Dato

Click the feedback button in the app or send it here.

How to make the app show up in the menu bar

This is an issue with Ice and must be fixed there.

Dato can potentially have multiple menu bar items:

• The main one
• Upcoming event
• Time zone in the menu bar

You can choose which one of these to show in the menu bar in the app settings.

No. Dato is only available from the App Store and Setapp.

Check if there are any crash reports. If none exists, it’s likely macOS terminated Dato because it needed to reclaim memory. This is an especially common problem on MacBook Air laptops with only 8 GB RAM. Try restarting your computer.

Dato simply fetches calendars and events from macOS. If something is missing, it’s never caused by Dato.

Make sure:

• The calendars show in the Calendar app and that they are enabled there.
  • Open the Calendar app settings, click the “Accounts” pane, and then check that the calendars are there. Dato can only show calendars added there.
• The calendars are enabled in the Dato settings.
  • Open the Dato settings, click the “Events” tab, and make sure the calendars are enabled.
  • Note: Please double-check this. They may have been unchecked by macOS changes.
• The calendar events may not yet have been fetched by macOS
• You have tried restarting your computer.
• You are on the latest version of macOS.
• You have tried resetting permissions for Dato using App Buddy.

Some users had luck with removing the account from the Calendar app settings and re-adding it.

Contact me if you have tried all this and you are still having issues. I’m not aware of any issue that was not one of the things mentioned above.

Make sure:

• The calendar with the event is enabled in Dato.
• You are on the latest Dato and macOS versions.
• You have tried restarting your computer.
• The event is not a declined event, which Dato does not show.
• You have not hidden the event using the “Hide” action in the event’s context menu.
• You have not excluded the event with the “Exclude events” setting.
• The event shows up in the Calendar app.
  • If it does not show up there, the problem is not with Dato.
  • Try pressing Command+R in the Calendar app to force-refresh.
  • Try signing out and in again of the account in the Calendar app settings. That has helped a few users.
• Microsoft Bookings has problems syncing to MacBooks.

Make sure:

• The feature is enabled in the settings.
• The correct calendars for it are enabled (it has a separate calendar picker).
• When in the settings for it, the placeholder example menu bar item shows up in the menu bar.
  • If it doesn’t show up, try reducing the “event title limit”.
• There is enough space in the menu bar to show it.
• You are on the latest Dato and macOS versions.
• You have tried restarting your computer.
• If you have Bartender or Ice (or a similar app that hides menu bar items) installed, make sure the menu bar item was not auto-hidden by them.
  • Note that it uses a separate menu item from the main Dato menu item, so it could still be hidden by Bartender/Ice while the main menu bar item is not.
  • Try quitting Bartender/Ice to make sure it is not the one causing the issue.
  • If you are using Ice, see this.
    • As a workaround, in the “upcoming event in menu bar” settings, you could choose to keep the menu bar item visible even when there are no upcoming events.
• The event is not an all-day event (which are not shown).
• You have not muted the event.
• You have not excluded the event with the “Exclude events” setting.
• If you have “Show for video call events only” enabled, ensure the event shows a video call icon in the event list.
• If you have “Show for events with an alert only” enabled, ensure the event has an alert.
• If you have “Show only for accepted events” enabled, ensure the event is accepted.

Make sure:

• The fullscreen notifications setting is enabled.
• You have selected the correct calendars in the fullscreen notifications settings.
• You are on the latest Dato and macOS versions.
• You have tried restarting your computer.
• The event is not an all-day event (which are not shown).
• The event shows in the Calendar app.
• You have not muted the event.
• You have not excluded the event with the “Exclude events” setting.
• You have not already joined the event in the last 15 minutes.
• You have not paused fullscreen notification from a Focus Filter.
• If you have “Show for video call events only” enabled, ensure the event shows a video call icon in the event list.
• If you have “Show for events with an alert only” enabled, ensure the event has an alert.
• If you have “Show only for accepted events” enabled, ensure the event is accepted.
• If it’s a Google calendar, it may be caused by sync issues.

This is a macOS bug. When using multiple monitors, macOS dims menu bar items on the non-active display. However, it incorrectly fails to dim items that use rich text, which includes Dato’s time zone clocks. This is outside the control of apps, as macOS handles the replication of menu bar items on secondary displays.

This is the menu item for the “upcoming event in menu bar” feature. It shows this diamond icon when there are no active events. You can choose to either hide it or show a different icon in the settings.

I’m happy to add support for more services. Just send me an invitation link (replace a few characters at the end to anonymize it).

The app can also detect the link of any video call service if you correctly add it in the Calendar app:

• Create a new event.
• Paste the video call link into the location field.
• Accept the dropdown suggestion about it being a video call.

If you don’t use the Calendar app, you can add the following to the notes field of an event:

----( Video Call )----
https://some-video-call-service.com/join/23423
---===---

Add the calendar to the built-in Calendar app and then enable it in the Dato settings.

Check out my Velja app. I made it exactly for this purpose. It has built-in support for this without any setup. It can also open links to Zoom and Microsoft Teams directly in their desktop app.

You can even make it open a specific browser or profile only for links clicked in Dato. Create a custom rule in Velja and set the source app as Dato.

Click the month and year on the top left. You can also press the Space key.

Press the Option key to reveal a button to access settings or press Command+,.

In the Dato settings, go to the “Time Zones” pane, add a time zone, and in the edit window, check “Show in menu bar”. Do the same with the other time zones you want to show in the menu bar. If you already have the time zones added, right-click a time zone, click “Edit”, and then check “Show in menu bar”.

You most likely have enabled showing seconds in the menu bar. Unfortunately, updating the menu bar is quite expensive. This is a problem with macOS and out of my control.

If you don’t have seconds enabled, please let me know about the excessive CPU usage.

This is a macOS 14 bug and unfortunately not something I can work around.

If you work at Apple → FB13544993

Dato simply presents events from the macOS calendar system (the builtin Calendar app). It does not do the actual syncing. macOS has known problems with Outlook syncing. This may help.

Dato does not support editing events. Simply double-click the event in the event list to edit it in the Calendar app.

Dato follows the “24-hour time” setting in “System Settings › General › Date & Time”. To hide the AM/PM symbols, disable the “AM/PM symbols” setting in the “Menu Bar” pane in the Dato settings.

Dato adheres to what you have set in “System Settings › General › Language and Region”.

I hope to add it at some point, but it’s quite a complicated feature.

The integration is already done, but Notion Calendar has multiple bugs that make it not work properly. We will have to wait for them to fix these bugs.

Vimcal currently lacks integration capabilities. I suggest reaching out to them to request support for a feature like Fantastical’s custom URL scheme.

All the date and time output and the calendar adhere to your locale settings. I have no plans to localize the app itself.

You need to enable the calendar in the Dato settings.

It’s already supported. Just add your calendars to the built-in Calendar app and then enable those calendars in the app settings.

Dato uses macOS’s built-in calendaring system, which syncs seamlessly with Google Calendar, Outlook, and other services. This approach ensures all your calendars are managed centrally by macOS, providing a consistent experience across apps. The Calendar app on macOS is just one of the many apps that utilize this system. Adding direct syncing with Google Calendar and Outlook would offer minimal additional benefit but require significant development effort, which would detract from other important improvements.

It’s unfortunately not possible to disable the built-in menu bar clock.

However, you have some options:

1. (Recommended) In “System Settings › Control Center › Clock Options”, choose the analog clock and disable showing the date. This gets you the closest to how it was on macOS 10.15 as you can use Dato for both date and time.
   This has the added benefit that while the system clock shows as disabled when you enable “Do Not Disturb” (which makes it pretty unreadable), Dato always shows it the same way.
2. Use Dato for showing the date and the built-in clock for the time.
3. Only show an icon for Dato.

I would appreciate it if you could take a moment to complain to Apple that they should bring back the ability to disable the built-in menu bar clock. For reference, on macOS 10.15, there’s a checkbox called “Show date and time in the menu bar” in “System Preferences › Date & Time › Clock”. This checkbox no longer exists on macOS 11 and later.

I have already reported it to Apple, but I have yet to get a reply.

It makes Dato pretend the event does not exist. The event will not be shown in Dato and it will not cause any notifications from Dato. You can unhide events from the … menu (at the top-right).

It makes Dato not notify you about the event. This practically means the event will be ignored for:

• Fullscreen notifications
• Upcoming event in the menu bar
• System notifications for video call events

If you just want to toggle a certain component, like date or time, see the “Menu Bar” pane in the Dato settings.

If you want something more custom, go to the “Date & Time Format” text field. You can specify a datetime pattern.

For example, you could display the full month name, the year, or the day of the year.

Either change this system setting or go to the “Menu Bar” pane in the Dato settings, and in the “Date & Time Format” text field, write YYYY-MM-dd HH:mm:ss, which is the ISO 8601 format.

You are probably expecting ISO week-numbering while having your system set to Gregorian week numbering. You can change it with this system setting.

That is called ISO week-numbering.

You are probably expecting ISO week-numbering while having your system set to Gregorian week numbering, or the inverse. You can change it with this system setting.

Change this system setting to use ISO 8601 week numbers.

Dato uses the system default calendar app. To change the default calendar app, open the Calendar app’s settings, and in the “Default calendar app” setting, select the app you want. Because of a macOS bug, this does not work. Instead, drag an event from the Calendar app into Finder, right-click on it, select “Get Info”, select your calendar in the “Open with” field, and click “Change All”. Then relaunch Dato.

Dato supports opening calendar events directly in Calendar, Fantastical, BusyCal, Outlook, and Google Calendar (web). For other apps, Dato will just open the app.

In the new event window, click the “More Settings” button, and send the invites from the Calendar app.

Built-in support for sending calendar invites directly from Dato is not possible, as Apple does not currently provide this capability for third-party apps.

Open the Calendar app’s settings, go to the “Accounts” pane, choose the relevant calendar service in the left sidebar, and then change the “Refresh Calendars” setting. Ideally, it should be set to “Push”, but not all services support that, like Google Calendar.

Unfortunately, Apple does not allow third-party apps to manage invites. As a workaround, double-click the event in the list to open it in the Calendar app, where you can accept or decline the invite.

Dato does not support this as you can just set it up in the built-in Calendar app. Open the Calendar app’s settings, select the “Alerts” pane, and there you can choose when to be notified.

What Dato does support is showing a notification right when an event for a video call starts. The notification includes a button to join the video call directly. You can enable this notification in the Dato settings. You can also enable fullscreen notifications.

Select any date in the calendar and then use the time travel slider to adjust the time for that day.

You can use the Focus Filter that comes with Dato to pause fullscreen notifications when in certain focus modes. Focus Filters are broken on macOS 26.5 and later because of a macOS bug.

Alternatively, use the built-in Shortcuts app. You can use the Set Fullscreen Notifications State action provided by Dato to enable or disable fullscreen notifications. For example, to only enable fullscreen notifications during work hours, you will need to create two shortcuts. One to enable fullscreen notifications and one to disable it. Then use Shortcuts automations to run them at the correct times.

Same as the above but trigger the shortcuts when the Focus mode changes.

You can use the Shortcuts app to create “calendar sets” that quickly enable or disable specific calendars for different situations (for example, “Work” vs “Personal”).

Use the Set Calendar Enabled State action provided by Dato. When no specific calendar is provided, the action applies to all calendars. When no feature is specified, it applies to all features. You can also use Set Reminder List Enabled State for reminder lists.

For example, create a “Work Mode” shortcut that disables your personal calendars and enables your work calendars, and a “Personal Mode” shortcut that does the inverse. Use Shortcuts automations to run them automatically based on time of day or Focus mode.

I have no plans to add that, but you can make it work by unchecking the “Time” setting in Dato and keeping the system clock in analog mode.

I have no plans to add that, but you can make it work by unchecking the “Time” setting in Dato and keeping the system clock.

Dato can only show normal lists. macOS does not let third-party apps access smart lists.

No, Apple does not expose these features to third-party apps.

Try turning off the “Vibrancy” setting. You can also try increasing the text size with the “Larger text” setting.

It indicates that there are multiple ongoing events, but only one is shown.

The events may not have been fetched yet by macOS.

Or you may have to re-authenticate your Google account. Open the Calendar app’s settings, go to the “Accounts” pane, and try to remove and re-add the Google account.

Yes.

1. Open the Dato settings
2. Go to the “Time Zones” pane
3. Click the plus button
4. Write “utc”
5. Select the “UTC” item
6. Click “Add”
7. Enable “Show in menu bar”
8. Click “Save”

This is a perfect use case for the built-in Shortcuts app. You can use the Quit App and Open App actions to quit and relaunch Dato whenever needed. For example, you could create a focus shortcut that quits Dato, plays some music, turns off notifications, etc.

To hide the Dato clock at a certain time of the day, use Shortcuts automations.

In the “Custom date & time format” setting, write D to show the day of year.

Learn more

No, but you can make it white/black by turning off the “Vibrancy” setting.

I’m happy to consider requests. You can find icons here and here.

This is a known macOS bug. Restarting your computer usually fixes it.

Same answer as above.

This is a macOS bug and unfortunately out of my control. Dato simply defines the parameters for the widget, but macOS is the one that shows the configuration screen and saves your choices from there.

No, but you could use Dato in combination with my Today app.

Dato integrates with the Reminders app only. However, you can use the Shortcuts app to sync todos from Things to the Reminders app, which will make Dato show your todos.

Here is a shortcut that does this. Run it and then enable the “Things” reminders list in the Dato settings.

To keep the todos in sync, use the Shortery app to run the shortcut when Things becomes inactive, as Shortcuts automations can only run when an app opens or quits. Alternatively, place the shortcut in the menu bar and run it manually.

Use Shortcuts automations to run a shortcut when connected and disconnected from power.

• Show seconds shortcut
• Hide seconds shortcut

Dato has a Focus Filter for pausing fullscreen notifications. Ideas for other filters welcome.

Focus Filters are broken on macOS 26.5 and later because of a macOS bug.

I don’t plan to add more settings to this feature. However, you can achieve this by using the Shortcuts app. Make a shortcut using the “Get Sound” action provided by Dato. Use the Shortery app to run it at the interval you prefer, as Shortcuts automations cannot run at an interval. Example shortcut.

Run this command in the Terminal app:

defaults export com.sindresorhus.Dato - | defaults import com.sindresorhus.Dato-setapp -

And to transfer the other way:

defaults export com.sindresorhus.Dato-setapp - | defaults import com.sindresorhus.Dato -

Fantastical is a full-blown calendar app, while Dato is a read-only view of your events. Fantastical is a replacement for the built-in Calendar app. You can use both Fantastical and Dato at the same time. Dato even has integration with Fantastical, so you can open events in Dato directly in Fantastical. Fantastical also has a menu bar item, but many people prefer the UI of Dato. Dato also shows time zones and has more customizability for what’s shown in the menu bar. Dato can replace the system date/time, for example.

iStat Menus lets you show different kinds of info in the menu bar, like system stats, network speed, etc. Dato is focused on date and time only. Dato also looks better.

Dato is not just a calendar app, but also includes menu bar clock replacement, time zones, upcoming event in menu bar, fullscreen notifications, and a lot more. Try both (see the Dato trial) and see for yourself.

It means “date” in Norwegian. I just wanted a short, unique, and relevant name.