Travel time in Apple Calendar, explained

What Apple Calendar offers

Two things, read on Apple’s own help pages in October 2026. A Travel Time field on the event, on iPhone and on Mac, which adds the way to the event’s duration. And a Time to Leave alert: when the event has an address, Calendar asks Apple Maps about the place, the traffic and the transit options, and tells you when to go.

The alert is sent at three moments: before you need to leave, when you need to leave, and if you are running late. It is worked out from where you are likely to be before the event, the event’s place, and the conditions at the time.

• Travel Time: a field on the event, on iPhone in the event details and on Mac in the Travel Time pop-up menu when you click the event’s date.
• Time to Leave: an alert for events whose details include a map, on by default, and switched off for all events in the Calendar settings.
• The route is worked out with the Maps settings for directions, so a transit route or a driving route follows what Maps is set to.

How to set it on iPhone

The steps as Apple’s help gives them, in the Calendar app that comes with the phone.

1. Open the event, or make a new one, and tap Location. Enter the address, street and number, rather than only a name, so that Maps can find it.
2. Swipe up in the event details and set the travel time with the other details, next to the start and end times.
3. Tap Alert and choose when to be reminded. With an address on the event, Calendar uses Apple Maps to tell you when it is time to leave.
4. To turn the alert on or off for all events: open Settings, tap Apps, then Calendar, then Default Alert Times, and switch Time to Leave.
5. In the same place, Location Suggestions decides whether Calendar proposes a place when you make an event.

How to set it on Mac

The same two things, in the Calendar app on a Mac.

1. Double-click the event and click Add Location. Pick a place from the list that appears: a place picked from the list gets a map and the weather, a place typed and kept as it is may not.
2. Click the event’s date, then the Travel Time pop-up menu, and choose an option.
3. With a map on the event, the alert for when to leave is set by itself. In the event’s alert menu, Time to Leave is offered for events with a location.
4. To turn the alert off for every event, choose Calendar, then Settings, then Alerts, and clear Time to leave.
5. The route follows the Route Planner settings in the Maps app, and Location Services has to be on for Calendar to know where the Mac is.

Where the trip starts from

Apple’s help for the Mac says how the starting point is chosen, and it is a sensible rule. Calendar looks for an event with a location in the three hours before this one and starts from there. If there is none, it starts from your work address or your home address on your own card in Contacts, depending on the time of day and your working hours in the Calendar settings. If your card has no addresses, it starts from where the computer is.

So the alert is only as good as the addresses on your events and on your own contact card. An event called “Dentist” with no address gets no map, and no alert.

Where it stops

Apple’s pages name a few edges, and they matter in practice.

• No alert for a destination more than three hours away.
• Travel time does not update by itself when you change the event’s location. Change the place, and check the minutes again.
• The travel time sits on the event and makes the event longer. The hour before it is still free in the calendar, so another thing can be put there and run into the way.
• A time to leave is an alert, not a plan. It tells you to go; it does not end the task you are in the middle of, and it does not move what comes after when you are late.

Where TimeLoop differs

TimeLoop reads Apple Calendar on iPhone, with every account you have added to it, and takes your events as fixed. For an event with an address, with TimeLoop Pro, it measures the way from where you are, or from home or work if you have set them, by car, public transport or on foot, with the usual traffic for that hour, and the plan shows when to leave. The way is a block of its own in your day: nothing is planned on top of it, the task before it ends in time, and when you replan a late day the block stays with the event it leads to. Without Pro you add the minutes of the trip yourself, and they are kept free just the same.

It does not set Apple Calendar’s Travel Time field, and a travel time you set in Apple Calendar stays there. Your plan, the way included, is written into a calendar of its own named “TimeLoop”, which lives with the rest of your iPhone’s calendars and can be shown or hidden like any other.

The measured way, the time to leave and a traffic check before you drive are part of TimeLoop Pro. Reading Apple Calendar, adding the minutes by hand and replanning with a tap are free.