How to switch calendar views on your iPhone or iPad

By Luke Filipowicz
last updated

The Calendar app for iPhone and iPad offers several different ways to view your events and appointments. If you have a busy day ahead of you, list or day view may be best. If you're trying to get a good idea of what your next several weeks are going to be like, month view on the iPad lets you view everything in a glance. However, there are slight differences in how Calendars for iPhone and Calendars for iPad function, so you'll want to know how to use both.

How to switch calendar views on your iPhone

The built-in Calendar app for iPhone gives you quite a few choices when it comes to viewing your information. The most general time frame is year, followed by month, then day, and finally, individual event view. You can also toggle a convenient list view as well to see a stream of all your events, or view it underneath the default month view.

  1. Launch the Calendar app on your iPhone.
  2. By default, you'll normally see a month view.
  3. Tap on the list button in the top navigation to combine month view with a summary view underneath it. Any day you tap on will then show all the events for that day underneath it.
  4. Tap the month in the upper left to pan out to year view.
  5. Alternately, from month view, you can also tap any day on the calendar to view a day view. Keep in mind that in order for day view to work, you need to have the list option turned off in month view.
  6. Lastly, tap the list button in the top of day view in order to view a scrollable endless stream of all of your events.

How to switch Calendar views on your iPad

The iPad has similar options to the iPhone but also gives you a year view in landscape mode.

  1. Launch the Calendar app on your iPad.
  2. By default, your calendar is most likely on month view. Tap any of the view tabs along the top to toggle between day, week, month, and year views.
  3. Tap on any event title to view details on an event.
  4. Turn your iPad to change from portrait to landscape mode. In landscape mode, you can view more on one screen when in week view and you also get access to year view.

Luke Filipowicz
Luke Filipowicz
Staff Writer

Luke Filipowicz has been a writer at iMore, covering Apple for nearly a decade now. He writes a lot about Apple Watch and iPad but covers the iPhone and Mac as well. He often describes himself as an "Apple user on a budget" and firmly believes that great technology can be affordable if you know where to look. Luke also heads up the iMore Show — a weekly podcast focusing on Apple news, rumors, and products but likes to have some fun along the way. 


Luke knows he spends more time on Twitter than he probably should, so feel free to follow him or give him a shout on social media @LukeFilipowicz.

11 Comments
  • Or just turn your device 90 degs and that will change the view as well.
  • This is the least useful howto you guys ever did. Who needs this? I don't get it.
    Next you're gonna do one how to switch iDevices to standby? (spoiler: just leave it sitting there for 1-5 minutes -- advanced users can use the power button)
    http://www.deuschl.net/matthias/2013/01/imore-ios-kalender-howto/ PS: The How-To about calendar sharing http://www.imore.com/how-publicly-share-calendar-your-iphone-and-ipad actually is pretty useful. Reminds me of Steve Jobs' advice for Nike:
    “You make some of the best products in the world — but you also make a lot of crap. Get rid of the crappy stuff.”
  • Haha +1
  • This was a sanity saver! Switching to the day view without the list button turned on was driving me crazy. That alone made the article worth while Thanks for the article and especially the tip
  • This was a great article! Switching to the day view without the list button turned on was driving me crazy. Thanks for the post and tip!
  • My trouble with Calendar on the iPad is when I am in Month view and wish to see a specific dates, day view. It does not seem possible to select the day by touching the number(date) and move into its day view, only available action is to select an event on that day and then back out of that event in the day view. I do not necessarily want to view a specific event as there may be an event listed out of view denoted only by a 1-more etc. Am I incorrect that there is no way to do that. I have been very surprised I have not seen more about this.
  • Today I got into week view on my iphone, but now I can't get it back. Do you know how?
  • I can't get into day view any more. Instead of showing me the day it shows a summary of all my appointments for the month. Every time I install an "upgrade" some basic functionality is taken away.
  • Great article - I was not able to figure out how to get into the Agenda view by myself, so thank you for posting these helpful steps!
  • No week view? Wonder why not?
  • Hi, since the last iOS update, the week view in iPad shows only 4 days at once, instead one whole week as it used to. Is there any way to go back to the previous 7 day week view? Thanks