# Microsoft Outlook - cleaning out my calendar

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microsoft-outlook-cleaning-out-my-calendar/489199>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [March 12, 2009, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microsoft-outlook-cleaning-out-my-calendar/489199 "2009-03-12T14:39:37Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Tastes\_of\_Chocolate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tastes_of_chocolate/32/3232_2.png) [@Tastes\_of\_Chocolate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tastes_of_Chocolate)\
**Post date:** [March 12, 2009, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microsoft-outlook-cleaning-out-my-calendar/489199/1 "2009-03-12T14:39:37Z")

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I use Microsoft Outlook at work, and I have for the last 2 years.  
This has lead to my Calendar being HUGE. I’ve got notes in there that are old. Is there an easy way to clean up the calendar? I’d happily trash any single occurance item, over 6 months old. I don’t need to know who was on vacation back in 2007.

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**Author:** ![yoyodyne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/a9a28c/32.png) [@yoyodyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yoyodyne)\
**Post date:** [March 12, 2009, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microsoft-outlook-cleaning-out-my-calendar/489199/2 "2009-03-12T15:29:27Z")

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Select the calendar. Select View, Current View, All Appointments. Sort by date, select the old ones, delete.

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**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\
**Post date:** [March 12, 2009, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microsoft-outlook-cleaning-out-my-calendar/489199/3 "2009-03-12T15:40:27Z")

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Better might be to archive them. But IME the big cause of huge calendars is not so much historical data but recurring future appointments. Have you got a weekly meeting that you’ve set to repeat until 2020?

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**Author:** ![Tastes\_of\_Chocolate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tastes_of_chocolate/32/3232_2.png) [@Tastes\_of\_Chocolate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tastes_of_Chocolate)\
**Post date:** [March 12, 2009, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microsoft-outlook-cleaning-out-my-calendar/489199/4 "2009-03-12T21:23:40Z")

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> [@Quartz](#):
>
> Better might be to archive them. But IME the big cause of huge calendars is not so much historical data but recurring future appointments. Have you got a weekly meeting that you’ve set to repeat until 2020?

No weekly meetings, but I do keep track of birthdays of suppliers and customers. Does the silly software really make an actual entry for each birthday, every year until eternity?

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**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\
**Post date:** [March 13, 2009, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microsoft-outlook-cleaning-out-my-calendar/489199/5 "2009-03-13T02:22:51Z")

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> [@Tastes\_of\_Chocolate](#):
>
> No weekly meetings, but I do keep track of birthdays of suppliers and customers. Does the silly software really make an actual entry for each birthday, every year until eternity?

Well, every year until the year you’ve told it to stop. It does that because once the recurring appointment is in there, you have the ability to edit or change each one separately. So they each have to be separate things to support the separate changes.