IT Professionals

Change The Default Appointment Interval In Outlook

Posted by on Oct 29, 2009 | 17 Comments

Outlook’s Calendar View defaults to 30-minute intervals, which means when you create a new appointment, Outlook automatically allocates 30 minutes. The default setting is fine if most of your appointments are 30 minutes long. However, for some people, this is not the case. Personally, most of my appointments throughout the day are 60 minutes long. I’d prefer adjusting the odd appointment to 30 minutes as opposed to adjusting the majority of my appointments to 60 minutes.

To make Outlook more efficient, you can change the default appointment interval so it more closely aligns to your own needs. So if most of you appointments are longer or shorter than 30 minutes, change the default interval as described below:

  1. Within Outlook, switch to the Calendar view.
  2. Right-click in Calendar view and click Other Settings.
  3. From the Time Scale drop-down list and select a different time period item.
  4. Click OK.

Alternatively, an even faster way of changing the default time interval for appointments is to right click the time bar and choose a different interval from the context menu.

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  • Aylmer Johnson

    Very helpful – but it only seems to work when you’re viewing a day or a week, and not when you’re viewing a whole month! Does anyone have a fix for that, by any chance?

  • Dan

    Didn’t work for me, although default says 30 minutes, every appointment lasts 24 hours. any ideas?

  • Bryan

    How do you change the default calendar category? This would be handy with the use of plug-ins such as Needles for Law Practices.

    When a new calendar appointment is created by default a certain category is always selected unless you change it after the appointment has been created.

  • Diane

    This option also changes how I see my calendar – in 1 hour intervals. I want to view my calendar in 30 min intervals, but have my default for meeting set ups to be 60 mins. Is that possible?

  • Lorren

    Same. This doesn’t work at all, even as described. if I change it to 1hr mode, I can’t shorten it to 30min appointment (or 1hr 30min) appointments even if I type it manually. I’m looking from the other direction. I like it in 30min mode, for the weekly view it’s the right size for the screen, but want to start and end appointment NOT on the half hr (for instance at 1:50p)

    Advice FAIL

  • hwa1234

    The real problem is 60 min meetings – once you have 2 or more back to back you are late before you begin. Anyone know how to change the default to 50 minutes?

  • William Payne

    I am same as Dan. In Month mode, all meetings are set at 24 hours default and haven’t been able to change.
    Any solutions?

  • Paul

    Didn’t solve my issue. When I open a new appointment I would prefer it to default to a 90 minute duration instead of me changing the end time every time. The solution offered above is for changing the view, it doesn’t change the default ending time of the appointment.

  • Bob Mercurio

    The advice given does not work. It only changes the appearance of the schedule but not the default duration.

  • Julie Huber

    Why can’t I set a default calendar so that “Month” is the one that always comes up? It’s always day or week, and this is one of many problems I’m experiencing with Office 2007. The whole stupid program/system was screwed up by Microsoft people who don’t know their xxx from a xxxxx xx xxx xxxxxx.
    And there isn’t even a “save and close” button, which is probably what is causing all the trouble.
    I wish I had never installed any part of Office 2007. It’s a total bummer.

  • Dan

    This does not work. All appointments last 24 hours. Any ideas?

  • Bill

    The default appointment duration is 24 hours when viewing a monthly calendar, as many have noted. So many people ask and no answers so far. Is Microsoft not listening?

  • A

    I have the same 24 hour problem. It is irritating to have to change the date for every end time.

  • topgun

    For those of you with 24 hour appointments, have you considered unchecking the “All Day Event” button in Outlook??

  • Jay

    It only changed the view and not the default time period for an appointment. It seems like a pretty basic capability but alas there doesn’t seem to be a way to adjust it.

  • Jeffrey

    Re the 24 hour prob, clicking on the hour/min tab first will automatically uncheck the All Day Event box, which seems to trigger the 24 hr span. Try unchecking the All Day box BEFORE you set the hour/min. I think this works but just figured it out myself so not much testing yet.

  • Archy

    I’m experiencing same outcome as Aylmer Johnson (first comment above). Changing the duration works when viewing day or week.

    Double clicking a day when viewing in month mode automatically creates an all day appoinment (i.e. 24 hours)

    Right clicking on a day and choosing new appointment creates an appointment but it defaults back to the 30 minute duration.

    Advice here is good but seems to be a bug with month view. Can anyone advise?