Birthday calendar: paper, spreadsheet or app

A birthday calendar is a calendar built to show birthdays: who, and on which day of the month. You can keep one on paper, in a spreadsheet or in an app. They all hold the same information, so the real difference is how you look at it and whether anything nudges you before the day.

The three kinds, side by side

None of them wins on every row. Pick by what you'd actually do on a normal day.

Paper and printable birthday calendars

A printable birthday calendar is usually a perpetual layout: twelve months, the dates, no weekdays and no year. Because nothing in it is tied to a particular year, you can fill it in once and keep using it.

It suits a fridge, a desk or a planner, and you don't need a charger or a login. The trade-off is that it only helps if you glance at it. Nothing alerts you, and a new birthday means writing it in by hand, usually in a box with little room.

Spreadsheet birthday calendar templates

A birthday calendar template in Excel or Google Sheets works as a table: one row per person, with columns for name, month, day, and anything else you add. You can sort by month and day so the list runs in calendar order, and you can add a column for a note or a group.

Keep month and day in separate columns, as in this layout:

A sheet is easy to edit and handles a long list. It is also a file you have to open. If you want a reminder, you have to set one up yourself outside the sheet.

A birthday calendar app

An app trades the freedom of a blank page for features built around birthdays: a countdown to the next one, a calendar view, and a notification before the day. The cost is that you enter each person into the app, and what you can do depends on the app.

Whatever you choose, a birthday calendar needs only the day and month. A birth year matters only if you want to show ages.

Using a birthday calendar in Birthday Countdown

Birthday Countdown has a Calendar tab with a monthly grid of your birthdays. Here's how to set it up.

1. Open the Birthdays tab and tap the plus button in the top right. The New Birthday screen opens.
2. Type a first name, which is required, then pick the month and day. Add a last name, a note and a group if you want.
3. Tap Reminders, then the plus button, choose the timing and tap Save Notification. You can pick the day itself, 1 day, 3 days or 1 week before, or a number of days you choose, and set the time.
4. Tap Save Birthday.
5. Open the Calendar tab. Tap a day and the birthdays on that date are listed below the grid. If nobody has a birthday that day, it says "No birthdays on this day". Tap Show month to go back to the list of birthdays in that month.

Without a day selected, the list under the calendar is titled "Birthdays in" followed by the month's name. The Birthdays tab keeps the next birthday at the top with its countdown in days.

You can keep up to 5 active birthdays for free. Premium removes that limit. The app stores day and month only, so it doesn't show ages, and everything stays on your iPhone with no account. There's no import from Contacts and no sync between devices, so you add each person yourself. Reminders are notifications on your iPhone, which means they only arrive if you allow notifications.

For the fields worth saving for each person, see what a birthday tracker needs. To see birthdays inside the iPhone's own calendar, read how to add birthdays to iPhone Calendar. More about the app is on its page.