft about critical changes like HIDING the Calendar from popup by default? It’s hidden behind 2 clicks of the mouse now, instead of being the primary default behaviour (Which was how Windows 10, 8, 7 etc FUNCTIONED).
I don’t want to know how embedded it is, and “how simply it can be accomplished” with more buttons, I just want the default behaviours of things like CALENDAR function to remain the same through product versions.
Linda Schaub says
Thanks – I have been Googling a calendar and thought “surely there is a way to have the calendar appear.”