Calendars

Choose which calendars Hey Listen monitors and set per-calendar alert timing.

Granting Calendar Access

Open Settings → Calendars. The top of the tab shows your current calendar access status:

Status	Meaning
✅ Connected	Full access granted - Hey Listen can read your calendars
❌ Denied	Access was denied; see below to re-enable
⚠ Write-only access	Unusual state; Hey Listen needs read access
🔶 Not Requested	Access hasn’t been requested yet

To grant access: Click Continue when status is “Not Requested”, then click Allow in the macOS permission prompt.

To re-enable access after denying: Click Open System Settings and toggle Hey Listen on under Privacy & Security → Calendars.

Calendars tab — Not Requested status Calendars tab — Connected status Calendars tab — Access Denied status Calendars tab — Write-only access status

Selecting Calendars

With access granted, your calendars appear in a list on the left side of the Calendars tab. Calendars are grouped by account — iCloud, Google, Outlook, Exchange, and other CalDAV sources all appear here if you have them configured in macOS Calendar.

Toggle a calendar on to include it in Hey Listen’s monitoring. Toggle it off to exclude it.

Calendars tab showing calendars grouped by account with color dots and toggle switches

Per-Calendar Alert Time

When a calendar is toggled on, an Alert field appears below its name. This lets you override the global alert time for events in that specific calendar.

If the field matches your global alert time, it shows the inherited value without special marking.
If you’ve set a custom value, a Reset link appears next to the field — click it to remove the override and return to the global default.

Zoomed view of a selected calendar row showing the Alert field with a custom value and Reset button

Example: Your global alert time is 5 minutes, but your “Work” calendar contains events you always need more notice for. Set the “Work” calendar’s alert time to 15 minutes.

Upcoming Events Preview

The right panel of the Calendars tab shows a live preview of upcoming events from your selected calendars, grouped by day. This lets you confirm you’ve selected the right calendars and see exactly which events will trigger alerts.

Scroll to the bottom to load more days automatically.

Right panel of the Calendars tab showing upcoming events grouped by date

Calendar Access and Privacy

Hey Listen reads your calendar data locally via Apple’s EventKit framework. Calendar data is never copied, stored, or transmitted — it’s read in real time and discarded when the app is not actively using it. See the full Privacy Policy for details.