How to resolve overlapping events?

Question

How to resolve overlapping events?

I have been using the Calendar app on my iphone for years, but several weeks ago I started noticing a new problem: events that start at the same time (or at similar times) sometimes overlap, making it hard or impossible to read the overlapped event. In most of these cases of overlapping events, there are only 2 events starting at the same time, so there is room for the events to show up side by side but they are instead overlapping. (This problem does not happen every time there are 2 events with the same start time -- sometimes they show up side by side, and other times they overlap. I have this problem on my calendar at least once or twice a week though). I have 5 teenagers, so we have lots of simultaneous events every week that I need to keep straight, and I need to be able to read each event on the calendar. I've included a screen shot.

I already have the most recent IOS 16.1 update on my phone.
I have reset my phone plenty of times since this started happening.
This problem is not due to events shown from different calendars -- these events are all from the same calendar on my Google Calendar account.
After updating my iphone's IOS I deleted the Calendar app, then shut down the phone and restarted it, and downloaded the app again, but this didn't change anything.
On my laptop browser I confirmed that my Google Calendar account setting is turned on for Settings > View Options > View calendars side by side in Day View. (This setting was already turned on, and I tried turning it off and then turning it back on again and then restarting my phone, but it did not change anything).
I can see that a number of other users are also having problems with overlapping events on the calendar, but I haven't seen any solutions for this on the forum yet. Any suggestions would be appreciated!

iPhone 8

Posted on Oct 24, 2022 10:29 AM

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Answer 1

Oct 24, 2022 04:53 PM in response to StephBradshaw

The built-in calendar is pretty basic, as are most Apple apps, probably so 3rd party developers don’t feel that Apple is competing with them. Have you looked into 3rd party calendars? Two highly rated ones are Week Calendar and Fantastical. I’ve been using WeekCal since my HP-200 and Palm Pilot days.

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Answer 2

Oct 24, 2022 10:35 AM in response to StephBradshaw

If you tap on any part of an overlapping event it will move to the top. You can also create multiple calendars, assign a different color to each, and put events into an appropriate calendar. For example, different calendars for each family member, one for work, another for “entertainment”, etc.

Then you can turn calendars on or off to view the ones you want to see.

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Answer 3

Oct 24, 2022 02:57 PM in response to Lawrence Finch

Thanks for your suggestions Lawrence. But tapping on the event that us hidden under an overlapping event doesn't bring it to the top in my experience (assuming that both events are 1 hour long events, so the one underneath isn't a longer event that can easily be tapped). When I have 2 overlapping events that are about the same length, I can only tap on the top event, and the only way to move it out of the way to read what the underneath event says it to drag the top event to a different time on the calendar. This is awkward and takes up a lot of time trying to move things around just to read each event, so it seems like there should be a fix for this.

And I do know that it's possible to create multiple calendars and turn different calendars off and on, but I don't want to do that. I have the schedules of 5 teenagers to balance and can barely keep up with that everyday, so I really don't have the time to do a huge overhaul on our entire scheduling system. And it seems that creating multiple calendars shouldn't be necessary just to view the events on a calendar.

There is room on the screen to show two events side by side, but instead the default is to overlap them and make them unreadable. Doesn't it seem that Apple might make an adjustment so this problem doesn't occur? I'm hoping that someone may have a suggestion for how to fix this. Thanks!

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Answer 4

Oct 28, 2022 09:24 AM in response to Lawrence Finch

Thanks for the suggestions!

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How to resolve overlapping events?

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