How to Add a Calendar in Outlook (Holidays, Birthdays, Sport and Shared Calendars)
Your Outlook calendar doesn't have to be just one calendar. Add the UK bank holidays so you stop booking meetings on them, your football team's fixtures, a separate Family calendar, or a colleague's calendar so you can see when they're free. Each one can be shown or hidden with a tick box.
Quick reference
| What you want | How |
|---|---|
| Public holidays | Add calendar → Holidays |
| Sports fixtures | Add calendar → Sports |
| A colleague's calendar | Add calendar → Add from directory |
| Your own second calendar | Add calendar → Create blank calendar |
| A web calendar (iCal link) | Add calendar → Subscribe from web |
1. Open the Add calendar panel
New Outlook and Outlook on the web: open the Calendar, then click Add calendar at the top of the left-hand panel.
Classic Outlook: different options live in different places — see each section below.
2. Add public holidays
New Outlook: Add calendar → Holidays, tick United Kingdom (or your country) and close the panel. Bank holidays appear on your calendar as all-day events.
Classic Outlook: File → Options → Calendar → Add Holidays…, tick the country and click OK. These are added into your main calendar as events, so they'll sync to your phone too.
3. Add sports fixtures or TV schedules
New Outlook: Add calendar → Sports (and in some regions, TV). Search for your team or league, click it, and the fixtures appear in their own calendar that updates automatically when dates change.
4. Add a colleague's calendar
If you're in the same organisation:
New Outlook: Add calendar → Add from directory, choose your account, start typing their name, pick them and choose Add. Their calendar appears under People's calendars. What you see depends on what they've shared — usually just free/busy, sometimes full details.
Classic Outlook: Home → Open Calendar → From Address Book, pick the person and click OK.
To see more than free/busy, ask them to share their calendar with you (there's a separate guide on sharing).
5. Create your own extra calendar
Keep work and personal apart, or make one for a project:
New Outlook: Add calendar → Create blank calendar, name it, pick a colour and choose which account it belongs to.
Classic Outlook: right-click My Calendars → Add Calendar → Create New Blank Calendar.
When you create an event, pick which calendar it goes in from the drop-down at the top of the event form.
6. Subscribe to a web calendar
Clubs, schools and venues often publish a calendar link ending in .ics or starting webcal://. Copy the link, then Add calendar → Subscribe from web, paste it, name it and click Import. It updates automatically. (Classic Outlook: Home → Open Calendar → From Internet.)
7. Show, hide and overlay
Each calendar has a tick box in the left panel. Untick it to hide that calendar for now. With two or more showing, Outlook puts them side by side; click the small arrow on a calendar's tab (classic) or choose Overlay from the view options (new) to stack them on top of each other in one view.
Right-click a calendar to change its colour or rename it.
Troubleshooting
Holidays were added twice. You ran Add Holidays twice in classic Outlook. Switch to List view (View → Change View → List), sort by category Holiday, select the duplicates and delete.
I can only see "Busy" on a colleague's calendar. That's their default sharing level. Ask them to share with Can view titles and locations or more.
The subscribed calendar doesn't update. Web calendars refresh every few hours, not instantly. If it never changes, the publisher may have moved the link — remove the calendar and subscribe again.
Wrapping up
Add the holidays first, then anything you keep checking elsewhere — fixtures, the kids' school, a colleague's diary. Hide them with a tick when you need a clear view. One calendar, everything on it.
