Tired of Random Holiday Alerts? Here’s How to Turn Off Holidays on Your iPhone Calendar for Good

Hello everyone, I am your dedicated public holiday assistant. Recently, a little friend asked me about removing holidays from the iPhone calendar. Turns out, a lot of people get annoyed when their calendar gets cluttered with holidays they don’t celebrate or don’t care about. So now I’m gonna break it all down for you—step by step, plain and simple. Hope this helps everyone who’s been scratching their head over this.

Let’s be real: the iPhone calendar is pretty handy, but it comes pre-loaded with a bunch of public holidays that might not mean anything to you. Maybe you’re not from the U.S., or maybe you just don’t need a reminder for “National Donut Day” or “Columbus Day.” Or maybe you’re juggling work and personal schedules and all those holiday banners are just visual noise. Whatever your reason, turning them off is not hard once you know where to look. And no, you don’t need to delete your whole calendar or start over. Just a few taps and those holidays vanish like they were never there.

First things first: open the Kalender app on your iPhone. At the bottom of the screen, tap the Kalender button (it looks like a little calendar icon with a checkmark). That brings up a list of all the calendars you have synced—iCloud, Google, Outlook, and so on. You’ll also see a section called “Other” or “Subscribed Calendars.” That’s where the holiday calendar usually lives. Look for something named “US Holidays,” “United States Holidays,” or just “Holidays.” Tap the little ‘i’ info button next to it. Then scroll down and tap Kalender löschen. Boom, gone! But wait—this deletes it permanently for that account. If you later want it back, you’d have to resubscribe. So only do this if you’re sure you don’t want any of ’em.

But what if you want to keep some holidays but not all? Well, iOS doesn’t give you a fine-tune switch to pick and choose individual holidays. The holiday calendar is either all on or all off. So your only option is to hide the whole holiday calendar. You can do that by just unchecking the box next to “US Holidays” in the Calendars list. That hides the events without deleting the subscription. That way, if you change your mind later, you can just check the box again and they’ll reappear. Easy peasy.

Another thing: if you’re using a shared family calendar or a work Exchange account, holidays might be coming from that server. In that case, you can’t delete the holiday calendar directly. Instead, go to Einstellungen > Kalender > Konten, pick the account that’s pushing holidays (like your iCloud or Gmail), and turn off the Kalender toggle for that account. But careful—that will wipe out all calendars from that account, not just holidays. Better to ask your IT admin if you’re dealing with a work account.

For folks who have an old iOS version (iOS 14 or earlier), the steps are slightly different. Tap Kalender at the bottom, scroll to “US Holidays,” tap the red minus sign, then confirm delete. On newer versions (iOS 15+), it’s the info button and then delete.

One more pro tip: if you use the Google Calendar app on your iPhone, holidays are managed inside that app’s settings. Open Google Calendar, tap the three-line menu, choose Einstellungen, then tap the calendar name under “My calendars” or “Other calendars.” You’ll see a Holiday calendar there. Tap it and uncheck “Show in list” or “Sync.” That’ll silence ‘em without messing up your iPhone’s native calendar.

Questions related to how to turn off holidays on iPhone calendar

Q: Will turning off holidays affect my other calendar events?
A: Nope. It only hides or removes the holiday calendar itself. All your personal appointments, reminders, and family events stay right where they are. It’s like taking a sticker off a page—the rest of the page is still there.

Q: I turned off holidays but they came back after an iOS update. Why?
A: Sometimes Apple resets certain default settings during a major iOS upgrade. After updating, check your Calendars list again—you might need to uncheck or delete the holiday calendar again. Annoying, but not the end of the world.

Q: Can I add custom holidays instead of the default ones?
A: Sure. You can create a new calendar (like “My Holidays”) and manually add the days you actually care about. Or search for a subscription calendar online that has exactly the holidays you want (e.g., a specific country’s public holidays). Then subscribe via the Abonnierten Kalender hinzufügen option in Settings > Calendar.

Q: I can’t find the holiday calendar at all. Where did it go?
A: It might be hidden inside a different account. Go to Einstellungen > Kalender > Konten and tap each account one by one. Some accounts (like iCloud) have a separate toggle for “Show in App” for the holiday calendar. Turn that off. Also check under Settings > Calendar > Alternate Calendar—that’s a different feature (for lunar/solar calendars).

Q: Is there a way to only turn off holidays for one country but keep another?
A: If you have multiple holiday calendars subscribed (e.g., US Holidays and China Holidays), you can uncheck or delete only the ones you don’t want. Each country has its own subscription. So yes, you can mix and match by managing each subscription separately.

So there you have it—no more random holiday banners cluttering your schedule. It takes maybe 30 seconds once you know the drill. I’ve helped tons of friends do this and they always say “why didn’t I do this sooner.” Honestly, the iPhone calendar is great but it’s your phone—you should see what you want to see. Don’t let some default holiday list boss you around.

Thank you for reading, I hope this article helped you fully understand how to turn off holidays on your iPhone calendar. If you’ve got more questions, hit us up. We’re here to make your holiday planning (or un-planning) a whole lot easier. Catch you next time!