Hebcal is a website rather than an app you install. Instead of asking you to open a separate app, Hebcal sends Jewish holidays, Shabbat candle-lighting times, Torah portions and yahrzeits straight into the calendar app you already use every day. Once you subscribe, the events appear on your phone, tablet and computer, they come with the same reminders as your other appointments, and they update automatically every year.
Here’s how that works on each kind of device.
Android phones and tablets
There’s no official Hebcal app for Android, and you don’t need one. Android phones use Google Calendar, and Hebcal works with Google Calendar very well.
The one catch is that the Google Calendar app can’t add a new subscription. You’ll need to do that step once in a web browser:
- Open a web browser (Chrome works well) on your phone or your computer, and go to Hebcal.com.
- Choose the calendar you want, such as Shabbat times for your city or the Custom Calendar.
- Click the Google Calendar subscribe button and sign in with the same Google account you use on your phone.
Within a few minutes the events should appear on your phone. If they don’t, open the Google Calendar app, go to Settings, tap the Hebcal calendar, and make sure Sync is turned on. See Google Calendar Jewish holidays and Android calendar instructions for step-by-step help with screenshots.
You may find apps in the Google Play store that use the name “Hebcal.” Some of them use Hebcal’s open-source software, but they aren’t made by us, and we can’t help with problems in them.
iPhone and iPad
No app is needed. Open Hebcal.com in Safari, choose the calendar you’d like, and tap the Apple subscribe button. The events will appear in the Calendar app that comes with your iPhone or iPad. See iPhone and iPad Jewish holidays for the full instructions.
Apple Watch
Hebcal for Apple Watch is a free app that puts the Hebrew date and other Jewish calendar information right on your wrist. It runs on the watch itself, so you won’t see a matching app on your iPhone’s home screen. (See what’s new in Hebcal for Apple Watch 2.)
If the App Store says you “bought” it, don’t worry. The app is free, and the App Store lists free apps as purchases too, so you were charged $0. If it disappears from your watch, you can reinstall it from the App Store on the watch.
Windows and Mac computers
There isn’t a desktop program to download. Instead, subscribe in the calendar program you already use:
Software developers who want to run Hebcal on their own computer can use the open-source Hebcal source code.
Apps and add-ons that aren’t ours
We sometimes get questions about products that are made by other companies. These include Hebdate Premium, the “Hebrew Date Converter” add-on for Google Sheets (by YML Solutions), and various Zapier and Make integrations. Some of these use Hebcal’s data, but we didn’t build them and can’t support them. Please contact their developers directly.
